Kate Kaplan hits on one thing over at Nielsen Norman Group’s weblog that’s been bugging me:
The problem with this icon is sparkle ambiguity: Individuals in our current analysis research usually agreed that it represented one thing somewhat particular. However, what was that one thing? And why was it particular? That was much less apparent. We encountered extensively and wildly diversified interpretations.
Man, I hate these sparkles. Correction: I detest it as an icon however I take advantage of the heck out the ✨ emoji. I’ll even go as far as to say that my favourite factor about Dave Rupert’s introduction to net elements is that it’s affected by ✨ emoji each time the phrase “superpower” is evoked.
(Correction for the correction: I like all the pieces about Dave’s introduction to net elements. Take the complete course!)
Sparkles get nearer to changing into the unofficial AI icon each time a brand new one makes its means into some new app’s UI — the identical means some menus grew to become hamburgers and others grew to become kebabs.
It’s ambiguous, proper? I’ll say that I used to be stoked to see Notion roll out a contemporary new icon for his or her AI characteristic simply this week:
A face is fascinating! I discover human heads much less compelling, particularly once they’re life like. Similar take care of robotic heads, which is one other theme you’ll be able to spot within the wild. However a face, notably one which’s on the whimsical facet as a line drawing, appears prefer it might work on this context that’s particular to Notion. I think about one other firm or app having a troublesome time pulling off the identical icon as a result of this one is so carefully tied to Notion’s general branding:
I additionally like how Notion has a number of variations of the icon to be used in several conditions.
And, sure, it animates as nicely:
I’m not saying Notion’s landed on a silver bullet. What I’m saying is that they’re doing an important job transitioning from an ambiguous one to a extra significant one, one thing that Kate articulates extraordinarily nicely:
[S]parkles are used regularly to symbolize not solely AI options and capabilities but additionally utterly unrelated options and content material, comparable to visible results, offers or rewards, personalised advertisements, and new content material.
I get labored up about this as a result of I personal a pessimistic and assumptive view that the proliferation of sparkles icons reeks of selling. There’s no means for me to know this, in fact, however I’ll unabashedly don my tinfoil hat for this one.
Anyway, Kate’s article is a way more thorough investigation that’s definitely worth the deep dive — it’s a variety pulled from a complete ebook on the subject of profitable icon design. I’ll depart you with a sobering quote:
Lastly, I additionally predict that the icon’s affiliation with AI-driven options will get stronger within the rapid future. So, in the meanwhile, utilizing it to point AI-driven options (and even merely new options) could also be helpful. Over time, as AI-driven options grow to be extra frequent and even anticipated throughout interfaces, there can be much less of a must name them out. It gained’t matter that the options are AI-driven; it can matter solely that they’re current and meet consumer wants.
