Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Icons

For a list of icon templates used on Wikipedia, see Template:Icon.

The use of icons in Wikipedia encyclopedic project content – mainly lists, tables, infoboxes, and navboxes – can provide useful visual cues, but can also present a number of problems. Guidance on principal issues is summarized below, followed by more in-depth discussion of each.

For the purposes of this guideline, icons encompasses any small images – including logos, crests, coats of arms, seals, flags – or other decoration, whether produced by small image files, typographic dingbats, emojis, or CSS display manipulation.

Icons

Appropriate use

Icons may be helpful in certain situations:

• Repeated use of an icon in a table. This should only be done if the icon has been used previously with an explanation of its purpose. Example: Timeline of the far future.
• They are useful in articles about international sporting events, to show the representative nationality of players (which may differ from their legal nationality). Example: List of WPA World Nine-ball Champions.

Inappropriate use

Do not use icons in general article prose

Icons should not be used in prose in the article body, as in "Jackson moved to Bristol, England , in April 2004." This breaks up the continuity of the text, distracting the reader (example).

Encyclopedic purpose

Icons should serve an encyclopedic purpose and not merely be decorative. They should provide additional useful information on the article subject, serve as visual cues that aid the reader's comprehension, or improve navigation. Icons should not be added only because they look good: one reader's harmless decoration may be another reader's distraction. An icon is purely decorative if it does not improve comprehension of the article subject and serves no navigational function. Where icons are used for layout purposes only, consider using bullet points as an alternative.

Do not put icons or other images in section headings; this is an accessibility problem.

Do not use too many icons

When icons are added excessively, they clutter the page and become redundant, as in this sportsperson's infobox. Pages with excessive icons can also cause loading problems for some people, and pages with over 1,000 images will have some formatting features disabled on the mobile website.

Do not re-purpose icons beyond their legitimate scope

Icons can represent a specific entity and should not be re-purposed to represent something else, e.g. because an actually appropriate flag is not available. For example, do not use the flag of the United Nations to represent the entire world, as this is not an accurate application of the official flag of that international organization.

Do not distort icons

Do not modify or use non-generic icons in a way that is not notably used outside of Wikipedia. See Wikipedia:OR#Original images for further clarification. One example of such a distortion is a user-modified fusing of North American flags to represent a narrow definition of "North America" as a whole.

Do not illustrate or introduce unpublished ideas

Further information: Wikipedia:No original research § Original images

Remember accessibility for people with visual impairment

Main page: Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility § Images

Every functional icon should have alt text, which is text describing the visual appearance of the image. Failure to provide this alt text will often make the icon meaningless or confusing to those using screen readers or text-only browsers. To provide alt text, simply add the description to the end of the image markup: for example, "[[File:Wikiquote-logo.svg|30x30px|link=Wikiquote:Special:Search|Search Wikiquote]]" generates an icon that links to Wikiquote:Special:Search and has alt text "Search Wikiquote". Image maps should specify alt text for the main image and for each clickable area; see Image maps and {{English official language clickable map}} for examples.

Keep in mind that the file description page link is required by most licenses for attribution and notice of license; see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Accessibility/Alternative text for images#Links and attribution for details.

Flags

Terms such as "country" and "nation" as used below should be understood to also apply to other uses of flags, such as national subdivisions and international organisations. The bulk of these recommendations are also applicable to official seals, coats of arms, and other representations which serve similar purposes to flag images.

Appropriate flag use

Flag icons may be relevant in some subject areas, where the subject actually represents that country or nationality – such as military units or national sports teams. In lists or tables, flag icons may be relevant when such representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself.

Words as the primary means of communication should be given greater precedence over flags, and flags should not change the expected style or layout of infoboxes or lists to the detriment of words.

The use of ship registry flags and International Code of Signals flags in infoboxes of ship articles is appropriate.

See § Inappropriate use for when to not use flags even if the information seems pertinent (in which case, add it in word form).

User choice: Registered users can add a .flagicon {display:none;}