Designing Universal Icons: An Explorative Study

Goal of this study was to find common features of icons shared by people from different cultures that can be used to derive guidelines for the design of Universal Icons. In an explorative study, we asked participants to draw Universal Icons for various concepts commonly associated with interface functions such as On/Off, Fast/Slow, Light/Dark, Zoom in/Zoom out. The participants came from different countries, which, considering the number of participants, were divided into three geographical regions: Europe, Japan, and Asia (without Japan). Icon drawings of participants differed in the concept categories depicted as well as across the three geographic regions. Participants from Japan depicted more likely images with reference to humans or nature whereas participants from European countries more likely depicted images of technical artifacts or abstract concepts. Participants from other Asian countries fell in-between these two groups. Results of the study suggest that Universal Icons should use referents from the daily living environment of target users. Pre-studies can help to identify common associations with icon functions in the target populations.