ICONS8 CREATE ACCOUNT SERIES

But users might simply skip through the tutorial or quickly forget everything they’ve learned. To avoid using labels, they’ll include instructions for using icons in tutorials/coach marks/popover hints. Some designers find that labels defeat the purpose of using icons and clutter up their interface. Icon labels should be visible at all times, without any interaction from the user.So they should always be displayed with a proper text label. For more complex actions or abstract functions, pictographic representation has its limits.There are three important moments which should take into account: And for unlabeled icons that are unique to the app, users correctly predicted what would happen when they tapped the icon only 34% of the time. For icons without labels, this number dropped to 60%.For icons with labels, users were able to correctly predict what would happen when they tapped the icon 88% of the time.

ICONS8 CREATE ACCOUNT SERIES

UserTesting conducted a series of tests “labels vs. Labels explain icons, so adding labels improves usability. Here is the same choice of icons with labels. And it’s another common misconception to assume that users (especially mobile users) will play with all the different icons in order to discover what each icon does. However, the problem with icons is people associate different things with each icon based on their past experience. Your icons should help your users do what they need to do without requiring brainpower. Clarity is the most important characteristic of a great interface. Include a Visible Text LabelĪ good user experience can be defined in many ways, but one measure is the ability to reduce the user’s effort to think. Well-designed icons are fast to recognize at a glance, because the designs ensure readability and clarity even at small sizes. If you want to master your design skills you can rely on your other design elements to convey your product message while keeping the design of system icons simple, modern and friendly.Įach icon should be reduced to its minimal form, with every idea edited to its essence - simplistic icons are there to reduce the need for a learning curve. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not saying that creative icons are bad, but too fancy icons for basic functions might have negative impact on user experience. In most cases, icons aren’t the place to be creative. Familiarize yourself with icons used by your competitors and with icons commonly used on the platforms (existing system icons) that you target, as those will be most recognizable to your users. A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. Use the 5-second rule: if it takes you more than 5 seconds to think of an appropriate icon for something, it is unlikely that an icon can effectively communicate that meaning.Your icons’ primary task is to guide your users to where they need to go, so make sure that they are able to achieve this goal: And it’s a common mistake to assume that your users are familiar with abstract pictograms. No matter how much sense an icon makes once you know what it’s supposed to represent, it can be a completely different experience for first-time users. There are a few icons that enjoy mostly universal recognition from users (the icons for home, print, and the magnifying glass for search are such instances):

If that object or action isn’t clear to users, the icon immediately lose it practical value and becomes a visual noise. Icons are, by definition, a visual representation of an object or action. Icons Should Communicate Meaningĭesigners sometimes hide functionality behind icons that are actually pretty hard to recognize, breaking the most important property of the imagery - icons must first and foremost communicate meaning.

Use these tips as a starting point to ensure that your app icons work for you and your app, not against you. In this article, I’ve tried to summarize the main problems associated with the icons in UI and suggest a set of solutions to these problems.

Last but not least, most apps use icons, it’s a design pattern which is familiar for the users.ĭespite these potential advantages, icons often cause usability problems when they are designed without consideration for their many potential downsides.

Visually pleasing, they can also enhance the aesthetic appeal of a design.

They save space on the screen and as screens get smaller, this is much welcomed.

Simple, bold, and friendly, they can replace a long (and usually boring) descriptive group of words.

There are several reasons why the use of icons might have advantages over text in terms of human-computer interaction: Icons have been used on a limited basis since the early days of computer graphics.

Icons8 create account