The Proliferation and Drawback of the ✨ Sparkles ✨ Icon

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 typically agreed that it represented one thing slightly particular. However, what was that one thing? And why was it particular? That was much less apparent. We encountered broadly and wildly different interpretations.

Man, I hate these sparkles. Correction: I detest it as an icon however I take advantage of the heck out the ✨ emoji. I’ll even go as far as to say that my favourite factor about Dave Rupert’s introduction to internet elements is that it’s suffering from ✨ emoji each time the phrase “superpower” is evoked.

(Correction for the correction: I like every little thing about Dave’s introduction to internet elements. Take the complete course!)

Sparkles get nearer to turning into the unofficial AI icon each time a brand new one makes its means into some new app’s UI — the identical means some menus grew to become hamburgers and others grew to become 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 fascinating! I discover human heads much less compelling, particularly after they’re lifelike. Identical take care of robotic heads, which is one other theme you’ll be able to spot within the wild. However a face, significantly one which’s on the whimsical facet 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 troublesome time pulling off the identical icon as a result of this one is so intently tied to Notion’s total branding:

See how good it’s subsequent to the remainder of Notion’s icons?

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:

It’s the button that persists within the bottom-right nook.

I’m not saying Notion’s landed on a silver bullet. What I’m saying is that they’re doing an awesome job transitioning from an ambiguous one to a extra significant one, one thing that Kate articulates extraordinarily effectively:

[S]parkles are used regularly to signify not solely AI options and capabilities but in addition utterly unrelated options and content material, resembling visible results, offers or rewards, personalised adverts, 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 means for me to know this, in fact, 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 complete ebook 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 speedy future. So, in the intervening time, utilizing it to point AI-driven options (and even merely new options) could also be helpful. Over time, as AI-driven options grow to be extra frequent and even anticipated throughout interfaces, there will likely be much less of a must name them out. It gained’t matter that the options are AI-driven; it’s going to matter solely that they’re current and meet consumer wants.

The Proliferation and Drawback of the ✨ Sparkles ✨ Icon initially revealed on CSS-Methods, which is a part of the DigitalOcean household. You must get the publication.