Definitions
icon
sign/symbol
metaphor

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Reference

Icon

J. Foley, 1993, The Guinness Encyclopaedia of Signs and Symbols, Guinness, p.236.

B. Shneiderman, 1998, Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd Edition, Addison-Wesley, Massachusetts, p.208.

U. Eco, 1976, A Theory of Semiotics, Indiana University Press, p.193.

L. Miller, J. Johnson, 1996, The Xerox Star: An Influential User Interface Design. In M. Rudisill, C. Lewis, P. Polson, T. McKay (eds), Human-Computer Interface Design: Success Stories, Emerging Methods and Real-World Context, Morgan Kaufmann Publishers, Inc., California, p.76.

S. Mealing, M. Yazdani, 1990, A Computer-based Iconic Language, Intelligent Tutoring Media, 1 (3), p.133-136.

John Foley describes an icon as the likeness of a 'scared image or representation as an object of devotion . . . Now also applied to non-religious representations'. Both have connotations that go beyond the image used, 'the idea that they represent are called iconic' (Foley, 1993). Therefore, what is relevant to computer interfaces is that Internet icons represent what they are. Ben Shneiderman writes that it is 'not surprising that the dictionary definitions of icons usually refer to religious images, but the central notion in computing is that an icon is an image, picture, or symbol representing a concept' (Shneiderman, 1998).

Umberto Eco explains that 'iconic signs do not possess the "same" physical properties as do their objects but they rely on the "same" perceptual "structure", or on the same system of relations (one could say that they possess the same perceptual sense but not the same perceptual physical support)' (Eco, 1976). Lawrence Miller and Jeff Johnson describe Pygmalion, the first large program using SmallTalk that demonstrated that interactivity with a computer need not necessarily be text only. 'The idea of using icons - images that allow users to manipulate them and in so doing act on the data they represent' (Miller, Johnson, 1996).

In order for a compound computer icon to describe its function it should be as Stuart Mealing and Masoud Yazdani explain 'graphically clear, semantically unambiguous, without linguistic bias (culture, race?), adaptable (open to modification to express shades of meaning), simple (perhaps created within a 32 x 32 pixel matrix)' (Mealing, Yazdani, 1990). As Eco points out 'we arrive at a definition which satisfies common sense' (Eco, 1976).

Document icons - expressing different shades of meaning