Graphical Symbols of the Smartphone Interface and Their Relationship with the Virtual/Real World

While technology constantly develops with a speed hard to catch up with; each new developed technology provides basis for another one to emerge and its effects spread not only in a linear but also in a circular way. The point where users perceptibly come across with the technology is products and their interfaces. Way of making new technologies identifiable and understandable in users’ mind is giving them chance to interpret the unknown by creating points that can refer to what users already knew. In example, smart phones, which technology made an important part of our daily lives, do not have a real handset but they have semi abstraction of handset for visual representation of functions related to “calling”. Similarly, these smart phones operated with software use a “gear” symbol for the visual representation of “settings” menu; although they do not have such a mechanical piece actually. In this study, how real world objects are represented on digital world in other to create user perception is examined through graphic symbols used in smart phone interfaces. Within the study, literature review related to subject and product examinations are followed by a field study for determining users’ preferences on formation of graphic symbols.