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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the trained and untrained users’ mental models compatibility with search module icons in three Iranian digital library applications, namely, Nika, Azarakhsh, and Simorgh.

The population of this survey consisted of two groups including trained and untrained users. The trained user group consisted of 174 samples, all of which were included in the study due to scarcity of the samples. The untrained user group consisted of 8,210 samples, from which 267 cases were selected through stratified sampling.

Results showed that the trained users’ mental models were more compatible with the search module icons than those of the untrained users. The comparison of three software applications showed that the mental models of trained and untrained users had the highest compatibility with the search icons of Azarakhsh and the lowest compatibility with those of Nika. Concerning the untrained users’ status in terms of their fields of study, results showed that users majoring technical and engineering field and those in agriculture had, respectively, the highest and lowest mental models compatibility with the icons embedded in the user interface of the studied applications.

Since the mental models may be incomplete or inaccurate, the study of the trained and untrained users’ mental models compatibility with the search module icons of user interface embedded in various library applications may help in assessing the software’ status and the designers’ level of success in conveying the content. This also may assist information literacy specialists to estimate the required amount of training for trained and untrained users.

This study aims to investigate the relationship between the concreteness of searching module icons and their effectiveness in Iranian digital library applications.

This study was a correlational survey whose participants consisted of two groups, namely, users and experts. The former consisted of 174 users, all of whom were included because of their scarcity, and the latter included ten experts of knowledge and information science. First, the effective and non-effective icons were identified by users. Then, their concreteness was investigated by the expert participants.

The results of the study showed a significant relationship between the concreteness of icons and their effectiveness, meaning that the more concrete, the more effective the icon was, and vice versa. Furthermore, it was shown that the effective icons were representational and semi-abstract, whereas non-effective ones were very abstract.

The designers, especially digital library practitioners, should use icons that distinguish themselves as effective icons, and avoid using non-effective ones. It is suggested that they apply representational icons more.

The designers of mobile interfaces and public environments, such as social networks, transportation systems and so forth, can use icons in their user interfaces that are more effective when they are perceived with more concreteness.

The investigation of the relation between the concreteness of icons and their effectiveness may help determine effective and non-effective icons. It can also be of help to designers to satisfy user needs and improve their site’s performance through using effective icons.