Icons Behaving Badly (Updated)
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The design behind adding interactivity to an application or website seems trivial; download a free icon collection from sites such as Flaticon, Font Awesome, or iconmonstr, pick an appropriate icon, and add the image to your work. However, should there be more to this process, especially if you are concerned about people understanding how to use what you develop? Learn why the "5-second rule" doesn't apply just to picking food off the floor, how the wrong icon can show cultural insensitivity, why the manner icons are placed in a website or app may be as important as the images themselves, and how to perform icon usability tests. You may be surprised which icons users find to be generally instantly recognizable as to what functions they relate, and which others not so much.
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Icons Behaving Badly (Updated)
- 2. @malekontheweb What do we mean by “Icons Behaving Badly”?
- 4. @malekontheweb Quick Definition of Computer Icon “…an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system or mobile device. The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a data file, accessible on the system and is more like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration of the actual entity it represents.” - Wikipedia
- 6. @malekontheweb Susan Kare’s Original Mac Icons - http://kare.com/apple-icons/
- 7. @malekontheweb Example of Windows 3.1 Icons © Microsoft
- 8. @malekontheweb iPhone OS 1 Icons © Apple
- 10. @malekontheweb Cave Paintings - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rhinos_Chauvet_Cave.jpg
- 13. @malekontheweb What Makes a Good Icon? When possible, recognizable before activation Photorealism not required Culturally sensitive and aware Consistent look with other icons Explained when needed Consistency in location and activatability Tested
- 14. @malekontheweb Recognizable Before Activation User has general idea of icon function “Five Second Rule” Avoids fear of unknown Very few are close to 100% recognizable… Recognition may depend on context Recognition can be symbolic Once recognized, keep functionality static
- 15. @malekontheweb “Five 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.” - Aurora Haley Nielsen Norman Group https://www.nngroup.com/articles/icon-usability/
- 16. @malekontheweb Do These Pass the Test? +
- 17. @malekontheweb Hamburger Menu 2015 study: Ages 18-44, 80.6% understand Ages 45-64, 52.4% understand http://www.catalystnyc.com/2015/02/navigating- mobile-hamburger-menu-anyone-get/
- 18. @malekontheweb Hamburger Menu (continued) 240,000 users, 6 weeks 4 variations of the hamburger menu all brought more conversions (menu in different color, text- only, hamburger menu + text, etc.) https://conversionxl.com/blog/testing- hamburger-icon-revenue/
- 19. @malekontheweb Please consider labeled hamburger menus
- 20. @malekontheweb Photoshop toolbars over years (from Adobe)
- 21. @malekontheweb Icons Can be Symbolic Icon does not have to look exactly like its function, but can be a symbol that lets user figure out intended function…
- 22. @malekontheweb Floppy Means Save, Still??? Test given in 2013 by Lis Pardi, Experience Designer 131 people in the 18-25 year range 96% recognized a floppy disk 80% said it represented save, with even others with answers such as storage, memory, files - http://boxesandarrows.com/icon-survey-results/
- 23. @malekontheweb Floppy Disk are Obsolete, but… “Dial” someone on telephone… “Page” an employee… Making a “mixtape”…
- 24. @malekontheweb Keep Functionality Static Never use an icon for two different functions : add an item to shopping cart, or view shopping cart : close a dialog, or delete an item : compose, or edit : reply, or undo, or go back
- 25. @malekontheweb
- 26. @malekontheweb “Realistic” Icons Skeuomorphism – Looking like the real world (icons courtesy Dellipack and Dellipack2, Smashing Magazine)
- 27. @malekontheweb Windows 8 © Microsoft Corporation
- 29. @malekontheweb Android 5 (Material Design) - Google
- 30. @malekontheweb Photorealism Not Required In flat design, icons do not have to be photorealistic, but provide just enough visual detail for someone to ascertain its function Simple geometric shapes – shading not required, but can be 3 dimensional if needed
- 31. @malekontheweb Photorealism Not Required (2) Some arguments for: Removes visual clutter Allows for more generic icons that can be learned and used across apps Fine details might be lost on tiny icons, especially on mobile devices
- 32. @malekontheweb Flat Design Icon Examples for a camera (image edit, view photo, photo capture) for a credit card (billing, payment) for a bell (reminder, appointment) for a person (contact, personal details)
- 33. @malekontheweb Flat / Material Design in Vogue Ideas may change later … Break mold, … or offer icons now becoming familiar
- 34. @malekontheweb Culturally Sensitive and Aware - b
- 35. @malekontheweb Flags – for languages?
- 36. @malekontheweb BioWare Social Network - http://social.bioware.com
- 37. @malekontheweb Flags: Bad Idea for Language Switch One language – many countries One country – many languages Country can change flags “Nationalistic connotations” - http://wplang.org/never-use-flags-language- selection/ - https://www.w3.org/International/questions/qa- link-lang#flags
- 40. @malekontheweb Other Ideas James Offer, experience designer, wrote a blog: “Flags are Not Languages” http://www.flagsarenotlanguages.com/
- 41. @malekontheweb Where to Find Icons Hard to find one perfect icon set Often use variety of free and commercial sets Flaticon - https://www.flaticon.com/ Font Awesome - http://fontawesome.io/ Iconmonstr - https://iconmonstr.com/ Icons8 - https://icons8.com/
- 42. @malekontheweb Creating Icon Sets Fontello - http://fontello.com/ - Create icon fonts FontForge - https://fontforge.github.io/ - Open source editor – Linux, Mac, Windows FortAwesome - https://fortawesome.com/ - Commercial - icons hosted via a CDN IcoMoon - https://icomoon.io/app – SVG and other formats, commercial options available
- 43. @malekontheweb Consistent Look with Other Icons Avoid confusion – try to avoid combining: One color flat Multicolor flat Photorealistic With and without shading / perspective 3D and top-down views Outline and solid All circular and all square, etc. Rotated and non-rotated Line stroke widths
- 45. @malekontheweb More Information… Article “How to Combine Icons from Different Sets in Your UI”, written by Andrew Burmistrov of Icons8 “Consistency. Consistency. Consistency.” https://icons8.com/articles/how-to-combine- icons-from-different-sets-in-your-ui/
- 48. @malekontheweb Explained When Needed If a standard system icon is not applicable If chosen icon fails “five second rule” If audience includes those less tech savvy Especially on mobile, where tooltips do not apply
- 49. @malekontheweb Labels – screenshots © Spotify, DailyMotion, StubHub, TuneIn
- 50. @malekontheweb “The Importance of Labels” Regarding Outlook 1998 Jensen Harris, Microsoft “one change caused a total turnaround…” https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jensenh/2005/ 11/01/the-importance-of-labels/
- 51. @malekontheweb “Making Your Icons User-Friendly” “Labels dramatically increase the usability of icons.” Hannah Alvarez August 4, 2015 https://www.usertesting.com/blog/2015/08/04/u ser-friendly-ui-icons/
- 52. @malekontheweb Icons and Labels “In the battle of clarity between icons and labels, labels always win.” Joshua Porter, product designer http://bokardo.com/archives/labels-always-win/ "A word is worth a thousand pictures.“ Bruce Tognazzini http://www.asktog.com/columns/038MacUITrends. html
- 53. @malekontheweb Icon and Label Tips Ensure icon and label can both be pressed Keep text shown at all times, especially on mobile More tips: https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/10/ic ons-as-part-of-a-great-user-experience/
- 54. @malekontheweb Consistency in Location & Activatability Icons cannot be too small to see … to touch … nor can they be jammed too close together… nor can they be in confusing locations
- 55. @malekontheweb Recommended Icon Size Average adult finger is 11mm wide https://uxplanet.org/tips-for-using-icons-in-your- app-541a6728e7d4 Some say 16-20mm wide, based on MIT study http://uxmovement.com/mobile/finger-friendly- design-ideal-mobile-touch-target-sizes/
- 56. @malekontheweb Recommended Icon Size (2) UWP apps: actual target size minimum 7 mm square https://docs.microsoft.com/en- us/windows/uwp/input-and-devices/guidelines-for- targeting Material Design: physical size 9mm square (48x48dp) https://material.io/design/layout/density.html#touch -click-targets iOS: 44pt x 44pt (~ 7 mm square) https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface- guidelines/visual-design/adaptivity-and-layout/
- 57. @malekontheweb Recommended Icon Size (3) UWP: 2 mm padding, plus 2 mm padding between targets, for total size minimum 11 x 11 mm Material Design: 8dp space between icons, total target size 7-10 mm iOS: “Ensure adequate margins and spacing around content”
- 58. @malekontheweb Consistent Location As shown earlier, “Bottom navigation”, popularized in Material Design https://material.io/guidelines/components/botto m-navigation.html
- 59. @malekontheweb Icon and Label / Button Positioning Keep labels very close to icons Icons typically appear to the left or above labels, unless icon is purely decorative (LTR) 140 user study showed slower response times if icons were to the right of a label https://www.viget.com/articles/testing-accordion- menu-designs-iconography Also keep icon on the left inside a button (keeps all icons and text aligned) https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/56023/
- 60. @malekontheweb Testing Icons As with the rest of UI, icon testing is important As with all tests, try to test a portion of your actual users If impossible (time & money), do hallway testing, but note there will be biases Assure testers there are no wrong answers Can do in person with paper, online form, or remotely
- 61. @malekontheweb A/B Testing Describe function, show 2+ icons, ask which one is “best”. Example: Download File 1. 2. 3.
- 62. @malekontheweb Multiple Choice Testing Show an icon, 3-4 options, ask which matches? 1. Change password 2. Security settings 3. Lock account from changes
- 63. @malekontheweb Open-Ended Testing Show an icon, ask user to write down a very brief meaning on a card At end, sort and tally results Example:
- 64. @malekontheweb Find the Icon Testing Describe function, show wireframe / screenshot Example: Browse for new music (Screenshot from Spotify, labels cropped)
- 65. @malekontheweb Example of Testing Result Goal: View birthdays Idea: What people thought: “factory”, “smokestack”, “fire” Decided Upon (with label):
- 66. @malekontheweb Example of Testing Result Goal: Emoji of a face - dizzy Idea: What people think: “dead”, “astonished” “Frustrated or triumphant? You are probably sending the wrong signals by using these 12 commonly misunderstood emojis” http://dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ article-3549376/
- 67. @malekontheweb Keep Icons From “Behaving Badly” Keep them away from bright light Don’t get them wet
- 68. @malekontheweb Keep Icons From “Behaving Badly” As possible, use icons already familiar to users Don’t rely on photorealism Be respectful of other cultures Keep a consistent look throughout app/site Label icons Be consistent in location and usability Test, test, test!
- 70. @malekontheweb
Hinweis der Redaktion
- (give intro – don’t forget this)
- This was kind of a silly presentation title – what is meant by “icons behaving badly”?
- To talk about a concept, it should be defined first. This is Wikipedia’s definition of a computer icon. I don’t need to read this slide out, and you can read the page yourself, but wanted to focus on a couple of key points: * Quickly comprehensible * “More like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration” A side benefit - icons can save space – for example, instead of a link “Add to Twitter”, most Twitter users recognize the bird silhouette, especially when placed in the context of other social network icons.
- This is artist and graphic designer Susan Kare’s original icons for the Mac – she also designed typefaces and other UI elements. Ultimate in simplicity… black and white… some ideas of 3 dimension – the briefcase, the stack of papers
- Had a few more colors… 3 dimensions
- Much wider color gamut available. There is a heavy use of gradients instead of flat colors, and shading behind the buttons, evident on the toolbar. Skeumorphism… videos look like TV, notes app looks like a piece of notebook paper, etc
- We’ll continue the recent history of icons, but let’s go way back to other imagery before computer icons.
- Cave paintings were made long ago - there are many theories of how to interpret these images. While we can guess the meanings – lots of these images involve animals, the true intention – without a written language to go by – is unknown.
- Later, Egyptian hieroglyphics were in use. According to various sources the knowledge of this system of writing was lost in the fifth century. These pictograms only were deciphered in the early 1800s with the finding of the Rosetta Stone, which had a piece of text translated into multiple languages and scripts, including hieroglyphics. I doubt your app or website could afford using icons that aren’t decipherable for hundreds of years…
- And of course, road signs are other ‘iconic’ images – they represent what you can and can’t do on a road. The octagon means stop, and would be noticeable even if the word is not there. The three red, yellow, and green dots on a square rotated 45 degrees represent a traffic light is near. The U with a slash means you cannot perform a U-turn. Of course, these signs may be different for non-US audiences…
- What makes a good icon, one that has not “gone bad”? I’m going to cover 7 ideas in this speech. ….
- .. The five second rule will be covered…
- This means an icon may need a little help, as discussed later…
- Relatively speaking, very few icons would pass the test for new users of your app / websites. Email – mail Print Search OR is it zoom in? Depends on context. Often the zoom in icon has a plus inside the magnifying glass, but not always… Love? Bookmark? Like? Favorite? One of my “favorite” icons…. The hamburger menu, followed by the “discover” menu of three vertical ellipsis. Needed because mobile devices have limited space, many designers put functionality behind this menu button. But is this completely intuitive?
- I’m sure if one did a study of the top 1000 mobile websites that most don’t label their menus, but some do. As these examples from Kroger, Costco, Lowe’s, and Walgreens show, you can add a simple text label to the hamburger menu and not take up much more space. Whether it’s “Menu”, or “Shop”, or “Departments”, or “Options”, or whatever, that one word of text may help increase clicks and possible conversions, especially from older populations.
- And that is one thing about icons - icon recognition can greatly depend on context and user base. For example, if you are designing icons for a graphics editor, icons that look similar to the ones used in the gold standard of photo editing, Adobe Photoshop, may be a good idea in that they will be familiar to your users, though not necessarily to those new to photo editing. For example, the “T” represents create and edit text, the paint can represents fill, the block represents an eraser
- 4 out of 5 people – that’s not a bad percentage. There are many icons that only 1 out of 5 new users would recognize, if that many.
- Now think about it - we sometimes say we are dialing someone on the telephone. (show telephone with dial). How many of you ever remember using an actual dial with a telephone, or if you do, when you actually did such a thing? Maybe someone asks you to page a fellow employee - OK (show pager), how long as it been since you recall using an actual pager? I'm sure some people may raise their hands, but not too many. We've heard of someone making a mixtape of a friend or significant other’s favorite songs. (show photo of cassette). So how long has it been since you have listened to music on cassette? Granted, playlist is becoming more popular term, but mixtape is still heard. The same obsolescence is still in our vocabulary with the save icon. While older individuals remember floppy disks, its prevalence for a crucial, long period of time has kept it in the modern vernacular. I'm sure there will be a time where this is not the case, but at least for now, many college and high schoolers still understand what the icon represents, which is the most important trait of an icon - being instantly recognizable.
- Confusion and frustration can set in quickly if a user picks up an icon does one thing on one screen, and on another screen, the icon does something not related, but completely different. (examples) The expected functionality of these icons can depend greatly on context, but as you can see, there is some ambiguity.
- To continue the previous computer icon history lesson
- As computers went from 16 to 256 and eventually to true color, and with faster processors and video cards, many icons began to look like realistic counterparts to real world items, or “skeuomorphic”. Examples of such icons are a computer monitor with a representation of the Mac dock inside the screen, A pencil with shading and reflecting on the surface, A printer with representations of buttons on the side, And a home complete with outside grass and a door that looks like wood.
- However, a backlash to this realism occurred. With Windows 8, a switch to more simplistic icons happened in the so-called “Metro” interface. Instead of multiple colors and shading, this icon style celebrated single color images.
- iOS7 was the turning point at Apple, where most skeuomorphic and photorealistic icons were replaced with brighter, multi-color icons removing much of the shading and realism.
- Android 5 brought out Google’s Material Design, their own design language that combines ideas of flat design with animations and some use of shading and perspective.
- Flat design is in vogue now, and many UI experts love its simplicity and reliance on only focusing on parts of images that “matter”. However, some argue that icons have become too simplistic, and that the lack of details actually makes it harder to figure out what pictures represent. As with many design trends, in a few months or years, photorealistic icons may come back in style. The question you have to ask when creating or assembling interactive icons for your application, is if you want to try to break the mold, or offer icons that people are finding familiar from common usage. Depending on your user base and app’s goals, that is a decision you’ll have to make.
- Depending on culture, images may take on other meanings Which of these icons works best? The letter, as mailboxes look different around the world. In an e-learning app, does an owl represent intelligence? In some countries, owls symbolize the exact opposite, or as bad omens. In India, owl can mean smart or stupid. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705370663/ Does a cross in a circle represent health? Maybe in some Western cultures, due to the Red Cross organization.. Others might find the symbol offensive. The full name is the “International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies” so a crescent would work best in other countries, or a heart with an EKG icon may work everywhere Is a red hexagon universal for a stop sign? In Japan, many stop signs are inverse triangles, so may not work there.
- I have seen some apps and websites that offer interfaces in multiple languages use flag icons to allow users to switch the language. Makes sense, right? If you cannot read the text, simply click a picture of a flag that represents your country and view the translated version. …
- For a long time, this was video game developer BioWare’s social network start page. Mass Effect, Star Wars the Old Republic, Dragon Age ---- mention later they are Canadian.
- How do you choose one flag for a language that is the official language for several countries? The national language of Cuba, Mexico, and Spain is Spanish – what is the “best” (air quotes) flag to show? Canada is bilingual – so clicking a Canadian flag should choose French or English? What about Bolivia – it has 37 official languages. Countries such as Libya, Georgia, and Serbia have changed their flags in the last 20 years. Do you want to have to update your app every time a flag changes? Civil unrest in a country or other reasons may cause some visitors to not want to click on a flag’s image. Thus, for languages, strongly consider text-based switching, even though the text may take up more room than icons.
- This is Facebook’s language selection screen, where languages are just represented by their names, not flags. Some languages also are represented by their Anglicized language names, with Spanish and Español, for example.
- And this is Google’s language selection screen on iOS, with Spanish – espanol selected. (pause…) And yes, “Elmer Fudd” is a selectable language in Google. So is Klingon. And if you look through the full list you’ll find a few other Easter Eggs.
- As said by the author: “This blog has two general aims: to show the fundamental flaws in using flags to represent languages and how to create good experiences when dealing with multilingual and multiregional content.” Fairly easy website URL to remember:
- Want to talk about consistency in how icons look, but let’s start with a fact.. Unless you are a graphics designer, hire graphics designers, and have time and money to put together all the icons you want, most likely you’re going to go on the Internet and grab icons that match what you need. Unfortunately, one icon set rarely covers everything your app / website needs to do. Luckily, there are lots of places for free and commercial sets, including: (go through list) Font Awesome, which I’ve used a lot in this presentation and I use at my work, …
- And if you’re going to find icons from various sources, you may want to put icons together into a set. Some options for this include:
- If you integrate icons from multiple places, or even create your own to supplement free ones on the Internet, you’ll run into issues because artists and designers are different. They have different ways of seeing the world, and 30 different people may draw something as simple as a heart or magnifying glass differently. When integrating icons from different sets, …
- Just 9 email icons I found on the Internet Note the wide variety of types – everything from one color, to multicolor with shading in the icon to shading in the icon and background to perspective from the page to photorealistic Some just show the icon of an envelope, some have the envelope inside a circular or square-ish shape While all these examples are top down, one is rotated slightly. Note even the line thickness is different in some of the icons – if the line thickness of your icons from different set varies, people may not notice exactly what is wrong – but they may notice a lack of polish.
- Blog editor and writer at Icons8. Goes into more detail about what to watch out for when combining icon sets together, but the quote that stands out to me from the article:
- If you are designing for iOS, then a consistent look between your app an other apps should strongly be considered. Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines show Apple’s thoughts behind home screen icons and in-app icons, as well as a selection of built-in icons. Note that some of these icons may seem self-explanatory to those very familiar with iOS but might not be for those new to the platform (for example the share icon), so consider your own user testing.
- Likewise, Google provides Material Design icon guidelines for Android applications, along with its own set of system icons it expects developers to use. Through constant reuse, the thought is people will instantly recognize what these icons do regardless of application. As with the iOS icons, your mileage may vary when using some of these icons. If you’re designing a mobile website, you may decide between iOS or Android style icons, a completely different style, or if you’re feeling really ambitious, switch between the icon styles depending on the browser and operating system accessing the website. Though, what if you have a userbase that often accesses your websites with a variety of devices. Might the icons looking different cause confusion?
- Then labels may be needed next to icons. Yes, labels take up more space, but if usability is a concern, and it should be, then labels can make confusing icons easier to understand. These apps agreed, and instead of just putting icons on the bottom, they labeled the icons. Apps such as Spotify, DailyMotion, StubHub, and TuneIn Perhaps the “home” icon may be self-explanatory to many people, but that “library” icon for Rhapsody or Dailymotion, “Browse” icon for TuneIn, and maybe even that “Profile” icon for StubHub, could prove confusing.
- This article by former director at Microsoft Jensen Harris at Microsoft discussed creating the UX for Outlook 1998, improving the menus and toolbars. What was noticed during development was that non-expert users would not use the toolbar icons. While changing icon designs and positioning was tried, “one change caused a total turnaround: labeling the important toolbar buttons. Almost immediately, the toolbars were a big hit and everyone at all skill levels starting using them.”
- While this article goes into great detail about icon usability, discussing possibly-confusing icons such as the heart icon I mentioned earlier, my biggest takeaway from the article is the quote: “Labels dramatically increase the usability of icons.” In a study of 35 users with 190 icons in Android apps, unique unlabeled icons were tapped 34% of the time. Other less unique icons without labels were clicked 60% of the time. Icons with labels were clicked 88% of the time.
- “I think labels should be kept around in almost all cases as they turn guesses into clear decisions. Nothing says “manage” like “manage”. In other words, in the battle of clarity between icons and labels, labels always win.” “In 1985, after a year of finding that pretty but unlabeled icons confused customers, the Apple human interface group took on the motto – “A word is worth a thousand pictures.”
- On desktop devices, you might be able to get away with tooltips, but no such luck with mobile devices. Theoretically possible to have a soft tap show a hint and a hard or longer tap press the icon, but people aren’t used to that functionality.
- If you’re going to show labels, which is recommended especially for non-standard icons, keeping labels very close to icons increases the perceived association between the text and the image. Left-to-right reading countries… Icon on left before label usability study by interactive agency Viget and on button..
- Hallway testing – just asking someone in the office, may be all you have time and money for, but if who you ask if familiar with the product, they will be biased. … in tests, many people just want to make the tester happy and some may even have anxiety over performing a test incorrectly… let them know that is not going to happen. There are multiple ways of performing tests, including four I am about to discuss. I won’t say which way is “best” as that may depend on your situation.
- In this type of test, fully describe a function you expect users to perform. Once they understand what you want them to do, ask them to press (or point to) the first thing that should get them where they need to go – it should be an icon. Record how many people do or don’t go to the correct icon first, and how much time it takes for someone to scan the screen or mockup before they make their decision.
- Customer relationship application, needed an icon to view upcoming customer birthdays. What is one of the first things I think of when it comes to birthdays? Cake. And FontAwesome has an icon for birthday cake! I showed this icon to some members on my team without telling them what it was supposed to be, and the results were … surprising. “factory”, “smokestack”, “fire”. Eventually, we settled upon after some other hallway testing a gift icon, with a label.
- Emojis are often understood differently depending on the audience, and it doesn’t help that different websites, devices, operating systems, etc. can show different images. So let’s say you are creating an instant message app and want to represent someone feeling dizzy. This is a common icon used. However, this doesn’t always come across as dizzy, but often “dead”, or “astonished”. Both quite different feelings than just dizziness! The Daily Mail wrote an article about 12 commonly misunderstood emojis, which you can read for more examples.