When you design your UI, you should use metaphors when possible rather than words. Metaphors are symbols whose meanings are universally recognized. For example, most people will recognize the meaning of these buttons to be play, pause, menu, settings, close/cancel, confirm, mute, and save:
There are three main reasons for using these metaphors:
- They are quicker to recognize than text
- They don't clutter the UI as much as their words counter parts
- You don't have to translate them!
The third reason is the reason I use them the most. All the games I produce for the company I work for need to be translated into six different languages, so I avoid using words whenever possible.