Although the brain might process images faster, I am not sure that they guide me better through a 3d software. I think you are saving maps in your brain after a while and those texts or images are just landmarks for orientation. So it is way more important to have simple paths to get there with some reasonable branches. The complete structure is important at the beginning.

I personally prefer texts in the beginning, it is easier to understand initially. After that I prefer shortcuts, so an image icon really makes not much sense for me. I used to work in Truespace but was much faster in Lightwave and Modo in the end.