Your example doesn't invalidate my point at all because it's restricted to one particular situation: signing up for something. If you were selling shoes online

Your example doesn't invalidate my point at all because it's restricted to one particular situation: signing up for something. If you were selling shoes online instead, I think you'd be much more likely to agree with me on the importance of images, which would simply prove my point that "it depends". Consider what works better: * a description of a place and how to get there or a map * a description of a floor plan or a diagram * a description of someone's appearance or their photograph * a description of a piece of clothing or its photograph The OP said, "the most powerful tool on the web is still words". That might be true, but I disagree with CodeMage when s/he said that "words are at the heart of whatever you're trying to do on the Web". I don't believe that words are at the heart of Google Maps or Flickr or last.fm or countless other web properties that revolve around sound, images and video. If pornography were wordless, would people stop watching it? Do people watch it now because of "communication"? Words are important, but they are not of sole importance in general and in many cases are not of primary importance.