In your daily life, you’ll see hundreds, if not thousands of Icons. You’ll see them in your car, bus or other form of transportation. You’ll see them in the supermarket, on all your food packaging to signify if they’re vegan or Fair Trade. Your work computer, your home computer, your TV, your phone: they’re all plastered with icons Why do we use them?

Icons serve as an important Visual aid in any human-computer interaction. Their primary function is to serve as a common visual language, so that users can intuitively understand what it does: the near-universal icon for saving is a floppy disk, for example. Presenting your content or messages in a clear, concise manner through icons will make it a lot easier for your users to get what they’re looking for. Icons are the perfect way to succinctly convey written content via visual cues whilst adding some style and uniqueness to a website.

People who use the internet a lot have become proficient at quickly skimming through pages for content that is relevant and interesting to them. As a species, we are naturally attracted to finding patterns, like in human faces, signs and icons. Clever use of Iconography directs users to what they want to see, and what you want them to see.

The Best Approach to Iconography in Web Design

With regards to web design, icons are a difficult thing to master unless you understand the rules of ‘shorthand’ in visual design. One good example of consistent and understandable visual shorthand is road signs, particularly the ‘STOP’ sign: wherever you go in the world, you’ll know that a Stop sign is a Stop sign.

Why? Because with some rare exceptions, the Stop sign is a red octagon with a white ‘STOP’ written in the local language. Even if you can’t read Cyrillic or Arabic, you’ll know what that sign means. The same principles apply to human-computer interactions. The power button is almost always a circle with a line going through the top. The volume adjuster tends to look like a stylised loudspeaker you’d see at a concert. We all know what symbols mean, so how should they be applied to web design?

A consistent style is important if you want to maintain a consistent tone and appearance with your website. As long as they’re readable shorthand, placed sparingly with an eye to how a user will see them, and don’t slow down page load speed due to file size, you can’t go wrong with whatever style you choose – whether it’s cartoony, starkly minimalist or warm and cheerful.

If you’re looking for experienced web designers who know how to use icons with skill and flair, you should take a look at Chetaru.

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