Pictorial Meaning and Mobile Communication
 

1. Thinking in Images
2. Convention and Resemblance
3. Knowledge and Visual Communication
4. Iconic Languages

4. Iconic Languages

Iconic languages designed for mobile communications should meet the following requirements:

(a) ease in producing special symbols
(b) fast recognizability of the symbols employed
(c) pictoriality (icons, as far as possible, resembling real-world objects)
(d) conventions enabling
       (i)   combinations of icons, and parts of icons
       (ii)  the generation of complex symbols out of simple ones¹
       (iii) the use of symbols standing for abstract concepts
       (iv) adding text (written and voiced) to icons 
(e) multi-cultural span and historical continuity
(f) dynamic capabilities (allowing for animations)²

Basic smilies like  :-) ,  ;-) , :-(  satisfy all the above requirements except (f). In particular, they satisfy (d) (iii), since they do not denote some particular object (e.g. "unhappy face"), or class of objects, but permit translations like "I am unhappy", "sad", etc. Indeed they convey a cluster of ideas without there arising the need for any translation into words. Both Neurath’s isotype icons³ and Aicher’s 1972 Olympic Games symbols fulfill (d) (i) and (ii). From the many excellent examples for iconic design fulfilling (e), let me here refer to Paul Honeywill’s “Print Belize” logo, juxtaposing patterns of Mayan carvings and Roman letters.⁴

Not all conventions need to be agreed upon explicitly.⁵ For instance, in the course of the 20th century cartoons and comic books contributed significantly to the standardization of a visual language vocabulary.⁶ Emoticons, too, as Honeywill puts it, "are a natural progression of language, developed by the users and not by a designed system".⁷
 

1. Allowing for variation, interchangeability (cf. e.g. Sassoon–Gaur, Signs, Symbols and Icons, pp.157f.), and indeed a measure of free play for spontaneity, but preserving visual harmony across the whole range of the icon family.

2. Design criteria for icons as formulated in the 1990 paper "A Computer-based Iconic Language" by Stuart Mealing and Masoud Yazdani are listed in the Sassoon–Gaur volume on pp.159f. Accordingly, icons should be:

• Graphically clear
• Semantically unambiguous
• Without linguistic bias (culture, race?)
• Adaptable (open to modification to express shades of meaning)
• Simple (perhaps created within a 32 x 32 pixel matrix)

As the Sassoon–Gaur volume recalls, this early work was undertaken in a simple computational environment; however, it was anticipated that additional design aids, most notably animation, may later be used. Through animation, ambigious icons become self-explanatory. 

3. As the Sassoon–Gaur volume puts it (p.160), the Mealing–Yazdani approach "can be seen as an attempt to add computer animation to the work of the Isotype movement. Isotype has attempted to avoid ambiguity and complexity of natural language. The Isotype rules for creating new icons can be incorporated into a visual language and extended." New icons, the volume goes on to list, therefore may be produced by:

• Superimposition
• Conjunction
• Concatenation
• Transformation
• Inheritance
• Duplication

4. Honeywill, Visual Language for the World Wide Web, pp.96ff.

5. See e.g. the useful references to D.K. Lewis, Convention: A Philosophical Study (Cambridge, Mass.: 1969) in Novitz, Pictures and Their Use in Communication, pp.28ff. 

6. Cf. e.g. Horn, Global Communication, pp.135ff.

7. Honeywill, Visual Language for the World Wide Web, p.123.