Visually, single graphic symbols seem simpler and more appealing than busy words. But the closer you get, the more the sirens become monsters. As you try to read and understand them, they turn into the strange signs of a language you do not speak, then grab the interaction and bite its head off. Naked icons clean up the UI’s aesthetics at the expense of cluttering its logic. They obscure clear functions by masking them with a layer of dark symbols..

Source: On Icons | iA