Three myths about iconography

This is cheap to get right at the start and expensive to retrofit. A few things about iconography that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

“It only matters for big sites”

Icons without labels are guessed wrong more often than teams assume. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. That sounds obvious written down. It is still the thing most often skipped.

“Our platform handles it”

Decorative icons should be hidden from screen readers. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

How to tell if yours is fine

The measurable part of design is whether people can find what they came for and act on it without hesitating. Three things worth confirming about iconography before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Icons without labels are guessed wrong more often than teams assume — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.