Design consistent LabVIEW icons that combine pictures with readable text and clear visual identifiers such as banners or borders. Also consider localization implications of icons.

  • You can use both pictures and text in an icon. A good size and font choice for text icons is 9-point Small Fonts in all caps.
  • If you localize an application, follow localization guidance for icons:
    • Localize the text on the icon.
    • Do not use colloquialisms when making an icon because colloquialisms are difficult to translate.
    • Avoid using images in place of words if the images do not correspond to words of similar meaning in other languages.
  • Use banners to identify related VIs.

    NI recommends creating and saving a banner as a template. You then can use this template for a related VI icon and modify the body of the VI icon to provide information about the specific VI.

  • If you do not use a template, consider adding a border to the icon. To add a one-pixel border to the icon in the Line Color, double-click the Rectangle tool on the right side of the Icon Editor.
  • For library icons, NI recommends creating only a banner for the library icon. This is because LabVIEW applies a library icon to the icon of all objects in the library.

    If you follow this guidance, the icon for each object in the library then includes the banner only, and you can then modify the body of the icon to provide information about the specific object.