This study compared the results of and 10 university students for 10 software developers icon recognition and preferences. There were 54 icons and 15 c&cepts, and each concept had two to four representative icons. First, participants attempted to match each icon with one of the 15 product concepts. Next, the participants were asked to pick the best icon from the ones specifically designed to represent each concept.The students correctly recognized more icons (M= 34.7) than the developers (M = 27.8), t(18) =2.1, p <.05.The icons recognized most often by studenta and developers were different for two cmcepts, and the icons preferred most often by students and developers were different for four concepts.We believe that the data support the hypothesis that using product developers rather than representative users can result in incorrect decisions in icon usage.