Academic Connections:
Art
Improving and Creating Computer Icons

Teach Me!

Goal:

You will learn about computer icons and have the chance to make some of your own.

What are icons?

Icons are pictures that try to express an action or a function. For example, you may have seen a box with a question mark on one of your word processor's toolbars. The question mark icon used in word processing software means "help." If you have a question, generally you need an answer or some help. When you have a question about the software, you can click on the question mark icon and get information that may help you.

Ancient Icons:

Using pictures to express messages instead of using words is not new. For thousands of years, the Chinese have used pictures to represent words. For example, in the Chinese language, a square with a line drawn through the center means "middle."

Computer Icons:

Computer software programs use many icons. Each icon represents a certain task the computer or a program will do if someone presses that icon. Perhaps you have seen a scissors icon on your word processor's toolbar? Clicking that icon will allow you to cut text from a document. If an icon looked like an eraser, what do you think its function would be? Maybe that icon will clear or erase information? Can you see how icons make using computers easier for people?

Useful Icons:

The best icons are the ones that users understand immediately. No one says when looking at those icons, "Hmmm, what does that picture mean?"

Not every computer icon is so good that most people understand its function as soon as they look at it. Perhaps you have not understood every icon you have seen on a computer toolbar. If so, your experience will help you in this Art Connection. In it you will get to fix, or improve, computer icons that you think are not as good as they could be. You will also get to create some new icons of your own.
Let Me Try It!:

This Academic Connection offers you two activities in the Let Me Try It!. We suggest that you do Part A, which allows you to improve current computer icons, before you move to Part B, which encourages you to create your own icons.

Let Me Try It!: Part A
Let Me Try It!: Part B