Icon Design Research Articles

Research on User Preferences for App Icon Design in Digital Interaction Interface

Research on User Preferences for App Icon Design in Digital Interaction Interface

Beyond Words: Enhancing Clinical Guideline Comprehension with Icons

Abstract Background The GRADE (Grading Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations) framework is widely applied in clinical guidelines to facilitate transparent evidence evaluation. While developing Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines on the management of patients with COVID-19, panel members suggested developing and implementing a visual aid to enable quicker identification of key information by providers at bedside seeking guidance. Methods We conducted a mixed-method study evaluating the usability of a newly designed infographic/icon using a survey and focus groups. The survey incorporated a simulated COVID-19 IDSA guideline with and without the icon, followed by comprehension questions. Focus group discussions provided qualitative feedback on the GRADE methodology and icon usability. Results The survey was returned by 289 healthcare providers. There was no statistical difference in the correct response rates between icon-aided and non-icon-aided guideline questions (McNemar’s Chi-squared test, p>0.1 for both questions). Interactions with the icon notably increased the time taken and number of clicks required to respond to the first question (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, p<0.01). In contrast, response time didn’t differ between versions for the second question (p=0.38). Most subjects (85%) indicated that the icon improved the readability of the guidelines. A focus group follow-up suggested alternative designs for the icon. Conclusion The study highlights the promise of iconography in clinical guidelines, although the specific icons tested did not measurably improve usability metrics. Future research should focus on icon design and testing within a formal usability framework, considering the impact of GRADE language on user experience.

사회 문화적 변화의 관점에서 본 1950년대 미국 주방 디자인과 여성의 라이프스타일에 대한 연구

This study delves into the social context and cultural changes of 1950s America to explore the interaction between women’s lifestyles and modern kitchen design. Through literature review, visual material analysis, and case studies, the study examines how adjustments in lifestyle affect women’s design needs in three aspects: physiological, functional, and psychological. Kitchen design has shifted from closed to open layouts to facilitate communication and interaction among family members. Storage solutions have become increasingly functional and personalized, offering housewives a more convenient user experience. Meanwhile, advancements in kitchen technology have reduced labor demands and improved comfort. By analyzing iconic designs such as Future Kitchens, Youngstown Cabinet Design, and Cornell Kitchens, the study explores how these designs responded to changes in women’s lifestyles. The findings reveal a mutually constraining yet facilitating relationship between women’s lifestyles and the development of kitchen design in the context of socio-cultural change, offering new perspectives and ideas for user-centered modern kitchen design.

A Study of Key Factors Influencing the Usability of Smartphone Graphical User Interfaces for Older Adults

This study investigates the key factors influencing the usability of smartphone graphical user interfaces (GUIs) among elderly users in Shanxi Province, China. A total of 1,111 healthy individuals aged 60-75 years participated in the study. Quantitative analysis methods, including descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation, regression analysis, and mediation and moderation analysis, were employed to examine the interactions between user characteristics (age, education, experience, health status) and GUI design factors (interface layout, text and icon design, feedback mechanisms, information presentation) about usability metrics (cognitive load, interaction barriers, user experience). The analysis revealed that both user characteristics and GUI design factors significantly impact usability outcomes. Specifically, GUI design factors were found to mediate the relationship between user characteristics and usability, while user characteristics moderated the effects of GUI design on usability. These findings underscore the necessity of tailored interface design to enhance user experience and promote digital inclusion among elderly populations. Practical recommendations include the use of larger and more readable text, simplified iconography, and clear, immediate feedback to users. Such adjustments can significantly improve usability and foster greater digital inclusion. This research contributes valuable insights to both theoretical understanding and practical applications in the design of age-appropriate mobile interfaces.

The effects of icon design features on user perception and preference: A case study of icons for Covid-19.

The objective of this study is to evaluate users' perceptions and preferences on the design features of the COVID-19 prevention promotion icon from the perspective of users' aesthetic and perceptual needs. In this study, 120 officially published icons from 24 countries and regions were collected from online platforms for ranking tests, and then the top-ranked icons were subjectively rated by the semantic differential method. By evaluating the quality of users' perceptions of multiple semantic dimensions of icons, we extracted the perceptual semantic words that users valued as the main icon design features. Spearmen correlations were applied to derive possible correlations between user rankings and semantic scales, and a Friedman test was also conducted to determine the true differences in user perceptions and preferences for different styles of icons. Factor analysis was conducted to extract six perceptual words that influence the design features of the COVID-19 prevention promotion icon. The methodology adopted in this study facilitated the screening of design features related to icon effectiveness, and the findings show that "Interesting," "Simple," "Familiar, "Recognizable," "Concrete," and "Close(semantic distance)" are the key features that influence users' perception and preference of COVID-19 icon design. The results of this study can be used as the basis for designing and improving publicity icons for preventive measures in COVID-19, and the methods adopted in this study can be applied to evaluate other types of icon design.

Skeuomorphic or flat? The effects of icon style on visual search and recognition performance

Although there have been many previous studies on icon visual search and recognition performance, only a few have considered the effects of both the internal and external characteristics of icons. In this behavioral study, we employed a visual search task and a semantic recognition task to explore the effects of icon style, semantic distance (SD), and task difficulty on users’ performance in perceiving and identifying icons. First, we created and filtered 64 new icons, which were divided into four different groups (flat design & close SD, flat design & far SD, skeuomorphic design & close SD, skeuomorphic design & far SD) through expert evaluation. A total of 40 participants (13 men and 27 women, ages ranging from 19 to 25 years, mean age = 21.9 years, SD=1.93) were asked to perform an icon visual search task and an icon recognition task after a round of learning. Participants’ accuracy and response time were measured as a function of the following independent variables: two icon styles (flat or skeuomorphic style), two levels of SD (close or far), and two levels of task difficulty (easy or difficult). The results showed that flat icons had better visual search performance than skeuomorphic icons; this beneficial effect increased as the task difficulty increased. However, in the icon recognition task, participants’ performance in recalling skeuomorphic icons was significantly better than that in recalling flat icons. Furthermore, a strong interaction effect between icon style and task difficulty was observed for response time. As the task difficulty decreased, the difference in recognition performance between these two different icon styles increased significantly. These findings provide valuable guidance for the design of icons in human–computer interaction interfaces.

Developing icons for older adults: The roles of icon design categories, text labels, and learning strategies

When using electronic devices, older adults usually face challenges associated with difficulties in understanding icons. This study investigated age-related differences in icon identification using various design principles (Experiment 1), as well as the impacts of adding text labels (Experiment 2) and learning strategies (Experiment 3) on improving the performance of older adults. Participants, including older adults (aged 60 or older) and younger individuals, were asked to identify icons matching previous descriptions. The results revealed that the identification performance between older and younger adults varied across icon categories. The addition of text labels resolved differences in icon comprehension related to age of participant and design principles. Learning strategies had diverse effects on the identification performance of older and younger participants, depending on the icon category. These findings provide guidance for designers to apply effective principles and identify optimal strategies to support older adults in the identification and understanding of icons.

Semantic distance of icons: Impact on user cognitive performance and a new model for semantic distance classification

With the continuous development of human-computer interaction technologies and the widespread use of graphical interfaces, icons that represent various objects and functions have a particularly important role. This study investigates the effect of semantic distance of icons on cognitive performance through an eye-movement-based experiment which involves a visual search for icons. The findings show that the semantic distance of icons has a significant effect on cognitive performance. A higher cognitive performance is found with semantically close icons which can better capture user attention. In addition, we use eye-movement indicators that are highly correlated with semantic distance, including mean pupil diameter, mean gaze duration and initial gaze time of an AOI, and analyze the objective relationship between these three eye-movement indicators and the semantic distance of icons to establish a dataset. The dataset is used as input for a Gradient Boosting Decision Tree (GBDT), which is a machine learning-based method for classifying the semantic distance of the icons in this study. The output of the GBDT model is classifying the semantic distance as far and close, and the experimental results show that the accuracy of the model reaches 84.28% after a comparison with other types of classifiers, which is in good agreement with the experimental results. Therefore, the model can address the relevant application requirements and simplify the evaluation process of icons to a certain extent, which has great significance in the field of icon design.

A study on the impact of icon structural features in human–computer interface on visual search efficiency

This article, from the perspective of structural features, focuses on in-car user interface icons and explores the impact of different icon structural features on visual search efficiency. Initially, we categorised the icons into four groups based on structural features: individual structure icons (ISI), enclosed structure icons (ESI), horizontal structure icons (HSI) and vertical structure icons (VSI). Subsequently, we conducted a visual search experiment with structure as the sole variable, recording participants’ behaviours and eye-tracking data. Finally, data analysis was conducted using methods including analysis of variance and logistic regression. The results indicate that differences in icon structural features significantly affect visual search efficiency, showcasing significant intergroup differences. HSI exhibit the highest visual search efficiency, while ESI show the lowest efficiency. ISI have shorter response times but the lowest matching accuracy. VSI only perform better than ESI. These findings hold significant implications for optimising icon design and enhancing visual search efficiency.

Ornamental decoration of a dagger from Aytkulovo: results of graphic analysis

Bone ornamented items of the end of the Paleolithic — Mesolithic periods are very rare in the south of Western Siberia. While some of them have dating context, others are accidental finds. Despite the circumstances of their discovery and limited amount of relevant information, there is a need to consider the issues of dominant subjects, compositional morphology, technical execution of ornaments covering their surfaces and relations with the materials of adjacent territories, mainly the Ural region. The study presents the results of a palaeographic analysis of ornamental patterns (texts) created presumably in the Epipaleolithic and which are rather rare in terms of morphology. The study is focused on the ornament of a dagger from Aytkulovo. The bone artefact was accidentally discovered in July 1976 near the village of Aytkulovo on a shoal at the mouth of River Murlinka (Tara district, Omsk region). Stylistic and compositional analogues of the dagger in the Middle Irtysh region are unknown. The preservation of the artefact is satisfactory, which allows analyzing its ornamental composition. The dagger’s ornamentation consists of two iconic layers, each of them can be attributed to different chronological episodes (phases). Such combination of the non synchronous ornamental texts on a single artefact is a true rarity in paleoornamentology. While objects of the first ornamental layer form the frame of the composition, the overlapping additional elements of the second layer were added in a later chronological episode. The observed differences of the first and the second layers in specific taphonomic, technological, stylistic and graphic features raise the question of a chronological gap in their creation. The graphic and stylistic originality of the iconic design of the dagger suggests that its ornamental pattern can be considered as a “graphic dialect” belonging to a more global ornamental tradition (its preliminary name was “Ural-Chernoozerye”). The obtained results confirm the being-developed thesis about the existence of a single cultural community in the southern Trans-Urals and in the south-west of Western Siberia during the late Palaeolithic — early Mesolithic period. This community is represented by the local mutually contacting groups which used similar graphic principles of information transfer. The process of interpenetration and blending of local traditions led not only to exchange of technological innovation but also to emergence of the composite graphic “dialects” similar to the one in Aytkulovo.

Iconic Design Element in Interpretation Centre

This research report investigates the distinctive qualities that appear in the design of interpretation centers. Interpretation centers are facilities that offer educational experiences. The study highlights common motifs and elements that contribute to iconic design in this distinct architectural style, utilizing a variety of global examples to show necessary points. Key Words: Interpretation Centres, Iconic Design, Thematic Symbolism, Sustainable Material, Technological Innovation, Cultural Heritage.

Unlocking Brilliance: A Smart Approach to Icon Colour Design Inspired by Universal Design Principles

Icons are integral to the signature systems within architectural spaces, serving pivotal roles through human–environment interactions. However, previous icon designs often exhibited a considerable randomness and neglected the needs of visually impaired individuals. To address these issues and to overcome the limitations of the computer-aided design methods, such as most of them focusing only on text design which are not compatible with icons, this study presents an intelligent assistance method named “Universal Colour” for icon colour design based on universal design principles. Such a system enables the rapid generation of icon colour schemes and supports visual and quantitative filtering and comparison during the decision-making process for colour scheme optimization. To assess its usability, fifty-two participants conducted icon colour design experiments using this system, resulting in 87% of the design schemes meeting the universality requirements. The results have demonstrated that Universal Colour has the potential to significantly enhance efficiency and cognitive aspects within the decision-making process for users, regardless of their proficiency in icon design, thereby facilitating the generation of universal icon colour schemes in architectural design.

The Effect of Icon Color Combinations in Information Interfaces on Task Performance under Varying Levels of Cognitive Load

In human–computer interaction interfaces, icons serve as highly symbolic elements that convey information and significantly influence the performance of visual search and other tasks. Thus, the selection of appropriate colors plays a crucial role in the design of human–computer interfaces. This study aimed to investigate the effects of icon color combinations on human visual search task performance across various cognitive load conditions. The experiment was divided into two parts, involving a cognitive load test experiment and an icon search task, wherein the former required participants to select the target icon from 16 de-colored icons, and the latter involved selecting the target icon from 16 color combinations of 8 colors (background colors: black, red, blue, and purple; foreground colors: white, yellow, green, and turquoise). A total of 20 participants (11 females and 9 males, all aged between 18 and 24 years) were recruited for this experiment to perform both tasks sequentially. Through a comprehensive consideration of factors such as the NASA-TLX scale, retrieval time, etc., the experimental results revealed that cognitive load increased with time pressure, resulting in varying optimal color combinations for different cognitive load levels. Additionally, background colors did not affect task response time under different cognitive loads, whereas white foreground color was superior to turquoise foreground color in a medium cognitive load environment. Meanwhile, our results recommend prioritizing white-on-black as the preferred color combination, given that it demonstrated excellent cognitive performance in all three cognitive load environments. Conversely, white-on-blue is not recommended as a color combination for the design of high cognitive load environments. Concerning medium cognitive load environments, yellow-on-red or white-on-purple color combinations were preferred. Finally, in low cognitive load environments, white-on-purple is recommended as the primary color combination. Overall, this study provides a theoretical reference for the future design of interactive interface icons across various contexts.

IconShop: Text-Guided Vector Icon Synthesis with Autoregressive Transformers

Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) is a popular vector image format that offers good support for interactivity and animation. Despite its appealing characteristics, creating custom SVG content can be challenging for users due to the steep learning curve required to understand SVG grammars or get familiar with professional editing software. Recent advancements in text-to-image generation have inspired researchers to explore vector graphics synthesis using either image-based methods (i.e., text → raster image → vector graphics) combining text-to-image generation models with image vectorization, or language-based methods (i.e., text → vector graphics script) through pretrained large language models. Nevertheless, these methods suffer from limitations in terms of generation quality, diversity, and flexibility. In this paper, we introduce IconShop, a text-guided vector icon synthesis method using autoregressive transformers. The key to success of our approach is to sequentialize and tokenize SVG paths (and textual descriptions as guidance) into a uniquely decodable token sequence. With that, we are able to exploit the sequence learning power of autoregressive transformers, while enabling both unconditional and text-conditioned icon synthesis. Through standard training to predict the next token on a large-scale vector icon dataset accompanied by textural descriptions, the proposed IconShop consistently exhibits better icon synthesis capability than existing image-based and language-based methods both quantitatively (using the FID and CLIP scores) and qualitatively (through formal subjective user studies). Meanwhile, we observe a dramatic improvement in generation diversity, which is validated by the objective Uniqueness and Novelty measures. More importantly, we demonstrate the flexibility of IconShop with multiple novel icon synthesis tasks, including icon editing, icon interpolation, icon semantic combination, and icon design auto-suggestion.

Toward Production Design Metaphor: Implications of Situated Authorship and Meaning-Making

Abstract The task of production design is to create locations where cinematic events occur. Since the subjective experiences of the characters in the film are mainly observable externally, the entire film practice aims to express them through secondary means, for example by design and cinematography. The filmmaker can choose what she brings to the foreground from the character’s experience and what aspects she emphasizes. In the case of production design, it is possible to express metaphorical correlations through the spatialization process of cinematic events while anticipating the embodied situatedness of the camera and the eventual film viewer. The notion of situated authorship is discussed through iconic design examples from Gone With the Wind and The Birds, which have historically shaped the concept of production design practice. In the case study referring to my work as a designer, I intend to evaluate the schemas used in the spatialization process in the context of Embodied Simulation Theory (EST) and Conceptual Metaphor Theory (CMT). Here, I propose the idea of a dynamic staging scenario that indicates how cinematic movement – especially the action of the scene and the movement of the camera onset – is considered in spatialization. With the discussion, I conduct a design analysis with which the properties of the space can be evaluated based on the concepts of image schema, primary metaphor, and conceptual metaphor.

ARCHITECT YO MING PEI. THE ART OF ARCHITECTURE OF MUSEUM BUILDINGS

Famous Chinese-American architect I.M. Pei was born in Guangdong, China in 1917.He traveled to the United States in 1935. Initially educated at the University of Pennsylvania, he continued his studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Bachelor of Architecture in 1940) and Harvard Graduate School of Design (Master of Architecture in 1946). I.M. Pei is widely praised for his bold design and clear geometric forms in his project. His career spanned 60 years and left many outstanding architectural works. I.M. Pei, revered as "the consummate master of modern architecture," his architectural philosophy was deeply influenced by modern art. During that era, New York City was known as the center of modern art. Among them, abstract expressionism, conceptualism and minimalism were on full display here. Many famous artists held grand exhibitions here and established their own studios. I.M. Pei spent most of his life in this place. When American modern art reached its peak in New York, many architects decided to use primitive forms to convey a concise and powerful artistic language, which also became their iconic design style. I.M. Pei's design philosophy is global. He emphasized: "In the architectural design process, there are three key aspects that require special attention: the first is the integration of the building with its environment; the second is how to handle space and form; and finally, from the user's point of view, to correctly solve functional problems. In this paper, the study analyzes the structural features of 12 architectural spaces of art museums designed by I.M. Pei in the context of the time line. It compares the similarities and differences in the spatial structure of the architecture of art museums built in the same time period as well as between different historical eras. The study focuses on analyzing the form and content of space and draws on the theoretical framework of contemporary architecture, namely the concepts of space within modernism. As a result of the analysis, two key characteristics of Pei's architecture are highlighted: sculptural and geometric.

Research on visual size and visual alignment optimization of icon set design

The industry's relevant guidelines on icon design point out that in the design of icon sets, designers should adjust the size and position of each icon, instead of simply unifying the size and position by icon bounding box, to ensure consistency in visual size and visual alignment. However, existing guidelines provide vague answers on specifically adjusting different icons, leaving designers to rely on subjective experience and intuition for adjustments. To explore the general pattern of visual size and alignment between different icons, we first measured the visual size and alignment of different icons through subjective experiments, analyzed the data to find the influencing factors. Next, we constructed a visual size optimization model composed of these factors and proposed an optimization method based on the reference square. Then, we measured the difference between icons’ visual alignment and bounding box alignment through experiments. Finally, we used expert evaluation to test the model's effectiveness in visual size consistency. We have reached the following conclusions: (1) For icons with the same convex hull, the perceived visual size is consistent; (2) To unify the icon visual size using a reference square as the standard, there are two factors affecting the visual size adjustment: the convex hull area of the icon and the convex hull area outside the bounds of the reference square. (3) The visual size optimization model helps slightly improve the visual alignment consistency of icons. These conclusions and the visual size optimization model contribute to establishing more rigorous icon design standards and developing plugins to enhance the quality and efficiency of icon design.

Research on the design of somatosensory interactive games for autistic children based on art therapy.

There is no targeted drug treatment for autistic children. Educational intervention and rehabilitation are the main ways to improve the ability development of autistic children. However, there are great differences in the individual symptoms and abilities. It is an urgent need for educators, practitioners and parents of autistic children to find effective ways to improve their cognitive, social and motor abilities. The author cooperates with the therapist to study and design the somatosensory interaction game for autistic children, which is a formal attempt of art therapy on the treatment tool, with the purpose of studying an effective and safe art intervention method. In order to verify the effect, the author recruited 26 children with mild or moderate autism for a six-week empirical evaluation, and the participants were randomly assigned. Among them, 13 participants participated in the art therapy of the proposed somatosensory game group (the experimental group), and 13 participants participated the traditional picture book group (the control group) that improved the emotion, cognition and skills of children, and the design style was more popular with children. The aesthetic design in the picture book could have an intervention effect on the participants, and its artistic effect could serve as an effective reference for the interface design of the game group. The results showed that the two groups had a significant impact on the participants in different aspects. The game group improved not only in terms of concentration and special ability, but also in terms of physical coordination and activity enhancement, it is inferred that the core factors of game therapy are sub-intervention, interaction and feedback, icon design and color matching system; the picture book group has significant improvement in interpersonal relationship guidance and language learning and communication. The results show that it is necessary to take more comprehensive and richer preliminary research on the development of treatment products for autistic children. Because picture book education requires children's initial concentration, it is found that picture book therapy has high requirements for teachers' classroom control and relatively strict requirements for picture book content, and play therapy can be a good complement to these problems.

Palette‐Based and Harmony‐Guided Colorization for Vector Icons

AbstractColorizing icon is a challenging task, even for skillful artists, as it involves balancing aesthetics and practical considerations. Prior works have primarily focused on colorizing pixel‐based icons, which do not seamlessly integrate into the current vector‐based icon design workflow. In this paper, we propose a palette‐based colorization algorithm for vector icons without the need for rasterization. Our algorithm takes a vector icon and a five‐color palette as input and generates various colorized results for designers to choose from. Inspired by the common icon design workflow, we developed our algorithm to consist of two steps: generating a colorization template and performing the palette‐based color transfer. To generate the colorization templates, we introduce a novel vector icon colorization model that employs an MRF‐based loss and a color harmony loss. The color harmony loss encourages the alignment of the resulting color template with widely used harmony templates. We then map the predicted colorization template to chroma‐like palette colors to obtain diverse colorization results. We compare our results with those generated by previous pixel‐based icon colorization methods and validate the effectiveness of our algorithm by evaluations in both qualitative and quantitative measurements. Our method enables icon designers to explore diverse colorization results for a single icon using different color palettes while also efficiently evaluating the suitability of a color palette for a set of icons.

Tales of a state of mind, body and space: The quest for the next luxury

Once upon a time, luxury was defined by rare and expensive materials, exceptional craftsmanship and iconic design. It was about acquiring something that only a select few could afford and displaying it as a symbol of wealth and status. However, as the world changed, so too did the definition of luxury. Today, the luxury market is experiencing a transformation that is rewriting the rules of what it means to be luxurious. In order to succeed in this rapidly changing landscape, luxury brands must embrace a new paradigm of leadership. They must be proactive in their approach, seeking out new opportunities for growth and innovation. And they must be willing to take bold risks and embrace new technologies and business models. So what does all of this mean for the future of luxury beyond 2023? It means that in order to survive and thrive, luxury brands must be able to adapt to their changing environment, to balance the tension between opposing forces and to create their own unique interpretation of what luxury means. They must also be able to innovate and create new and relevant experiences for consumers, and to do so, they must be able to think creatively and to think beyond the constraints of traditional models and conventions. This article details the rationale behind how luxury brands have an opportunity to lead the way in shaping a more responsible, sustainable and equitable future. It offers actions and strategies to understand how to embrace their mantle of greater expectation and responsibility, in order to use their comparative advantage to drive positive change in society.