One of the main motivations for icons is that they will save space on the front panel, or on a graphics screen. The other common motivation it to ease translation. Icons, when well used, also improve ease of use. Once a user is used to a device, he will be picking icons from small groups, and speed of recognition will improve comfort of use. The icons will be recognized more quickly and after a longer period of time.

One of the drawbacks is that icons do not suggest a way to pronounce themselves. This has the disadvantage that sometimes an icon can not be described over the phone to a telephone support desk.

While the task of icon design should be a job for professional graphics designers, it sometimes falls to the software engineer to provide icons for a simple graphics display, or to modify high resolution images so that they can be displayed on the graphics screen. For this reason we will discuss some of the visual properties of icons, and look at ways of drawing pictures when very few pixels are available.