Analogical vs metaphorical design of icons / by Meredith Payne.
Meredith. Payne · The University of Queensland · 1994
As icon-based manipulation interfaces are growing rapidly in popularity (Marcus 1983), it is necessary to gain a greater understanding of icon design, so that easily interpretable and understandable icons may be developed. Therefore, it would be beneficial to extend icon design research by attempting to gain insight into the respective benefits of Analogically-Based versus Metaphorically-Based Design of Icons. This thesis firstly investigated icons as they are used today, the advantages and disadvantages associated with their use, and what research has been performed over the previous years. This background information and research aided in developing a model within the area of icon design which was related to the more specific area of Analogical vs. Metaphorical design of icons. Once this model was developed, an appropriate experiment to test the model and hypotheses proposed was designed and conducted. The experiment used subjects from the University of Queensland's Bachelor of Commerce Program and the University of Queensland's Prentice Centre. The data gained from each of them experiments was interpreted and analysed statistically so that conclusions could be drawn. The findings of this research was that analogically based icons were much easier to interpret than metaphorically based icons, however if both design bases could be included in the design, accuracy of interpretation would be even higher. Users preferred analogical designs and personally believed that they came to an understanding of these icons at a faster rate.