Reflection Point: Icons
Without doing too much research, let’s assume most people are constantly making assumptions throughout the day. Endlessly mindlessly glancing and making minimal effort to understand their surroundings. Taking action with as little thought as possible. We evolved this way, for efficiency rather than thorough analysis. Quick decisions are rewarded while 100% accuracy is often inaccessible and seldom worth the effort. If there were a manual to life, who would have time to read it? Right?
If we take a moment from our busy schedule of making quick assumptions to look at the details, we can see that a lot of little “thought shortcuts” were crafted by thoughtful designers for our collective cognitive convenience. Icons, little marks full of meaning and light on ink, make moving through modern life a tad less confusing for our ape brains… usually.
Let’s take a moment to have a look at the icons around us and give them a quick grade on effectiveness and style.
Without leaving my chair, lets have a look at my keyboard:
Not knowing what the cluster of offset rectangles of the center icon means, I assume it has something to do with my computer interface. Let’s press it and find out…
Huzzah! It gathers all of my open application windows and shows them all at once. How convenient. And how efficient an icon! Three little rectangles of heavy line width and softened corners representing a rather complex task.
I give this icon a B for effectiveness and an A+ for style. It’s not super apparent what it does, but once you know, the association is solid and easy to understand.
Let’s venture away from my laptop. In eyeshot, I see a device I’m sure will have some pictographics: A printer.
Let’s analyze the symbol in the middle, the one with the shape, arrow, line and red X. It’s rather busy. There is a picture of what looks like paper; which probably means paper, an arrow pointing down; maybe meaning down, a line; which means nothing to me, and an X which universally means “no”. Translation: “Paper Down No”? No Paper? Ugh. I’m not 100% sure, but if that is the case, a simpler icon would probably be more effective. I’ll go ahead and assume that everything regarding printers is eternally broken and confusing, including it’s iconography.
This could be mistaken for meaning “do not put paper below”. I’d say this was a missed opportunity for changing the reputation of printers in general. C for effectiveness, D for style.
Moving on. Ooh, a desk lamp:
Ubiquitous. Simple. Government sanctioned. These universal graphics replaced the words “Off” and “On” on most devices around the time of WWII. The International Electrotechnical Commission states these are a line representing “On” and a circle meaning “Off”, but any garden variety nerd knows this is a nod to binary code. It’s safe to assume that a switch with these symbols will complete a power circuit.
Could it be simpler? Yes, actually. There could just be a line for the “on” position and nothing for the “off”, but I digress.
A for effectiveness and A+ for style. You can’t go wrong with simple, geometric and binary.
Let’s find more icons! I have exhausted this office, so on to the next room:
Here’s an icon that is meant to make you feel better about your consumerism. Without doing a google image search, I guessed this happy rodent drawing means the product doesn’t make rabbits sad. It’s a close guess. Google says this virtue signal of swooping lines, stars, and an energetic looking image of a bunny indicates that this soap was not tested on animals and meets standards set by the Coalition for Consumer Information on Cosmetics. Nice.
The swoops and stars make this “Leaping Bunny” a little more complex, but it also represents the most complex concept we’ve come across so far: Absence of cruelty. I give it an A- for effectiveness and a B for style. I’d wager this busy icon gets a facelift in the next decade as cultural preferences shift.
Let’s conclude with something that proved very useful to me this morning:
Despite my extensive experience using this stove, I can never turn a knob without referring to this handy little guide. These neatly arranged circles are a little map with a single filled circle representing which burner is about to be affected by the adjacent knob (preventing a melted spatula and assuring a properly parched pancake). If I needed to pilot an alien spaceship, I would hope the controls would be labeled so intuitively as this. The heavy line weights and uniformity are quite appealing.
A+ for effectiveness and A+ for style.
So, thank you icon designers. For the most part, you allow me to go about my days using my brain a little less, or perhaps more efficiently, or both. The concept of icons gets an A+.