The Proliferation and Problem of the ✨ Sparkles ✨ Icon
Summary: The sparkles icon has become increasingly prevalent in user interfaces, particularly in association with AI-driven features, but it suffers from ambiguity and lacks a standardized meaning.
This article features content from the book Digital Icons That Work: A Comprehensive Guide to Enhancing User Experience with Effective Iconography by Kate Kaplan (with a contributing chapter on icon design by Kelley Gordon ).
The Rise of the Sparkles Icon
Have you noticed how sparkles icons seem to be popping up across a variety of user interfaces over the past year or so? Everything — from the word-editing software I use, to UX tools, to various mobile-shopping applications — seems to have adopted a sparkles icon. What that sparkles icon means, however, differs from interface to interface.
The sparkles icon likely originated in image- and video-editing software as an indicator of special editing effects. More recently, it has evolved to signify something “special” or new (e.g., deals, promotions, or recent listings) — much like how the sparkles emoji is used in texting to communicate something exciting or intriguing.
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