I am working on a mobile app that involves the user saving a favourite location. I wanted to use an icon to represent that feature, but I'm not sure which one is better – a star or a heart icon.
Some say heart icon tends to increase the rate of productivity, and some say they are used to a star icon to 'save' or 'bookmark' something.
What do go you guys think?
Although both icons are similar and both are popularly recognized, they do have slightly different connotations.
In a maps application...
If it's more important for users to be able to bookmark locations irrespective about whether they feel emotionally positive or negative, then a star is probably a more suitable UX.
If it's more important for users to mark locations they feel positive about, then the heart icon may be more suitable.
Of course, users can and will use star/heart for all kinds of other reasons, but these examples may help illustrate the difference in idiomatic meaning and usage associated with the two icons.
There is evidence that the icons do drive different user interactions. The CEO of Airbnb described to the New York Times how switching from a star to a heart icon on their site created different user patterns:
“We had these ‘stars’ on the site to save places, and we changed them to a ‘heart’ icon as an experiment,” Mr. Chesky said, noting that the experiment was shown to 1 percent of Airbnb users. “We quickly realized that people were saving these properties in a way that they hadn’t with the star icon, and that the amount of time they spent on the site went up dramatically.”
Obviously, this doesn't mean you should switch to a heart icon to drive site engagement, because what is appropriate for Airbnb may be completely inappropriate for your application.
For further reading, you may find this Quora question and this question helpful.
I think the difference between the two isn't huge, both are frequently used for the feature you are describing. Perhaps thinking of the emotion you are trying to evoke is more important.
For example, a favourite on this site is represented by a star. This makes sense, it's a 'professional' site. Whereas if I'm on a site like say AirBNB, a heart makes more sense - I might 'love' an apartment, but not 'love' a question.
In saying that locations mightn't always evoke this positive reaction.
So basically it's down to the subject of what you're favouriting and the context in which the user 'favourites' it.
Hope that helps!
heart or start
Since the objective is to favorite a location in a mobile the recommendation would be a GEO-HEART. This is the ideal graphical representation to portray the favorite location.
If you use a rating for your locations as well, I would go for a heart as favourite icon.
Stars are usually used for a rating like 3 out of 5. I've never seen this with hearts. Otherwise star and heart just have a different tone as Vincent already said.
IMO is, What are all the usages of FAVOURITE?
Based on the above usages, we can take the decision...
★ It is for our own usage. Start indicates something important than others. Also this is globalised accepted metaphor.
❤ Is the explore our feelings to others. Based on the above usage we can follow the particular thread but not loved one.
(★) is the perfect one for FAVOURITE.
I know this was asked a long time ago, however, this came up for me today. I like the answer of star = IMPORTANT, heart = LIKE/EMOTIVE, they are both things I want to go back to, but for different reasons, so differentiate it.Re bookmark: I would avoid this. We live in a world where kids read less books, so this is not as understandable/relatable, not to mention "what is a bookmark"? I believe this is a dying paradigm (unfortunately), so I would avoid a bookmark as the usual shape just looks like a random shape.
Because users will want to favorite locations for different purposes, they should also have the option to select different icons for the different folders they save the favorites in. A heart for family locations (or a cherished location) and a star for favorite restaurants, hotels, etc. Additionally, different colors of stars, push pins, hearts, etc.
Further, it is a popular feature to offer mod packs with future customization so that a user could have a choice from many other icons, such as a basket of kittens, a cross, a puppy, Waldo, Nyan cat, chess pieces, etc.
In a strict choice between heart and star, I choose star.
It is a good idea to come up with a new symbol for selecting a favorites submenu since users may expect the star to have functionality like that in Firefox. Maybe a bookmark with a star on it or a circle with FAV overlayed on it.
Credit: the 'geo' shape was taken from the picture on Udhayakumar Keshavan 's post.
