What is a View?

A view is a set of search conditions that display items that match the search conditions. For example, a view of contacts that have "Birthdays This Month" would filter your list of contacts based on a search for birthdays falling on a day in the current month.
By default, Salesforce.com includes a number of views for each category of items.

Views Included With Salesforce.com

Here you can see a list of views for Contacts. Selecting any of these views and pressing the Go button will display a list of contacts that has been filtered based on the search conditions assigned to the view.
The list of views can be edited so your list may not look exactly the same.