Busy interfaces
Icons are restful, they don’t insist on your attention, you investigate them at your leisure, they’re not shouting at you.
Text on the other hand, you must interpret, it cannot be ignored, it must be attended to.
Too many software apps are cluttered with functionality, why, because we can (and features mean business, right?) Well, no, not really. Clean, lean, simple and elegant is the way to go. Problem is those of us who know this aren’t always the owners of the software, we’ve got clients and they’re paying the fees.
So, when you can’t cut it out cos the client wants it in, think about using as many soft little icons as possible for all that clutter that you wouldn’t have included in the first place. Leave the text labels and links for the important stuff.
It’s not ideal, but I think its a step in the right direction.