A practical checklist for iconography
The version of this that works is simpler than the version most people imagine. Run through this the next time iconography comes up.
The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.
The checklist
- Icons without labels are guessed wrong more often than teams assume
- One icon set keeps stroke weight and corner radius consistent
- Decorative icons should be hidden from screen readers
- Someone is named as the owner
- There is a date to review it again
Why this earns attention
Icons without labels are guessed wrong more often than teams assume. In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.
In practice
Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about iconography before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Decorative icons should be hidden from screen readers — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
If you are not sure where your systems currently stand on this, it takes us about an hour to find out.