Graphics and Semantics: The Relationship between What Is Seen and What Is Meant in Icon Design

Abstract

Visual icons can be considered as a means for designers to convey messages to end-users via the interface of a computer system. This paper explores the relationship between the users' interpretation of icons and the meaning that designers intend icons to convey. Focussing on interface users' understanding of icons, recent research has shown that it is the closeness of the relationship between icon and function, known as the semantic distance, that is of prime importance in determining the success of icon usability. This contrasts with previous research which has suggested that the concreteness, or pictorialness, of icons is the key to good design. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

An Empirical Study of Icon Recognition in a Virtual Gallery Interface

“…In total, there were nine 'mediocre' icons (i.e. Icons 3,5,6,7,12,16,17,18,20) which is 42.9% of all icons evaluated in the IRT. All the results for the 'mediocre' icons are listed in Table 12.…”

“…In total, there are sixteen 'identifiable' icons (i.e. Icons 1,2,3,6,7,8,10,11,12,13,14,16,17,18,19 and 20) which is 76.2% of all icons evaluated in the IRT. The 'out of context' IRT had already shown that 29.0% of icons were in the this category.…”

“…This may come easily with an office package that is used every day but may not be possible with a rarely-used interface such as a virtual gallery [1]. Icons may resemble to a greater or lesser extent the objects or functions that they represent [17] and the closeness of this relationship is the 'semantic distance', which is "important in determining the success of icon usability" [18].…”

Can icons enhance requirements engineering work?

“…size, shape and color) have been allocated to aid the recognition, it is now acknowledged that the correlation between recognition and interpretation also plays a crucial role [39,40]. Interpreting and comprehending a single icon is the simplest process of reading iconographic communication, but when icon interpretation occurs in isolation, it makes icon interpretation too complex [39].…”

Icon design and application in HCI

“…The definitions of icon can be divided into two levels of broad and narrow: broad sense-icons are graphical symbols for indication, which have features of highly concentrating, conveying information conveniently and remembering easily [1]. This interpretation contains a wide range, including directory signs in the street, traffic signs, toilet signs, Web graphics, software graphics, and even corporate logo.…”