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I think, while icon + label is good for things like UI buttons, this is not that great for tables. There are a few reasons for this: - icons really work only as a small set (e.g. checkmarks versus crosses or similar) – so the only useful application is also in a context which is already highly selective and with low ambiguity. (Familiarity helps and should be a major concern.) - icons are useful for scanning for rows with a given property – however, to scan icon + label we must not only scan horizontally as well as vertically, but have also to scan items with varying column alignment, which isn't favorable for a vertical scan, either. So, if it is a case for icons, say, each row has a state out of a set of three, there shouldn't be need for an accompanying text label (this can be learned from a tooltip or a legend), which is also apt to destroys most of the advantages of having icons in the first place. Having both just introduces a mode change, which isn't helpful for scanning, either. If you must have both, put them in separate (adjacent) columns. (In this context, we may note that tables are really about reducing redundancy, though.) Moreover, to be meaningful in tables (or menus – yes, I'm speaking of recent macOS), icons should only be used to represent state or to represent actions that modify state. There are, of course, exceptions to this, but this may be still a viable starting point… |