I chose Xbox app as it has a variety of Icons. Among them, I selected ‘pins’, ‘search’, and ‘achievement’ as one group, and ‘settings’ as another.
Compared to Sumerian, which has included the whole syllable and read as logographs or syllables, the icons on the Xbox app are ideographs which symbolise the idea and concept with the pictogram. Mayan pictograph were assembly of phonetic drawings, such as ‘witz’ for mountain. The icons from Xbox app are semantic, which links a drawing to the word or the concept. Egyptian hieroglyphs has two meaning: semantic and phonetic. Icons on the app are semantic as it refer to the meaning that the icons hold.
Icons communicate the common value that society shares as usual. In order to know that this is a pin, the knowledge of its shape needs to be the cornerstone. A magnifier, is used when people want to look into items. The accumulated experience with magnifier let you know that this stands for search. The trophy stands for achievement, which is reflects the real world, where gets a trophy if you achieve the first place or some remarkable work. This makes our mind to match with the word, achievement. In my opinion, these three icons can be used without text, as long as the concept is acknowledged. However, although ‘settings’ icon is commonly used these days and worldwide recognised, I question why the gears with teeth is recognised as a settings icon.
Great insights on the meanings behind the icons – this site gives a possible explanation of why the gear is the symbol of “Settings”: “If you want to change how ‘something’ operates you need to alter the inner-workings of the system, which was often the gears.”
Check out this link for more information:
https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/60152/why-is-the-settings-icon-either-associated-with-gears-or-a-wrench-screwdriver#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20using%20a%20gear%20for,that%20of%20a%20traditional%20watch.
The gear for settings comes from gears being the inner workings of a mechanical thing. Setting generally adjust the inner workings of an application – it might be the presentation or could be adjusting the content you see or interact with. The implication is that you have to have some understanding of this metaphor. Good analysis overall though.
I like your choice of icons you chose from the xbox app. Also agree with you that there might not even be a need for text because the icons are so straightforward.