No joke, I go on Etsy every single day. I browse Instagram as much as any other person, but when that becomes tiresome, I open up Etsy to casually scroll. I think what makes me come back to it repeatedly, without being triggered by a notification or alert, is that there’s a mix of finding what I’m looking for and being surprised and delighted with things I wasn’t expecting. Nir Eyal talks about the importance of the surprise and delight model (as related to Pinterest) in his book ‘Hooked.’ When users get something extra out of an experience that they weren’t expecting, they come back for more. That’s how I feel about Etsy. I may start by casually browsing for handmade ceramic mugs, and suddenly find myself in an awesome vintage sweatshirt shop. It’s always fun, and the experience feels seamless. But the point of this post isn’t to delve into Eyal’s model for stellar product design, or the fun of shopping for homemade trinkets when you’re bored, this post is about iconography Icons have been around forever. According to some sources, Saint Luke the Evangelist created an icon of the Virgin Mary and popped it on a panel for people to carry around with them. Cavemen and Egyptians used them too. Icons were an easy way to communicate with those around them and created a shared written language for people to use. Nowadays, icons are arguably more important than ever as we continue to push the boundaries in digital design. We’re trending toward minimalist designs that feature extreme amounts of whitespace, as well as usable products that sit on tiny screens like Apple Watches. We don’t have space for tons of text, so instead, we rely on icons to convey what we want users to do, how to do it, and when.
