skip to main content
10.1145/1362550.1362591acmconferencesArticle/Chapter ViewAbstractPublication PagesecceConference Proceedingsconference-collections
research-article

A survey of icon taxonomy used in the interface design

Published: 28 August 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Many icon taxonomy systems have been developed by researchers that organise icons based on their graphic elements. Most of these taxonomies classify icons according to how abstract or concrete they are. Categories however overlap and different researchers use different terminology, sometimes to describe what in essence is the same thing. This paper describes nine taxonomies and compares the terminologies they use. Aware of the lack of icon taxonomy systems in the field of icon design, the authors provide an overview of icon taxonomy and develop an icon taxonomy system that could bring practical benefits to the performance of computer related tasks.

References

[1]
Blattner, M. A., Sumikawa, D. A. and Greenberg, R. A. (1989). Earcons and icons: their structure and common design principles. Human-computer interaction. 4 (1), 11--40.
[2]
Dyson, M., and Box, H. (1997). Retrieving symbols from a database by their graphic characteristics: are users consistent? Journal of Visual Languages and Computing, 8(1), 85--107.
[3]
Gaver, W. (1986). Auditory icons: using sound in computer interface. Human-Computer Interaction. 2 (2), 167--177.
[4]
Garcia, M., Badre, A. N., and Stasko, J. T. (1994). Development and validation of icons varying in their abstractness. Interacting with computers. 6 (2), 191--211.
[5]
Gittins, D. (1986). Icon-based human-computer interaction. International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, 24 (6), 519--543.
[6]
Lindgaard, G., Chessari, J. and Ihsen, E. (1987). Icons in telecommunication: what makes pictorial information comprehensible to the users? Australian telecommunication research. 21 (2), 17--29.
[7]
Lodding, K. N. (1983). Iconic interfacing. IEEE computer graphics and applications. 3 (2), 11--20.
[8]
Lidwell, W., Holden, K. and Butler, J. (2003). Universal Principles of Design. Massachusetts. Rockport Publishers.
[9]
Purchase, H. (1998). Defining multimedia. IEEE multimedia. 5 (1), 8--15.
[10]
Rogers, Y. (1989). Icons at interface: their usefulness. Interacting with computers.1 (1), 105--117.
[11]
Stammers, R. B., George, D. A. and Carey, M. S. (1989). An evaluation of abstract and concrete icons for a CAD package. Contemporary ergonomics 1989. 416--421.
[12]
Webb, J. M., Sorenson, P. F. and Lyons, N. P. (1989). An empirical approach to the evaluation of icons. SIGCHI Bulletin. 21 (1). 87--90.

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)EmojiChat: Toward Designing Emoji-Driven Social Interaction in VR MuseumsInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2387902(1-17)Online publication date: 16-Aug-2024
  • (2022)Mobile Menu Representation for ElderlyHCI International 2022 Posters10.1007/978-3-031-06417-3_78(581-588)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2022
  • (2018)The concreteness of searching module icons and their effectiveness in digital library applicationsThe Electronic Library10.1108/EL-10-2017-022736:5(800-810)Online publication date: Oct-2018
  • Show More Cited By

Recommendations

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Conferences
ECCE '07: Proceedings of the 14th European conference on Cognitive ergonomics: invent! explore!
August 2007
334 pages
ISBN:9781847998491
DOI:10.1145/1362550
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

  • The British Computer Society
  • ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
  • SIGCHI: Specialist Interest Group in Computer-Human Interaction of the ACM
  • Interactions, the Human-Computer Interaction Specialist Group of the BCS
  • Middlesex University, London, School of Computing Science
  • European Office of Aerospace Research and Development, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, United States Air Force Research Laboratory
  • EACE: European Association of Cognitive Ergonomics
  • Brunel University, West London, Department of Information Systems and Computing

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 28 August 2007

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Check for updates

Author Tags

  1. abstract icon
  2. combination icon
  3. concrete icon
  4. icon taxonomy

Qualifiers

  • Research-article

Conference

ECCE07
Sponsor:
ECCE07: European Conference on Cognitive Ergonomics 2007
August 28 - 31, 2007
London, United Kingdom

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 56 of 91 submissions, 62%

Contributors

Other Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

  • Downloads (Last 12 months)19
  • Downloads (Last 6 weeks)3
Reflects downloads up to 13 Feb 2025

Other Metrics

Citations

Cited By

View all
  • (2024)EmojiChat: Toward Designing Emoji-Driven Social Interaction in VR MuseumsInternational Journal of Human–Computer Interaction10.1080/10447318.2024.2387902(1-17)Online publication date: 16-Aug-2024
  • (2022)Mobile Menu Representation for ElderlyHCI International 2022 Posters10.1007/978-3-031-06417-3_78(581-588)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2022
  • (2018)The concreteness of searching module icons and their effectiveness in digital library applicationsThe Electronic Library10.1108/EL-10-2017-022736:5(800-810)Online publication date: Oct-2018
  • (2018)Approaches to Interface Icon ClassificationHuman-Computer Interaction. Theories, Methods, and Human Issues10.1007/978-3-319-91238-7_11(126-137)Online publication date: 1-Jun-2018
  • (2017)Applied Semiotics in the Context of Open Government Data (OGD) Portals in the Arab GulfIntelligent Human Systems Integration10.1007/978-3-319-73888-8_105(680-685)Online publication date: 31-Dec-2017
  • (2016)A Practical Approach to Icon TaxonomyHCI International 2016 – Posters' Extended Abstracts10.1007/978-3-319-40548-3_43(259-263)Online publication date: 22-Jun-2016
  • (2016)2D and 3D Iconography on Augmented Reality InterfacesVirtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality10.1007/978-3-319-39907-2_26(277-286)Online publication date: 19-Jun-2016
  • (2015)Unaided Icon Recognition in Mobile Phones: A Comparative Study with Young UsersThe Design Journal10.2752/146069210X1276613082493913:3(313-328)Online publication date: 28-Apr-2015
  • (2015)From action icon to knowledge icon: Objective-oriented icon taxonomy in computer scienceDisplays10.1016/j.displa.2015.08.00639(68-79)Online publication date: Oct-2015
  • (2015)On the Understandability of Public Domain Icons: Effects of Gender and AgeUniversal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Access to Today's Technologies10.1007/978-3-319-20678-3_37(387-396)Online publication date: 18-Jul-2015
  • Show More Cited By

View Options

Login options

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

PDF

eReader

View online with eReader.

eReader

Figures

Tables

Media

Share

Share

Share this Publication link

Share on social media