An image or pictogram used instead of or supplemental to textual information. Icon requests are off topic; please keep questions related to their use rather than asking what a good icon to represent a certain item/concept would be.
8
votes
5answers
1k views
Icons for Like/Dislike/Regular [closed]
Following the answers I got at this other question, where you guys showed me that 5 stars ratings are somewhat complicated for the users to chose an option from, I decided to implement a 3-options ...
8
votes
7answers
233 views
More Intuitive Search Icon - Maginfying Glass or Pair of Binoculars? [closed]
I'm busy redesigning our main application's UI and we're adding a search feature. In your experience, between an icon of a magnifying glass and a pair of binoculars which icon is more intuitive?
I ...
8
votes
5answers
1k views
What symbol to use to represent feedback
When reading Which "Like" symbol is best to use I suddenly realised that the UX community may be able to help me solve a little problem:
I'm working on a site which has just gone in to Beta and as ...
8
votes
5answers
1k views
What is the best way to graphically display item's position in a ranking?
My app has a table containing a list of financial securities. One of the columns is the security's position in a list of all available securities ranked by performance.
For example: security XYZ is ...
8
votes
7answers
664 views
Search Icon vs Search Input Box - Both Require One Click/Touch: Which to use?
I'm working on a mobile site of a rather large site. There are quite a few iA and navigation hurdles already, so I'm pushing to use a search icon instead of a traditional search input box.
My ...
8
votes
5answers
305 views
Visualize a “reset” functionality in a toolbar icon [closed]
We have a 3D model viewer application. The user can scale, rotate and translate the model.
We want to add a toolbar button that allows the user to bring the model back to the original position, scale ...
8
votes
3answers
237 views
How to differentiate icons for *client* from *server* IT services (mail, web, filesharing and so on)
I need to design a UI that includes widgets to control a server computer, and a client computer.
This means I'll be doing similar pairs of icons for mail (mail program vs mail server), web (browser ...
8
votes
2answers
117 views
What design principles and/or guidelines we should use for vote-up/vote-down and counters?
Several times I have clicked the icons next to the counters totals (vote-up/vote-down) on YouTube while trying to vote up or like a video.
What are the design guidelines and/or principles for placing ...
8
votes
3answers
276 views
App icons borderless or on a button?
In an app, when using icons, we can have place it on a button, or have the icon borderless. I would think that having it on a button gives better affordance, but it seems that many reputable ...
7
votes
7answers
447 views
How to indicate a form-field error?
I have two candidates for indicating that a form field is in an error state.
Option 1
Option 2
Should the error icon be in the field, or next to the label? Or something else? Or does it not ...
7
votes
9answers
477 views
Do many spinners on a page look good?
Our engineers are making some changes to our RESTful service calls, so on one page we are making many calls to get different contents through different AJAX calls to fetch small amounts of data, ...
7
votes
5answers
728 views
Appropriate icon for “change” [closed]
I would like to change an icon symbolizing change with something more appropriate. Currently the icon is a star. After giving it some thought I realized that I didn't have a good concept of what ...
7
votes
6answers
591 views
What's the best “show navigation” icon for limited screen space
I read through the article and comments on "We need a standard show navigation icon for responsive web design" by Andy Clarke and it got me thinking about the subject and I'd like to hear your ...
7
votes
4answers
1k views
Best resources to make great reusable UI elements (icons/buttons/etc)? [closed]
I'm new to "crafting UIs", but I've been doing User Experience / Interaction design for a while. Being unable to design my own graphics has been a serious handicap for my work as I'm dependent on ...
7
votes
5answers
338 views
How to indicate AND and OR in a search form
I am designing a search form where the user has to indicate if the field is required or optional, this will affect the way the query is built. For example if the user marks the field as required, in ...
7
votes
3answers
294 views
Do icons need labels on mobile apps?
There have already been studies that prove labelling icons enhances usability on desktop applications. This is why Microsoft Outlook started labelling its icons.
Does the same logic apply to ...
7
votes
2answers
630 views
What is a good icon image for “Apply All/Remove All”? [closed]
I guess I'm not looking specifically for an icon, just an idea of what I could use for imagery. I'm having issues today (probably that double cappuccino) imagining what kind of image i could use for ...
6
votes
5answers
554 views
Why are icons on mobile phone menu screens square or rectangular but not circular?
If you take a look at the app page of any mobile OS, for example iOS, Android, Ubuntu, Win8, BADA, etc., they all have square icons, either with rounded corner or sharp corners (shown in the first ...
6
votes
5answers
837 views
Can an icon depicting two arrows pointing in opposite direction be used as an indicator for “Follow me”
I am making an icon depicting "Follow me"
can 2 arrows pointing to either sides be used as follow me
or any other suggestions
arrows in a circle???
chain link...?
6
votes
5answers
979 views
Recommended Icon for Dashboard [closed]
Can you recommend me about the icon for the dashboard, I have been looking at http://findicons.com/search/dashboard but get the icons like in the picture below.
I feel it's more like clock instead ...
6
votes
4answers
306 views
How do I communicate the absence of settings?
A table in our web application contains items where one column specifies whether the item has a policy bound to it or not.
This column can display three different states:
Has policy : ACTIVE
Has ...
6
votes
2answers
198 views
Where can I find guidelines on when to use the red octagon with exclamation mark icon in Mac OS?
This icon is shown under Mac OS when a disk is unmounted without being ejected first.
It is sometimes also used by other applications. Can someone point me to a place where the acceptable uses for ...
6
votes
2answers
239 views
When is the appropriate time to use the “i” icon in an app?
I am currently debating if:
The "i" icon should only be used when the target page\view only displays additional information. (help text, credits, about, terms & conditions, etc.)
The "i" icon ...
6
votes
3answers
3k views
What's a good icon/paradigm for a “show/hide” toggle button image? [closed]
I need to give an option to show or hide certain detail. What's a good pair of icons for "show/hide"?
Sorry, let me clarify. I am going to use it in a MS Office Ribbon style navbar at the top. The ...
6
votes
4answers
206 views
How can I avoid placing a legend on top of the table to tell the user what each icon means?
You can see an example here:
As you can see, I am stuck with having to tell the user what each icon means. I also mention what a functionality does, such as "Click on a feature to filter out ...
6
votes
2answers
166 views
What menu strip items and other controls deserve their own icon?
I'm creating an application which has buttons and menu strips everywhere. I have icons for nearly object (from icons to menu strips). The problem is, I want my application to be professional and ...
6
votes
3answers
160 views
On log in form, what should a password unmask button look like and say?
On the log in form, I want to give users the option to unmask the password field so they can see what they type. The phrase "unmask password" is too technical and its purpose may not be apparent to ...
6
votes
3answers
57 views
How do I mark a package download if the individual items (within the package) are listed beside it?
We are having a dilemma and I thought to ask the experts.
We offer video, xml and package (< video plus XML) downloads.
If the user downloads the video, a green marker appears showing that it has ...
6
votes
4answers
562 views
Archive of iOS / android app icons?
In creating an iOS app icons, it'd be great to see if I'm getting too close to anything that is already out there... but is there any good way to check? I haven't come across any archives out there ...
5
votes
8answers
618 views
Is using a house-shaped home icon deprecated? (for mobile)
I'm working on a mobile site and am wondering if a small icon in the shape of a house is sufficient to function as a "back to home" style link. This feels very "web 1995" but I still see it today and ...
5
votes
3answers
608 views
Universal blog icon? [closed]
How do I tell users I'm referring them to a blog? This is within a mobile app.
I realize it could be a Wordpress/Tumblr icon, but that's subject to the company's logo change and I was just wondering ...
5
votes
4answers
250 views
Is is better to place text above or below icons?
This UX.SE question discusses the use of text above vs. below images & videos, and in general the answers say below.
I'm thinking that it must be different with icons, since their purpose is ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
What are two good unicode characters I can use to represent “Likes” and “Dislikes”? [closed]
I'll be displaying YouTube Like/Dislike ratings for videos in a text-based format, so I'm using unicode's vast icon codepages as a way to display various things (such as star ratings, using U+2605 ...
5
votes
3answers
559 views
Icons for username and password [closed]
I have login page with two input boxes, one for username and one for password. On the left of these input boxes, I want to put descriptive icons.
I think the profile of a bust, and a key, would be ...
5
votes
11answers
474 views
How to indicate the word “interesting” with an icon? [closed]
In the project I am currently working on everything is based around the essence of "interests". One of the most important and bold UI elements in this project, is a button that when pressed gives us ...
5
votes
7answers
333 views
What's an appropriate icon to represent an organisation? [closed]
Ok, so I need to use an icon to represent organisations in an otherwise boring list.
What comes to my mind directly is either using something financially related, such as a small stack of coins, or ...
5
votes
3answers
385 views
What is the reason behind the + sign/icons with buttons?
I have seen few high profile site which use + sign/icons for buttons, while other don't.
Does any body know what is the reason behind using sign with buttons, should i use signs/icons with buttons?
...
5
votes
4answers
300 views
Finding a set of stock icons that match existing icons [closed]
We have a web application with a dozen or so icons for various functions. The icons were provided by a web design company during a redesign of the site two years ago. The company no longer exists.
We ...
5
votes
1answer
139 views
Is there a widely-understood visual metaphor for privacy?
On our profile page, we're giving users choices among three privacy settings for each field.
The checkbox choices will not appear until a user highlights a particular field, but we do want to convey ...
5
votes
3answers
314 views
Is it good UX that in Windows 7 & 8 the “windows” of the same application are automatically grouped into one button?
In Windows 7 and 8, all the windows of every application are by default automatically grouped into one icon on the taskbar. This happens even when there are two instances of the application running ...
5
votes
4answers
246 views
Should application name relate to application icon?
Should my application name relate to app icon? For example if I want to name my application apple should the icon be an apple icon?
5
votes
3answers
93 views
How would you distinguish “Sets” from “Folders” in a collection of tiles?
I'm displaying both Sets (which contain Cards) and Folders (which contain Sets) on the same page. Ideally they'll both be tiles. I'm not sure how to make it easy for the user to tell the difference ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
List icon vs menu icon
As of Ice Cream Sandwich, the new standard icon for menus is three vertically aligned squares as such:
Before that, the menu expansion was three horizontal lines like this, but without the ...
5
votes
2answers
415 views
Hover over icon
Along the lines of visual clues when hovering over a hyperlink, doesn't the same apply to icons?
I ask this question since I noticed none of the SE sites I know of have this behavior when hovering ...
5
votes
2answers
1k views
How should I mark “Mandatory” and “Optional” fields in a form?
I'm making a web app and in the admin panel there is in one place a list of items where (among other things) the administrator can select which items will be mandatory for the users, and which will be ...
5
votes
5answers
342 views
Best way to display plus/minus or pros/cons short sentences
I have information in short sentences (bullet list) and each bullet could be pros/cons or plus/minus toward a product. What is the best way to display it nicely?
For example:
+ Price is cheap
+ ...
5
votes
4answers
211 views
Is there any value in using “irrelevant” icons
I'm currently wireframing/"UXing" and doing the front-end dev work on the rebuild of a reasonably big intranet app with lots of data in various sections. To make things easier for the users to pick ...
5
votes
2answers
134 views
Icons and colors on menus
I wonder when (if at all) it is appropriate to use icons next to menu entries (drop down menus, right click contextual menus etc).
I have noticed that pretty much all of the menus I have seen only ...
5
votes
4answers
237 views
When are shadowless icons preferred over shadowed icons?
My question is when, if ever, a shadowless version of an icon is preferred over the shadowed version.
By shadowed I mean the tiny, almost imperceptible little black gaussian blur below the icon.
I ...
5
votes
3answers
386 views
“Send by text/SMS” - is there a standard icon?
"SMS" has proven to confuse some younger users in usertesting. The envelope icon is reserved for email. Is there an established or emerging standard that says "send this by text message"?
