Icons are overrated
Why colour and space are more important, and an experimental Android launcher as a proof of concept.
Since the 80’s, icons have been the standard for launching apps, based on the idea of a virtual desk with all your documents, “tchotchkes”, and a trash can to the side. After all this time you would think there would have to be a better way.
Before icons, there has always been the command-line. For power users, it can still be quicker than finding an icon, and many users these days use the Mac’s “⌘–Space” Spotlight feature as a quicker way to launch apps.
In this post we’ll explore a couple of insights into the ways we recognize objects, specifically icons, and an experimental Android launcher as a proof of concept.
Insights
For the first insight, I’ll tell a quick story from my experience in advertising. A prank actually, on an art director with a cluttered desktop like the one above. One day after work I decided to sneak onto his computer and rearrange all his icons into a very NSFW phallic image. The next morning, I came in early to watch his reaction. His eyes went super-wide and the first thing he did was call IT. The IT guy had a good laugh, and then without me seeing, I knew what he had done to fix it. Right-click, Sort by name.
I thought that was the end of the prank, but to my surprise he became even angrier. He couldn’t remember what he had named anything, and so, proceeded to spend the whole day dragging icons around trying to find what he was working on. Insight #1 — whether you’re an organized person or not, you go to the last place you left something, and you have your own way of grouping things. Organized chaos.
For the second insight, if you’re like me and an iTunes user, you were probably thrown-off the last couple of times the icon changed. From blue to orange, then technicolor. Each time, just the colour changed, but that was enough for me to look right past it in the Dock. I really had to look harder, only to realize it was in the same spot, with the exact same icon. I just didn’t see it because of the colour. Insight #2 — when it comes to memory, it appears that the shape of an icon doesn’t really matter. Colour is more important.
Each time it took me a couple of weeks to fully retrain myself it was there, so that without thinking about it I could open the app. To help prove this point, let’s take a look at the opposite case in the “history of Photoshop icons” below.
Adobe started using colour in their Creative Suite, which works really well, and I’ve never had the iTunes icon problem with Photoshop, since it’s always consistently blue. In-fact, I can move it anywhere in my Dock, and without much retraining I can find it right away; I just associate blue with Photoshop.
Even for apps on my phone I find myself accidentally opening the wrong app with the same colour I was looking for.
Working in advertising, brand colours are a big deal. We dive deep into the “meaning” of colours and the emotions they evoke. While true, we use colour for memory association even more. Think of your bank, or favourite apps, they usually have a unique colour you associate with. The colour itself isn’t that important, it’s more that we only have so much space in our memory to associate a colour.
Every company strives to “own” a colour that people associate with their brand. In Honda’s case, in North America (depending on where you live) the branding for Honda is either red, or blue. It’s not so much that the local brand managers think the colour evokes a certain emotion, but more that the colour in that area people now associate with the brand. So it sticks.
Given all this, I would argue that colour and space are more important than the shape of an icon. If this is true, then why have we been relying on iconography so heavily all these years? Icons work, obviously. You can tell what something is without reading it (the “WTF” part of the order above), but when faced with a sea of icons you need to swipe through, it’s not the best way to launch an app.
So this all sounds good in theory, but you don’t really know if it’s going to work until you try it. For this experiment, Android was the perfect fit. Without needing to jailbreak or root your phone, you can develop replacement Android launchers, and I’ve been using this one for the past year.
Haptic feedback
Adding a small vibration when you hover over a space, I’ve been finding myself launching apps without even looking at my phone. In other words, no colour, just open apps from the space associated with it. For people who are visually impaired, this could significantly help with using a touch device. If you’re reading this and know someone who would like to be a beta tester I’d love to hear from you.
The “WTF” gesture
Just like Apple picked-up on the movement people make when they’re trying to find their mouse pointer (the “Shake mouse pointer to locate” feature added in El Capitan), when using the launcher, you’ll find yourself making a back-and-forth or circular motion if you’re trying to remember where you put something. This gesture will reveal the applications on your launcher if you forget where something is.
Conclusion
The launcher does take a little getting used to at first, but you will find that it is a lot quicker. The idea is meant to be intuitive, without much training, and should mimic the way we find things in real life. With some more feedback and testing I think we can get there. Try it yourself and let me know what you think! ;)
View the project: Space Launcher — an experimental Android launcher using colour and space.
