February 9, 2026
Emoji Eye-Burn vs Icon Saviors
Stop Using Icons in Data Tables
Tiny pictures vs words spark a brawl—'eye-burn' or 'lifesaver'
TLDR: The author argues tiny icons in data tables make people think harder and slow down, urging designers to use words instead. Commenters split: some say icons cause “eye-burn” and messy copy/pastes, others swear simple icons speed scanning, while veterans blame apps for inventing confusing, nonstandard symbols.
Designer Cody Thistleward dropped a spicy take: stop cramming tiny icons into data tables because your brain works harder decoding little pictures than reading words. He calls it extra “cognitive tax”—more visual noise, less clarity. The post landed on Medium and immediately turned into Team Text vs Team Icon cage match.
On one side, the “icons are pain” crowd showed up with sunglasses and receipts. One user roasted an app for “non-optional-emojis-burning-in-your-retinas,” painting a vivid picture of emoji-led eye fatigue. Others chimed in that fancy tables don’t just look busy—they break real-world tasks, like copying data into Excel without dragging in messy code. Accessibility worries popped up too, with folks wondering how screen readers handle all those decorative doodads.
But not everyone’s tossing the tiny images. The pro-icon squad came in hot with “icons saved my sanity” energy, arguing that simple, familiar symbols cut through wall-of-text overload. One commenter asked the obvious: what if the icon is just a clear, simple shape—doesn’t that help? Meanwhile, a design veteran took a broader swing: the true villain isn’t icons—it’s apps inventing their own secret symbol language instead of using shared conventions. Translation: if everyone makes up their own hieroglyphics, we’re all lost.
Verdict? No kumbaya today. It’s “word warriors” vs “icon defenders,” and the comments turned a UI lecture into a full-on meme arena with jokes about retina-burn and Where’s Waldo in 16 pixels.
Key Points
- •Icons in data-heavy tables increase cognitive load due to non-universality and required cognitive translation.
- •Icons have high spatial frequency and strong figure-ground objectness, demanding more visual attention within small footprints.
- •Text at the word level has lower spatial frequency and recognizable Bouma shapes, enabling faster scanning and recognition.
- •Feature Integration Theory suggests text binds perceptually faster than icons, reducing processing time in dense interfaces.
- •Using icons raises visual entropy and cumulative cognitive load across tables, making text labels preferable in high-density contexts.