Saturday, 5 May 2012

Use image search for icon ideas everyone understands

I've become a big fan of the idea in user interfaces that images are faster than words, providing of course that the images do actually represent the idea they are trying to communicate. That latter point is incredibly important, if the icons are badly chosen then it just introduces confusion for the user.

If you're stuck thinking how to represent an action in an icon, use image search and select icon as the image size. It doesn't always get immediate results but it will often give you ideas if not.

If that doesn't give you any ideas, try looking up synonyms for the word in an online dictionary and start again.