Buttons might not seem like the most important part of web design but they can play a major role in user interaction and navigation of your website.

Here’s a top tips list for perfect button design.

How it looks: It doesn’t really matter what shape or size the button is, within reason, just so long as it looks “clickable”. Don’t put visitors off with anything too simple looking or too fancy. A button should do what you think it will.

Use of icons: An icon on a button is likely to improve visibility, which helps visitors to navigate the website. For example, an arrow makes a great button icon.

In action: A button should have a hover and an active state as this can go a long way to conveying the appearance of the button. So perhaps in hover mode the button appears a shade darker, while in active mode it appears brighter. Or the button may look like it’s being “clicked in”, like on an actual device such as a TV on/off button. This help visitors to know the where they are at with the clickability of the button.

Size matters: In some cases you might want to draw a visitor to a particular part of a website so make this click-through button bigger and brighter. It will be a natural instinct to navigate towards this button.

Tags: web design

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 am and is filed under SEO / Marketing, Website Design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Posted by jodi You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.