On Mar 27, 2009, at 7:35 AM, Mike Myles wrote:
There are countless examples of bad icons and poorly worded labels.
Keep in mind that there's a lot more work to make a high-quality icon
than to make high-quality labels.
To make a high-quality icon:
First, you have to figure out what the semiotic should be. Some
imagery is easy, such as Print, Help, or Save (though it would be nice
to retire those floppy disks, no?) purely because of the visual
language that's been established through time.
However, most functions don't have clear imagery already established.
Harry Hersch did a wonderful study in the '80s that we've replicated
dozens of times and is still solid: He measured how long it took the
team to decide what the best icon for a given function should be. Then
he measured how long it took for a user to decode the icon into the
corresponding function. He found they were directly correlated. It
took proportionally as long to figure out the icon as it did to decode
it.
So, if it takes the team a long time to decide on an icon, chances are
it won't be a great icon for users. In yesterday's UIE Virtual
Seminar, Hagan Rivers touched on this topic. She showed a security
fault detection application that tried to have icons for functions
like "SNMP Trap," "Policies," and "Forensics." What imagery would you
use for those functions? If it takes you more than a minute to figure
it out, then chances are the image won't work for the users, no matter
how skilled they are in the domain.
Once you've decided on the semiotic, you then have to render it.
Creating solid imagery in small boxes (whether 8x8, 16x16, or even
64x64) is an advanced skill. Folks like Dan Cederholm (http://www.iconshoppe.com/
) have proven it can be done well. But it takes practice and most
visual designers, though talented in other ways, haven't developed the
skills.
Finally, you have to deal with cultural differences. A Stop Sign image
might work for a Stop function in the states, but there are many parts
of the world where that image won't play. And using the color red for
Stop is not going to mean the same thing elsewhere. Classic examples
of cultural problems with icons involve trash cans and mailboxes --
these don't translate well beyond the US and parts of Europe.
Oh, and don't forget that icons are not screen-reader friendly.
So, while there are advantages to having both icons and text, versus
just text, the resource demands for doing the a quality job with the
combination grows fast.
Hope that helps,
Jared
Jared M. Spool
User Interface Engineering
510 Turnpike St., Suite 102, North Andover, MA 01845
e: [email protected] p: +1 978 327 5561
http://uie.com Blog: http://uie.com/brainsparks Twitter: jmspool
UIE Web App Summit, 4/19-4/22: http://webappsummit.com
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