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: Contributors 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 different interpretations.
Man, I hate these sparkles. Correction: I detest it as an icon however I exploit the heck out the ✨ emoji. I could even go as far as to say that my favourite factor about Dave Rupert’s introduction to net parts is that it’s suffering from ✨ emoji each time the phrase “superpower” is evoked.
(Correction for the correction: I really like every part about Dave’s introduction to net parts. Take the total course!)
Sparkles get nearer to turning into the unofficial AI icon each time a brand new one makes its approach into some new app’s UI — the identical approach some menus turned hamburgers and others turned kebabs.
It’s ambiguous, proper? I’ll say that I used to be stoked to see Notion roll out a recent new icon for his or her AI characteristic simply this week:
A face is attention-grabbing! I discover human heads much less compelling, particularly once they’re reasonable. Identical take care of robotic heads, which is one other theme you may spot within the wild. However a face, significantly one which’s on the whimsical aspect as a line drawing, seems prefer it might work on this context that’s particular to Notion. I think about one other firm or app having a tricky 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 numerous conditions.
And, sure, it animates as effectively:
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 effectively:
[S]parkles are used incessantly to symbolize not solely AI options and capabilities but additionally utterly unrelated options and content material, resembling visible results, offers or rewards, customized 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 promoting. There’s no approach for me to know this, after all, however I’ll unabashedly don my tinfoil hat for this one.
Anyway, Kate’s article is a way more thorough investigation that’s well worth the deep dive — it’s a variety pulled from a whole e book 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 interim, utilizing it to point AI-driven options (and even merely new options) could also be helpful. Over time, as AI-driven options turn into extra frequent and even anticipated throughout interfaces, there might 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 person wants.
