Before I had thought about why we can understand icons very easily, it’s insane. In my opinion, icons are words too. They are hieroglyphics. Today, I want to talk about the icon in Amazon — “User“

As you can see, this icon wants to let us know he/ she is a human. You can see this human’s head and half of his/ her body. So, you can identify quickly. However, why we can understand it so fast? Let’s look back and see how ancient people write the word “Human” or “Man/ Woman”

p5.js Web Editor | Difference Between Icon and word (p5js.org)

After we watched this, we found it similar to the real person. Also, they have the same head and half of body just like the icon we have seen just now. In my opinion, Sumerian alphabets are close to intuition. If we want to let people understand these icons, we should make them simple and close to intuition. Just like this icon and these two words. On the other words, if people can identify an icon very fast and accurately, that meaning is a good icon.

Moreover, the word means man and woman, and man and woman can be understood as human beings. And humans can be understood by us as “I”. Therefore, there’s a similarity between the icon and the words.