In fact, the answer looks obvious. But it isn’t.

In essence, an icon in an interface works as a simplification for a complex process.

The word icon comes from the greek word “Eikon” that means image, and according to the semiotic definition of Charles S. Pierce, “icons are signs that relate to their objects by resemblance.”

This definition is sufficiently clear to linguists, semioticists, phylosophers, psychologists, psychoanalysts and other studious. However, it doesn’t seem very enlightening to the rest of us, out of the theoric communication universe. My intent ( a bold one) with this brief text, is to explain in a simple but objective way a few basic semiotic concepts that apply to iconography in user interfaces.

Two concepts need to be put on the table before we continue.:

1 – What is Semiotics?

Semiotics is the science of signs or the general theory of signs.
Signs always fascinated the great phylosophers, and have been studied since ancient Greek, passing through the midle age and through the iluminist phylosophers as well. However it was only in the end of the XIX and beginning of the XX century that a general theory was accepted. Charles Pierce in the US and Ferdinand de Saussure in Europe, started to produce a science for the signs. Everything that is or can be organized under the language form (verbal or not) its considered as a semiotics study object.

2 – What is Sign?

Sign is anything that, in a certain measure, represents or substitutes something to someone in a determined context. The word “star” in a written text, the light that you see in the sky and the phonetic sound that substitute the celestial object are signs that represent a flaming astro a few hundred million light years from here. The sign, therefore, represents what is real but it’s not the real object.

That’s why in a semiotic point of view, we can say that an icon in inteface is an image with some relation by simmilarity between the real object and its representation.

When we talk about image, it’s important to understand that image is always a representation of an object, even though we treat the image as the object itself.

I can point my finger to the surface of a catodic rays tube(monitor display) and say: “this screen here is your document folder”, even tough there isn’t any folder there. The object wich I am referring to, in a last analysis, is a physical area in a hard drive where i can save data. A paper folder can also be used to storage data, therefore the folder image can be used as a metaphor to facilitate the undertanding of the hard drive use.

Interface icons can be classified in: images, diagrams, metaphore, symbols.

The “printer” icon shows the image of a printer, that relates in a direct similarity to the object printer in the real world.

The diagrams bring internal and structural relations with the objects. The table icon in webpages development programs or database are examples of diagrams.

The metaphor keeps some sort of structural similarity with its object. The traditional home icon represents a chain of metaphoric significants related to the home ( your place, your space, where your things are, to where your return every day, etc.)

Symbols, although when they are used in interface they are considered icons, they are for the semiotics a differentiated category. Symbols are signs that refer to the object by a convention.

Symbols like alert sign, security, handicap access, among others, observe conventions. Green icons tend to communicate approval as well as red ones tend to be prohibitive, thanks to the traffic conventions. Even some icons of iconic origin, with time, can assume symbolic caracteristics. The “save” icon for example, is commonly represented for a diskette that sends us back to the time data storage was made in those kind of devices. With the hard drive evolution, the use of this kind of devices hás become obsolete. The truth is that nowadays many of the modern pc do not include diskette drivers any more. Maybe, a pencil writing in a hard drive would better represent the “ save “ task for our current days.
Anyway, due to a subjective pact, everybody accepts the diskette icon to be used as a representation for the save function.

Everaldo Coelho

References:

Semiotica & Literatura – Semiotics and Literature - Decio Pignatari

O que e’ Semiótica – What is Semiotics - Lucia Santaella

Icon Design – Steve Caplin

Usabilidoido – Frederick van Amstel