While icons are not necessary for links, when carefully designed, they can often make the links they identify more prominent, more attractive, more comprehensible, and more memorable.
However, when not carefully designed, they can do more harm than good. There are few things more frustrating, for example, than clicking an icon expecting one thing to happen only to find a completely different action taking place.
Icons, like the rest of your design, should support the user’s task. Thus, icons should be used only when they effectively and comprehension or communication. If they are being used solely to make your page look good, you need to be sure that they in no way detract from the communication and usability of the page.
Characteristic of good icons are as follows they should be identifiable out side the context of the page unambiguous, distinct and memorable, familiar, consistent (both across icons and across pages), and attractive.
Icons can be used as compact graphical representations to facilitate navigation. They are most effective when used to complement a link where the text alone doesn’t provide a clear definition of the link. Use icons to clarify the meaning of your link labels.
It’s useful to provide a text link along with your icon. A text link can be read by screen readers for the visually impaired. If you choose not to include text links, be sure to include adequate ALT tags to provide for screen-reading software.
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