Considering using icons on a map? Think about this first. How many icons of a single type will be on the map? Three or more? Great. One or two? Not so great. If there are only one or two locations where than icon will be used, there’s a good chance that you should use a label for it instead of an icon.
Icons add an additional step for the map reader in that they require the eye to move from the icon to the legend to determine what it means. If you can eliminate this additional step as much as possible, through the use of direct labeling, then you should.
If the icon is a simple and easily understood one–for example:
or
then it may be an exception to this rule, since the map reader would not necessarily need a key to decipher it. Icons that need deciphering, then, should be kept to a minimum where possible.
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