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How to Design Good Icons
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
-a guide for programmers by Toby Smith TctS
Designing an icon that will be suitable for your latest program is not
always an easy task. If no thought is put into choosing a suitable name and
icon, then the program can be passed over by the user as he cannot easily
see what the program does. It is to help you in completing this part of your
program that I have written this guide.
The entire principle of the Archimedes desktop is to provide a simple
user interface with small pictures to describe each program. The program
name and icon are the only thing that the user can see, and they need to
give him as much information about the program they hide as possible.
THE ICON STATISTICS
Every program needs a name of not more than 10 characters preceded by an
exclamation mark (!) This must be accompanied by a sprite of size 37 × 17
called after the program. Authors may like to include a small icon of size
19 × 9 named the same as the larger icon with the prefix sm , this is not
necessary as the WIMP will shrink the larger icon if it cannot find one.
This guide presumes that you are perfectly able to handle !Paint, and
produce good sprites with it.
THE ICON STANDARDS
Any Archimedes user will be able to identify certain icons without even
thinking. The icons for programs that he uses regularly, such as those on
the applications suite, will become easily identifiable. Parts of these
icons should be included in your icon, depending on what type of program it
is. They should, however, not be copied whole, as they need some obvious
difference to stop them from being confused with the other program.
Clocks !Clock's clock face
Calculators !Calc's key pad
Editors !Edit's pen
Font utilities !Font's "F"
Painting programs !Paint's brush
Printer utilities !PrinterDM's printer
General printer utilities should always use the Dot Matrix icon as a
standard as opposed to the other printer drivers (LJ, AL, PS, IJ etc) unless
they are specific to one type of printer.
It is not imperative to include part of a standard logo, if your program
does not obviously fall into one of these categories then inclusion may
hinder the user instead of helping.
USING LOGIC TO HELP
Your icon must always be as logical as possible. The old saying of
treating all other car drivers as complete fools also applies to program
users. Remember that some people can get stuck because they cannot find the
key labelled "any".
A good example of an obscure icon is my first attempt at an icon for
!RunProd. The program was written to produce all the necessary !Run & !Boot
files for a program from details supplied by the user. At first glance the
icon looks like an obey file with things around it. You need to be told
before you realise that it depicts an Obey file wearing a nappy with a pin,
sucking a dummy, signifying a baby obey file. The best icon would depict an
obey file being produced by something, but the inclusion of the "something"
would mean that the obey file would be too small to be easily recognisable,
so a compromise was reached by depicting a run file, and letting the name of
the program suggest the "produce".
SUMMARY
To summarise, when designing your icon, avoid all attempts at subtlety,
and make the subject as obvious as possible. Where applicable, use the
standard application suite icons to help, and occasionally the name to help
point out other parts of what you are trying to depict.
The author can be contacted at the following address for copies of
the programs, "social" reasons and will carry out Freelance icon designing
if you really want him to. I have a large stock of public domain software
which I will swap.
Toby Smith (TctS)
7 St. Catharine's Way
Houghton-on-the-Hill
Leicestershire
LE7 9HE
(0533) 413850