Need advice: show App Icons or Custom Images in a universal search?

Hi all,

I make a shortcuts app for Android called Sesame Search. Think of it like iOS universal search. Type a letter and get a bunch of direct shortcuts to stuff on your device.

We can now pull images for WhatsApp conversations but we’re not sure if we should display these images or the WhatsApp icon in our search.

Why we should show the images:

• It’s cool
• We have the data
• Users will probably ask us to show them
• App icons can get repetitive. E.g. if I type “W” i’ll see a whole series of WhatsApp icons

Why we shouldn’t show them:

• It might make it harder to quickly identify what the shortcut is
• We already show images for your contacts. These will be very similar to the images from WhatsApp (same persons face).
• Especially since the text will be very similar, they’ll both have the persons name. The difference will be the word “WhatsApp”.
• We know users are on mental auto pilot when searching and that App Icons are specifically used because they can be instantly recognized and processed by the brain without conscious thought.

In sum, we think it’s cool and users would ask for it but we also think a usability expert might say it introduces mental stress to people searching. Here's a screenshot of my dilemma. What's the right design decision?!?!

Great design resource

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People (Voices That Matter) Submitted August 03, 2017 at 06:51PM by booyahkasha http://ift.tt/2u8d1iQ