UPDATE:

Medium has changed the iconography for liking/appreciating stories from a heart icon to a clapping icon! The term associated with this icon is “claps”.

I just tested the new icon on UsabilityHub with the same question test as before:

Scenario: Imagine you are using an app that allows you to write blog posts and share them with others online…

1. “What would you expect to happen if you clicked on this icon in that app?”

2. “What text label would you expect to see associated with this icon?”

14/25 testers rightly assumed that clicking the icon would like or appreciate a story.

5/25 testers expected that the term “clap(s)” would be associated with this icon.

Based on my test, the new clap icon = “clap(s)” naming convention performed only slightly better than the previous heart icon = “recommend” naming convention, which 0/25 testers guessed correctly.

While the new icon naming convention is a small improvement over the old one, it doesn’t address the central problem that people misinterpret the meaning of most icons in user interfaces. Therefore, regardless of the icon that Medium decides to use for story appreciations, it is still advised that Medium pair its icons with text labels across the UI in order to achieve better navigation and feature discoverability.

You can see the results of my latest test here: https://usabilityhub.com/tests/bdc2b2ea6de9/results/df9a8d44b350