Good Icons Should Be Invisible (Home Office Digital)
A 2017 UK Home Office Digital blog post introducing the department’s icon pattern for internal services, based on research into how icons were used across the Home Office and wider government.
License: Open Government Licence v3.0 — https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/ (stated in the page’s own footer).
Key points
- Icons are a visual representation of an object, action, or idea. They can help users by signposting recognized actions, supporting wayfinding through content, and offering a bigger target to interact with.
- Qualitative research found widespread inconsistency in which icons were used and how, causing problems of both perception and expectation and increasing cognitive load. One participant asked whether there was a legend explaining what the icons meant.
- The same research also found many cases where icons made tasks faster and easier, such as signing out, navigating, and interrogating data.
- The pattern recommends a limited set grouped into three types:
- navigation icons, which help users move through a service;
- controller icons, which help them sort, organize, and adjust information;
- quick reference icons, which help them identify frequently used objects or links.
- Use icons only when there’s a clear user need, and test them repeatedly, both in and out of the context of the product.