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It seems a common theme these days for the UI design of many web applications to use icon driven navigation (so fixed sidebar on the left consisting of only icons for navigation)

Wondering why this is becoming the trend and if there's research suggesting it's a preferred approach, or just design trends moving that way...

Icons alone can save space in case of long(er) labels, but the tradeoff is a memory tax on the user.

Icons can give visual order and harmony to layout, especially in sidenavs. However, in a complex, multi-node nav, we are asking our users to memorize a lot of icons.

See the firebase console as an example:

In the expanded view, I get clear labels. Words like authentication would be hard to add below an icon in the closed state, even at small sizes.

Firebase does provide quick hover tips that show the label, but the tradeoffs are:

• I still may have to move up and down the nav to locate what I want.




• I get more space in the document area to work with, which is very useful for web applications where the user is editing, manipulating, and creating content, as opposed to viewing/reading.




• I lose the category description which helps group the items

Nielsen Norman Group has some thoughts on Icon usability as well.

if you find you need to ponder to come up with an icon for navigation, chances are it’s not going to be easily recognizable or intuitive for users.

Icon labels should be visible at all times, without any interaction from the user. For navigation icons, labels are particularly critical. Don’t rely on hover to reveal text labels: not only does it increase the interaction cost, but it also fails to translate well on touch devices.

The "why" is because designers like pretty pictures. So obviously they gravitate to icons. It also gives the designer more space, especially on a small screen. So most people think it's a great solution.

However, just because something is a trend DOES NOT mean its a good idea.

The argument AGAINST using all icons for navigation that most designers ignore is this: There are a very very small number of icons that ALL humans intuitively understand (think bathroom gender icons). Outside of that people must expend a large amount of cognitive energy to consider all the possible meanings of an icon, then put it in context with it's most LIKELY meaning within an app. Yes, people learn icon meaning over time and once they do, interaction is faster for subsequent uses but it takes work.

The human brain doesn't like this process of learning. We're creatures of habit but we HATE forming habits.

"Tooltips" were created specifically to address this context/understanding issue where there's limited space (look at your browser toolbar).

So before following the trend, consider how your initial users will feel? Do they need to understand how to progress very quickly? Worse will there be a negative consequence for doing the "wrong" thing? If so, words in interfaces provide much more context than an image so you're better off using text + icon.