Most icons in today applications are not very descriptive for the task they represent. As example have a look at application icons for a web browser. Internet Explorer’s icon is the letter E graphically designed, Firefox is a fox on a planet and Safari is a compass.
To quote Tom Bridge:
…is the language of computing something we have to train people into doing, or is it really as easy as we’d like to believe? The answer’s in the icons, but like all pictures, the interpretation is key.
Source: Icons, Usability and Computers by Tom Bridge
In addition if you look at the icon guidelines of the various operating system (e.g. Microsoft, Mac)
then all details are very clearly specified, but I wonder why the real world design practice are not very unified.
Internal Links
External Links
- Apple Human Interface Guidelines: Icon, Apple
- Anatomy of an Icon, SimpleBits
- Creating Windows XP Icons, Microsoft
- Design of Graphic Images, Microsoft
- Do icons help your sites usability?, Webmaster World
- GNOME Human Interface Guidelines 2.0
- Icon Usability, Jakob Nielson
- KDE’s Icon Style Guide
- Icons, Usability and Computers
January 29th, 2006 at 2:13 pm
One problem with icon design is:
The designer has a word (or an action) he chooses a picture for.
The user, confronted with only the icon, has to think the other way round: He or she needs to interpret the word (or action) behind the icon.
February 1st, 2006 at 7:48 pm
One thing for sure, icons can be dangerous or simply misleading if not thought cafully enough. Their meaning may vary for the language, country’s folklore, religion, … And this happens mostly when we try to find an icon for too many and everything (which is a bit off the edge).
For example, the use of street panel sings or animals. If I remember correctly, I used an owl for a night shift reference. But the symbol in japanese means somthing awful. I lack a more powerful example and nothing comes to mind right now.
My two cents (and excuse my french).
May 3rd, 2006 at 11:14 am
another useful icon editor to your collection: http://www.rw-designer.com/3D_icon_editor.php
it can create icons directly from 3D models…