Icons, icons everywhere but is understanding to be found?

Have you ever noticed how many icons exist all around us? Don’t get me wrong, I love the use of icons and find it easier to absorb the information than text…when done well.

I was reflecting back on when I moved into my house when I first moved to Australia from the US a few years ago. Now being in a new country, you would think the challenging part would be getting used to a new language (yes, Australians speak English, but, I mean, come on, who would think a “boot” was a “trunk”). When it came to language, there was a lot for me to get used to. But, I have to say, moving into my new home was the first place in Australia where I ran into a real language barrier…from all the icons facing me when I walked through the door!

This house has a beautiful, sleek feel to it. And as such, appliances were put in that matched that feel. I get that manufacturers want their products in these types of homes to fit that sleek look and they use icons on their products to enhance the aesthetics. However, all I remember was wanting to pull my hair out because I had no clue how to use common appliances in my new home. I went from one to another and found they all had these little icons with no explanations! This is a little embarrassing to admit, but I had to pull out several manuals just to be able to cook myself dinner and do the dishes the first night 😕.

When it comes to using icons on products, there is a good way and a not so good way. Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s start with the oven. Now I’ll be the first to admit, I am not a cook. I make myself dinner every night, but there’s a big chance I’m going to start a fire, will serve undercooked meat or will have some other mishap along the way to the dinner table. The point is, I don’t know about different modes for cooking something in the oven. In all my previous homes, I simply turned the temperature dial and bam…my meal was cooking. Here, once I selected the temperature, I was then met with symbols…lots and lots of symbols.

I was like, okay this all looks pretty, but what do I choose to just cook chicken??? My first trip to the manuals 🤨.

When cooking, in general, you are going to choose one mode of cooking 90% of the time and a special mode about 10%. Looking back on it now, I can see the manufacturer tried to indicate this by putting the most used mode in the first position past the light, but when you develop a product, you can’t always assume what frame of mind a user will be in when they encounter your product. If a user is exhausted, stressed, whatever, they might not pick up on the cues you think you are laying out. Could they have perhaps highlighted the primary mode symbol to stand out against the rest? That would have made my night a lot easier.

Then I took a look at the microwave. The issues start with the aesthetics. Having tiny icons with light lines in silver/grey on a black background, it’s hard to really distinguish the symbols to begin with.

And then, what the heck do they mean? I was able to at least turn this one on without the manual, but I second-guessed myself even on that because while I understood the clock-looking icon meant how much time to cook, I wondered what the profile-looking icon was beside it. This is a clear example of where the manufacturer implemented a commonly-used icon that already has a specific meaning to users and tried to change its meaning. And I didn’t even have a clue about the other icons meanings.

So, you guessed it, my second trip to the manuals 🤨. Can you guess what the profile icon means? I thought it meant something like I could set a profile for myself for my favourite food settings. It is a profile icon after all, right? No. It means weight! How would I ever have known that?? Perhaps the manufacturer could have found room to add labels and chosen a different symbol for weight.

My night ended with doing the dishes. Had the manufacturer just followed the simple design principle of grouping, that task would have been easier. The first issue I ran into was that the symbols were hard to see. Even though it was black on a greyish background, they chose a very thin line for the icons and the text so it was really hard to distinguish everything due to the small size.

After loading the dishwasher, I did work out the button on the left was clearly the power button. I pushed that thinking it would start the dishwasher. Nope. I saw some other options to the right, but it wasn’t immediately clear how to select which wash setting I wanted to use because they put the selector button to the right of the temperatures rather than grouping it with them. I also did not see the start icon on the far right because they crammed two icons into the small space. I didn’t want to just go pushing buttons with not knowing what would happen so, yep, my third trip to the manuals 🤨. Choosing a heavier line, putting the selector button with the temperatures and including only one symbol for start would have helped.

You’ve seen how using icons in an ambiguous way can negatively impact a consumer’s life (and mood 🤨). I want to end on a great example I found in my home.

My washer and dryer. On both of these appliances, the lines on the icons and text are bolder so everything is easy to see. Second, by adding labels to the icons, it clarifies what the icons mean so you aren’t worried about making a wrong selection.

Icons are meant to aid users. As you can clearly see, there is a good way to integrate the use of icons and a bad way. Icons with no context or explanations is like a foreign language to users. When the use of icons are not done well, you can have a product, whether physical or digital, that has all these well-meaning features the company spent time and resources developing that just don’t get used. Or worse, the consumer might swear off that brand completely.