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Concept
Icon (computing)
Summary
In computing, an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system. The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a , accessible on the system and is more like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration of the actual entity it represents. It can serve as an electronic hyperlink or to access the program or data. The user can activate an icon using a mouse, pointer, finger, or voice commands. Their placement on the screen, also in relation to other icons, may provide further information to the user about their usage. In activating an icon, the user can move directly into and out of the identified function without knowing anything further about the location or requirements of the file or code.
Icons as parts of the graphical user interface of the computer system, in conjunction with windows, menus and a pointing device (mouse), belong to the much larger topic of the history of the graphical user interface that has largely supplanted the text-based interface for casual use.
The computing definition of "icon" can include three distinct semiotical elements:
Icon, which resembles its referent (such as a road sign for falling rocks).
This category includes stylized drawings of objects from the office environment or from other professional areas such as printers, scissors, file cabinets and folders.
Index, which is associated with its referent (smoke is a sign of fire).
This category includes stylized drawings used to refer to actions "printer" and "print", "scissors" and "cut" or "magnifying glass" and "search".
Symbol, which is related to its referent only by convention (letters, musical notation, mathematical operators etc.).
This category includes standardized symbols found across many electronic devices, such as the power on/off symbol and the USB icon.
The majority of icons are encoded and decoded using metonymy, synecdoche, and metaphor.
Official source
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