Outside of these examples, most icons continue to be ambiguous to users due to their association with different meanings across various interfaces. The icons for home, print, and the magnifying glass for search are such instances. There are a few icons that enjoy mostly universal recognition from users. They support the notion of a product family or suite when the same icons and style are used in several places.ĭespite these potential advantages, icons often cause usability problems when they are designed without consideration for their many potential downsides.Icons can be visually pleasing and enhance the aesthetic appeal of a design.There is no need to translate icons for international users, provided that the icons are mindful of cultural differences (for example, mailboxes look very different in various countries whereas envelopes look the same, therefore an envelope is a more international icon for an email program than a mailbox).Icons are fast to recognize at a glance (if well designed) - particularly true for standard icons that people have seen and used before.Yet they save space: icons can be compact enough to allow toolbars, palettes, and so on to display many icons in a relatively small space.Icons make good targets: they are typically sized large enough to be easily touched in a finger-operated UI, but also work well with a mouse cursor (in contrast to words, which can suffer from read–tap asymmetry on touch screens).The benefits of icons in a graphical user interface (GUI) include: If that object, action, or idea is not immediately clear to users, the icon is reduced to mere eye candy - confusing, frustrating, eye candy - and to visual noise that hinders people from completing a task.

Icons are, by definition, a visual representation of an object, action, or idea.

In addition to conveying brand personality through color and style, icons must first and foremost communicate meaning in a graphical user interface.

Windows phone icons meaning