25 Icons With Universal Meaning
And 5 practical tips for improving the usability of icons
Icons help designers avoid visual clutter, and make UI more aesthetically pleasing. But at the same time, not all icons are universally clear to our users. Usability suffers when users have a hard time decoding the meaning of an icon.
A user’s understanding of an icon is based on previous experience. That’s why it’s always better to use familiar icons.
In this list, we will share a collection of universally understood icons and some practical tips that will help you improve your product’s usability.
1. Home
2. Search
3. Filter
4. Edit
5. Mail / Messages
6. Folder
7. User profile
8. Loading
9. Print
10. Like
11. Notifications
12. Rate
13. Bookmark
14. Share
15. Download
16. Sound / Volume
17. Delete
18. Photo
19. Video
20. Settings
21. Media controls
22. Calendar
23. More
24. Location
25. Secure
5 Practical tips for improving icons usability
1. Platform visual style
Familiarize yourself with icons commonly used on the platforms that you target. For example, all major platforms have different visual style for sharing icon.
2. Avoid adding too many details to icons
Keep icons simple and schematic. Visualize essential characteristics of an object. By doing that you will speed up the design process (it will be easier to design icons for graphic designers) and improve icon recognition (it will be easier to understand the meaning of icons for users).
But at the same time, do now oversimply the icon.
3. Use five seconds test to test the meaning of your icons
If you must design a new icon, always test it. Give users five seconds to look at an icon and ask them what this icon means. If users tell you that they don’t know, this feedback will indicate that the design needs improvement.
4. Use text labels to communicate the meaning
Icon with a label works better than an icon alone or label alone. Text labels can reduce ambiguity and help users decode the meaning of icons.
5. Mind icons location
UIE conducted two experiments to test how people use icons. In the first experiment, they changed the pictures of the icons, but kept them in the same location. They found that users quickly adapted to the new imagery without much problem. In the second experiment, they kept the original pictures, but shuffled their locations on the toolbar. As a result, users really struggled with this. It means that the location of the icon is more important than visual imagery.
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