Mark Richardson
MSc IP
Graphical symbols, commonly known as icons, are becoming increasingly popular as a medium to present information about computer systems and their command operations. Since their introduction to the computer interface in the early 1980's, icons have been made out to be an overwhelming success. As icons are graphical or pictorial signs which are related to their respective referents by means of a similarity relation which holds at least for one of their constituents, icons are claimed to provide the inexperienced user with a better chance to implicitly acquire a model of the application system structure.
These claims have been investigated and the results shown in this paper. However, after user testing experiments, it was shown that people do use Icons, but they also require the use of the ToolTip for some icons. Novices declared that they preferred using icons. However they obtained the worse results, which casts doubts on those who suggest that icons are there primarily for the novice. Expert users on the other hand said they least preferred icons but obtained the best results, which suggests that there is an element of correct icon usage being associated with learning via experience and not from deciphering the pictogram correctly the first time. The implications of these results are then discussed and a conclusion, as to the validity of icons on the interface, has been included.