1. Having a clear purpose for designing icons

There must be a clear purpose for designing an icon. You might think what kind of icons you need for your website or app. However, before this, you must be clear on why you need them. You wouldn’t need them just because you think they’re visually appealing. 

Even the prettiest of icons get lost in this crowded digital world. The best way to begin is by considering navigation. Some of the social media websites and apps have simple, yet practical icons. This can be great for easy navigation. Additionally, including text along with the icons can be of immense help for users. 

2. Understand your audience well

There are a few things you must consider before designing the icons. First is to never assume things. Next, be clear on who your users are. You might also want to consider why, how, where, and when they’ll be using your product or service. Taking the cultural norms into consideration is also important, especially if the design is targeting a specific country.

3. Do some careful planning

It requires a lot of attention to detail and careful planning to create and integrate icons. You’ll need to see where they would be used on the website or app. Next, you may have to understand how often will the icons be used. You might also want to see whether text needs to be used along with the icons.

4. Decide on the size of the icons

Another key rule for designing icons is to think about scalability and size. Most of the icons are created in the form of PNG files. Although they allow for pixel perfection, they don’t scale. Larger icons need deeper and richer designing while the smaller ones require less detail. There are two approaches when it comes to handling the size of the icon. 

One is the top-down approach. It involves designing for the largest screen size in the most detail. Then it can be refined for the smaller sizes. Second approach is the mobile-first approach. In this approach, the smallest icon is designed first and then the details are added as you scale up.

5. Have an understanding of different formats

Being familiar with different formats and having the ability to assess their merits can be helpful when designing icons. Earlier the common image format was GIF, which would certainly have quality issues today. The PNG format can help in achieving higher quality, but they aren’t scalable. The ideal file format that’s universal and scalable is the SVG format.

6. Never manipulate icons of other brands

In this crowded digital world, it’s a common practice among designers to manipulate icons and logos of other brands. They mostly do it to meet their tight deadlines and ease their burden. This can lead to a lot of issues later on and must therefore be avoided.

7. Keep a good balance between form and function

When designing an icon, it is essential that the form and function be balanced. This is something that has been a topic of debate for years. Some prefer form over function while others have a liking for function. In reality, both are important from the perspective of designing icons for websites and apps.

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Icons are among the elements widely used in this digital age. However, their roots go back to the ancient times. The importance of iconography can be understood from the fact that they were used in different human civilizations. Icons provide information visually without any distractions and this is their fundamental purpose.

They describe functions

Words can be used to explain the functions of a particular section of an app or a website. This is the most direct approach, but can easily put off many users. They may lose focus with too much text and skip the message entirely. 

Adding icons, therefore, would be a truly effective approach for describing the functions. They bring a fun element to the section and also visually explain the message to users. The people going through the section can easily relate to the icon and understand the explanation without much efforts.

They explain processes

A website or an app can have several functionalities that require the users to take certain actions. Most of the times, such actions need to be taken in a step-by-step manner. Each of these steps can be represented visually in a brilliant way with the use of icons. 

This also eliminates the need to use lengthy texts to explain the process. Many websites and apps use a combination of audio and icons to facilitate better understanding of a process. 

They help users in filling web forms

One of the best ways to establish a great relationship with your customer is by using web forms. The time spent on attracting users to the website or app must be complemented with efforts to retain them. One of the effective ways to create a great user experience is including web forms. 

Such forms must not contain any random questions, as they can make the user leave immediately. The questions must be relevant and accompanied by icons at the right places. The idea behind this is to get the web form completed instantly and with ease. 

They facilitate easy navigation

As they are highly effective in explaining concepts visually, icons can also be used to make website navigation easier. They’re often used as distinctive elements that are easier to locate on a website or an app. Once the user is able to locate the icon, he or she can be easily given the desired information. 

For example, let’s take a business that offers four different services. It can have the four services listed on its website’s homepage with each having a specific icon. When you click on one of the icons, you’ll be able to understand what the service is all about.

They enhance the look of websites or apps

Icons can add some style to the websites or apps. Many different styles of icons are available today. Among them are the ones that use shadows, reliefs, and planes. Some are linear while there are others that have 3D effects. When a specific icon is used on a website or app, it adds personality to the overall design. When using icons, it is important to see that they fit the website’s or app’s aesthetics perfectly.

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