Icons are an excellent tool to help cut through the clutter of a website and guide visitors to exactly what they need and are interested in.

Such is the case with E-junkie ( www.e-junkie.com )

The home page has heavy unavoidable content and the icons on the right nav help guide visitors away to the desirable sections of the site that they are interested in without having to look at an overwhelming site nav. Icons have been put to work to mitigate this problem.

A common problem for web designers is that icons can feel out of place. There are two key elements to consider when placing icons into a design. First, they should fit the size and colour of the site. This might mean customising a stock set of icons or hand building new ones.

If the site is already shiny and in your face then the icons need to match this style. A perfect matching of style and colour can be seen here on Indian Geeks ( igeeks.org )

The clever square style of the icons matches the distinct square styling of the rest of the page.

Icons are incredible little visual devices, Their sole purpose is to communicate lots of information in the simplest possible way. Their use on the web is no surprise. The internet is a complex environment filled with impatience, wandering eyes and easy distractions. It is allways in dire need of quick visual indicators. Icons serve as great helpers that show us where to go for what we need instead of scanning for text you can scan images, and often they will tell you what you need. This is no different from a street sign that uses recognisable forms to communicate quicker than text.

Sample useage of icons on websites:

Elixir Graphics

Cropix.ru