In website development, the role of buttons is important in determining the next actions. Moreover, having a good button design will automatically improve your user experience. If you’d like to take a look on how to create better buttons, you can follow several steps below:
Make Buttons Look Like Buttons
With visual cues, people can determine the click-ability, then understand that an element is a button. Due to this, it is important to use proper visual signifiers on clickable elements to make them look like buttons.
- Shape
For a long time ago, square or square with rounded corners is the most popular button’s design. Due to this, users are very familiar with this button shape. Even though, in some cases, the button shape can be circles, triangles, and etc., depending on the style of the site or app. However, using unique ideas to replace the traditional shapes will be a bit riskier. The main point is to make sure that people can easily identify each varying shape as a button.
But what elements can help you identify icons as buttons? There are two elements that can give clear and distinct labels to icons as buttons. First, be consistent about the shapes to provide a more familiar experience for users. The picture below demonstrates this point perfectly.
- Shadows and Highlights
Shadows will help you a lot in making the element stand out against the background. Moreover, with shadows and highlights, you can easily identify an element as a tap-able or clickable. Since the effect makes the elements look like as if they can be pressed down.
Make It Easy for Users to Interact with Buttons
The next step is to make sure that your users have a good experience when they press the buttons. This includes size and visual feedback of buttons.
- Size and Padding
A good button should have bigger size than a person’s tap size. This will ensure the buttons you design are large enough for people to interact with. To choose a proper size for your buttons, you can rely on the MIT Touch Lab study. This study reveals that the average size of finger pads is between 10-14mm and fingertips are 8-10mm, making 10mmx10mm a good minimum touch target size.
- Put Buttons Where Users can Find Them
Locate your button in an easy to find area. Don’t make your users hunt for buttons.
- Location and Order
When it comes to web-based apps, you should determine about which placement truly works best for users. The right way to find out is by testing. If you design mobile navigation it’s worth paying attention to the best practices for buttons location.