Graphics and Semantics: The Relationship between What Is Seen and What Is Meant in Icon Design

Visual icons can be considered as a means for designers to convey messages to end-users via the interface of a computer system. This paper explores the relationship between the users’ interpretation of icons and the meaning that designers intend icons to convey. Focussing on interface users’ understanding of icons, recent research has shown that it is the closeness of the relationship between icon and function, known as the semantic distance, that is of prime importance in determining the success of icon usability. This contrasts with previous research which has suggested that the concreteness, or pictorialness, of icons is the key to good design. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.