Buttons are really important for any interface and getting them right is one of the most essential things when it comes to UI/UX design. this is because they are responsible for helping you navigate through multiple pages on the website. If the button is not appealing enough, the user might never visit that page no matter how good it was designed. In this article, we will discuss how to effectively design a button for websites using Design Principles.
Table of Content
Button Design
A button is an interactive element in a design that comes with a labeled action for user interaction. In any interface, buttons are usually used to provide an option to the user that they can click or tap on to get to the final page or get a task done. Button Design is a part of the overall design process where we design an interface and interaction with a button using design principles.
Button Design has a lot of characteristics, some of which are:
- Fill (Color or Gradient)
- Border
- Text/Icon
- Label
- Padding
- Shadow
- Margin
- Corners
How to Design a Button Using Design Principles
- Shape: The first step is to decide the outer characteristics of the Button like Shape, Size, and border, and decide whether the corners should be rounded or sharp. Most of us are completely used to seeing buttons as rectangular shapes or circles. if you have a shape that’s neither a rectangle nor a circle it’s gonna be confusing to the users. So choose these characteristics carefully.
- Padding, alignment, Text, and other characteristics: The next step is to decide on the inner characteristics of the button like Padding, alignment, text, Typography, etc. One thing that must be noted here is that your button must go following the theme of your entire website. Even a good button that does not go according to the website theme would appear odd. Design the button in such a way that it appears unique and easy to find in entire website but not too odd.
- Add it to prototype: Now that our Button is almost ready, we can add it to our website prototype and check whether it goes according to the theme of the website or not. If it doesn’t you can make minor changes in the prototype and the button. With this our button is a art of the Prototype.
- Final Touch and iterate: Finally you can test for design and iterate according to the feedback of the usability testing. Rather than just testing the button which makes no sense, one much add the button to the final prototype and test the prototype all together. After receiving the feedback, making changes in the Prototype including the button.
Uses for Button
A Button is used in multiple places in a web design, all these places can be divided into three categories:
- Navigation: Buttons can be used for navigation between pages in a website, Navigation is mostly done through Navbar buttons and menu buttons in a website. Not only within the website, buttons can be used to navigate within a webpage as well as beyond website.
- Filtering: Buttons can be used to filter the content visible on screen. For this we can simply create buttons and specify some filters on them. This makes it easier for the user to grasp the information being send by the website.
- Call to action: Call to Action is a component or collection of elements in design created to make a user perform a specific task, this task can be buying a product/service from the website or taking them to a particular webpage. Buttons are used to make the user perform action in any CTA (Call to action).
Best Practices
- Follow the Page Theme: In any interface, designing a Button must take in account the overall theme of the page. Your button must go in accordance with the theme of your entire website. Even a good button that does not go according to the website theme would appear odd. Design the button in such a way that it appears unique and easy to find in entire website but not too odd.
- User Centered button design: User Centered design is a series of processes or steps taken by the designers team in order to put the user at the center of the development of the product. With user centered design every decision is made keeping the user and the goals of the user in mind.
- Alignment is everything: In Button design, alignment is everything. In UI design about 80% of buttons have their labels not vertically centered or on the bottom, sometimes they’re not even horizontally centered. Our brains don’t really like to process something that’s chaotic and not in pattern so the more the button is misaligned and the more the label is badly aligned within the button the longer it takes for the users’ brains to process it.
- Consistency: In some cases, the buttons of the website on smaller screens and that on larger screens defers from one another. It might depend upon the stage of the company/startup or the market but the user should not find consistency across all the devises. This makes the design more relatable to the user when using multiple screens.
- User feedback and iterating: Taking feedback from the users can provide valuable insights about the design of the button and of the overall website and what things should be improved. In order to continuously improve the application we have to that user feedback and iterate our design.
Practices to avoid
- Visual Mismatch: Make sure that whenever you design a button, do it in accordance with the overall design. Make sure to not have any visual mismatch, even if your button design is very good, it may still not work if it does not go well with the overall design on the website.
- Avoid unclear Labels/Text: The button label or text must provide any value to the user. For Example, for designing a Call To Action for a e-book store, rather than saying “join now”, we can say “Join Now and get a free E-book” or “Join Now and get 50% off on your first book”
- Avoid improper shape and size: The buttons must be of proper shape and size. You must avoid shapes like triangle, rhombus or even square. The buttons should mostly be rectangular or circular. For designing desktop applications, buttons size should be between 32px * 100px to 48px * 200px.
Conclusion
A button is an interactive element in a design that comes with a labeled action for user interaction. In any interface, buttons are usually used that to provide an option to the user that they can click or tap on to get to the final page or get a task done. Buttons are really important for any interface and getting them right is one of the most essential things when it comes to UI/UX design. If the button is not appealing enough, the user might never visit that page no matter how good it was designed. Make sure to follow the points we discussed in this article to effectively design a button for websites using Design Principles.