The Icon Book

By William Horton

1994, 417 pages, ISBN: 0-471-59900-X (paperback)
0-471-59901-8 (book/disk)
Published by: John Wiley & Sons

User-interface icons are much more than on-screen decorations. Icons play an integral role in enhancing end-user productivity and an application's overall success. Written by a seasoned design professional, The Icon Book presents clear, step-by-step guidelines for designing instantly recognizable, fully understandable, and reliably memorable computer icons and icon sets for domestic and international use. You'll find heavily illustrated, research-based accounts on every aspect of the icon design process--from initial planning to refining and testing techniques--plus real-world insights for avoiding problems that can occur in translation to international markets. The Icon Book:

• Presents strategies and methods for encoding meaning in icons, developing iconic languages, and ensuring a consistent design style.
• Offers suggestions for representing complex, "unpicturable" concepts and indicates when not to use icons.
• Contains a chapter devoted to the use and misuse of color in icons.
• Includes a comprehensive icon glossary (which is also available on the companion disk).

The Icon Book is a valuable resource for user-interface designers, developers, programmers, computer-based trainers, graphic and multimedia designers, and technical writers.