User Experiences that Matter

Share this post

Naming your icons

substack.antonsten.com

Discover more from User Experiences that Matter

I write a newsletter every two-four weeks. I'll let you decide if it’s any good but people seem to stay on. In fact, thousands of smart people incl. designers from Amazon, IDEO, Figma and Shopify are subscribers.
Over 2,000 subscribers
Continue reading
Sign in

Naming your icons

Anton Sten
Apr 7, 2015
Share this post

Naming your icons

substack.antonsten.com
Share

I think good design is intuitive but should also involve a certain degree of exploration (unless it’s.. say an ATM machine in which case exploration is not necessarily appreciated by the user). There’s a growing trend amongst designers though to use icons that are extremely hard to understand with the sole excuse that the use will eventually learn their meaning.

Joshua Porter makes a great case for labeling your icons in Labels always win.

However, 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.

Share this post

Naming your icons

substack.antonsten.com
Share
Previous
Next
Comments
Top
New
Community

No posts

Ready for more?

© 2023 Anton Sten, Le Petit Garcon AB
Privacy ∙ Terms ∙ Collection notice
Start WritingGet the app
Substack is the home for great writing