Had a chat with a UX guy that made me question my icon habits

I was at a coffee shop last Tuesday sketching wireframes, and this UX designer from a local startup sat down next to me. He pointed at my icon set and said, 'You're over-explaining every action with text labels, but users don't read them anyway.' He showed me his team's data from a test where removing labels actually improved task completion by 12%. It hit different because I've been adding text under every icon for years assuming people needed the handholding. Has anyone else found success ditching labels on familiar icons like the hamburger menu or search?

2 comments

2 Comments

amy30211d ago

Over-explaining every action with text labels" - that stung a bit when I read it cause I'm totally guilty of that. I actually tested it on a little side project last month, got rid of labels on the search bar and home button. Nobody got confused, and the feedback was actually cleaner without all that clutter. Sometimes less really is more.

sullivan.john11d ago

Oh man, "nobody got confused" - that's the part that really hits home for me. I did the same thing on a project last year, stripped out labels from the navigation icons, and was just waiting for complaints. Never got a single one. Actually found out people navigated faster because they weren't reading text, they were just going by the visual cues. Most of us just overthink it and slap labels on everything thinking we need to hold the user's hand, but they're usually way smarter than we give them credit for. Even with older users in my test group, the cleaner layout went over fine. Now I keep asking myself "does this really need a label?" before adding one and about half the time the answer is no.