In the early 2000s I helped an engineering from transitioning from the CAD software CATIAv4 to v5.
While v4 was pretty much text based in early v5 every item and action had an icon, often only an icon. The manual read something like this:
"To do ⌘ you navigate from the ⌙ page to the ⌟, while holding the middle mouse button. The⌇will open and you will see the ⌆."
I think they did that with good intentions. CATIA being a French product sold all over Europe and beyond, localization must have been a significant line item. The result was a nightmare though and they to toned the reliance on symbols down in subsequent versions.
> with every extreme of inventiveness of visualization in its most exaggerated form, what did we have every fifteen seconds? An utter halt to the action, while words flashed on the screen.
Maybe someday they'll completely remove the text to just keep the icons like the Office ribbon did, and I'm still confused with it.