Their placement on the screen, also in relation to other icons, may provide further information to the user about their usage. The user can activate an icon using a mouse, pointer, finger, or voice commands. It can serve as an electronic hyperlink or file shortcut to access the program or data.
The icon itself is a quickly comprehensible symbol of a software tool, function, or a data file, accessible on the system and is more like a traffic sign than a detailed illustration of the actual entity it represents.
In computing, an icon is a pictogram or ideogram displayed on a computer screen in order to help the user navigate a computer system. Desktop icons for file/data transfer, clock/awaiting, and running a program.
