: What icons can I use to represent "Essential" or "Desirable"? I'm putting together a brochure for a job spec, and want to put a table with "Desirable" or "Essential" attributes on it. Not sure

@Cofer715

Using icons for fuzzy concepts is hard. Most user will interpret them differently than intended.

To test: design the icons and ask a few people their meaning.

You'll be convinced to to add a label explaining the icon. With a label added, the meaning is clear but the need for the icon itself will be less. Of course the icon will help the user to recognize other 'labeled' content. But the reason icons are used in this way is mainly for their illustrative value. Adding icons is like adding typographical variations (quote's, lists, initial capitals, etc). It makes a document easier to digest. Most of the times it's a little trigger for a 'scanning' user to start reading.

That said, it ins't that important to have universal accepted icons.

I would go for a simple * (essential) and + (desired) icons. Asterisks are used in forms to mark required fields and the add symbol is a plus.

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@Merenda852

Forgive the bad webcam photo of my bad sketches, but:



Checked boxes for essentials (I see that kunl said this as well). For desirable, perhaps you could try to capture the look that someone gives when they see something desirable!

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@Moriarity648

Thinking outside the box on this; a simple triangle could represent Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

I can't think of anything that would represent it better, that can also be captured and conveyed in such a simple icon.

A simple triangle maybe with a few horizontal lines depending on its size would be a well thought out icon. It may be a little obscure but that's even kind of a good thing, could give the feel of an exclusive joke for the well informed. Its also a topic many teachers should be aware of.

Something like this:



or this:



or whatever you wish!

Further to Bakabaka's comment, here are some variations that you can use to represent both essential and desirable separately.



I'm not sure if the additional line here creates too much noise.



Fairly easy to see the difference:



Hope I've helped in some way. :)

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@Sent7350415

It is very hard and also very wrong to just make a guess in things like this without understanding the design pinciples or ethos behind the whole thing. But even so, here are my opinions. These are very general solutions, since they are made keeping in mind that no details have been provided.

For the essential attributes, you can make a

-checkbox

-tickmark

-an exclamation inside a circle or square

-a star * obviously :p

For the desirable attributes,

-a like, as in something like a facebook like.

-an upwards pointing arrow if yr going for minimalism or if you use the Exclamation concept

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