Buttons perform an action or activity in a software solution. Use this tag for questions about how buttons should be placed, styled, aligned or used to express their purpose and facilitate their operation.
86
votes
10answers
3k views
Should a toggle button show its current state or the state to which it will change?
I have a quick question about buttons that toggle between two states. (Think Play/Pause, or Shuffle/Regular Play.) As the title says, should the toggle show it's current state or the state to which it ...
121
votes
23answers
13k views
OK/Cancel on left/right?
Should OK button be on left of Cancel button or vice versa?
Are there any studies suggesting either of the solutions?
207
votes
12answers
36k views
Should I use Yes/No or Ok/Cancel on my message box?
Semantically, the Yes/No buttons are roughly equivalent to the Ok/Cancel buttons, but in general what would you recommend to use? Should I always use Yes/No or always use Ok/Cancel? Or does it depend ...
29
votes
8answers
4k views
Is a cancel button necessary in a web form?
Personally I have never used it. I don't put information in a form and then decide everything needs to be cleared. I would edit one field.
Plus cancel in a UI suggests canceling an action which is in ...
27
votes
12answers
3k views
Should the OK/Cancel buttons be aligned right or centered?
Where should I put the OK/Cancel buttons on my dialogs? At the bottom centered or aligned right? I've seen both and I personally don't care, but I want to create a consistant look across my ...
26
votes
3answers
4k views
Do users understand the browser back button?
You hear a lot about not breaking the back button on websites, but can you assume that most users know and use the back button?
Is it redundant to add a JavaScript or HTML back button/link on a page?
...
20
votes
10answers
1k views
What are the differences between buttons and links?
What are the differences between buttons and links?
52
votes
16answers
4k views
Do you need a search button with a search box?
On websites with a search box, should you add a button they can click on, or will users understand a search box like on this site?
The target group is not very technical, such as women aged 40-60.
29
votes
1answer
2k views
What is the significance of the three dots “…” on menus and buttons and how to use them right?
Adding three dots after the title of items in a dropdown menu seems to be a common practice (as you can see on the picture of a drop down menu in Google Chrome). They generaly mean that there is ...
8
votes
9answers
3k views
Submit Buttons on the Left or the Right?
We have been puzzling over where to put the submit button, on the left or the right. In researching, we noticed that many sites put buttons on the bottom right in dialogue boxes, and on the bottom ...
20
votes
12answers
937 views
Are 'share this' buttons really effective?
On a lot of websites (especially blogs), we find 'share it' buttons like this --> .
Personally, I never used one. If I want to share something online, I copy the link and manually share it through ...
8
votes
3answers
576 views
Design recommendation for a button
I have a form in which the user requests a report to the system by clicking the Send Report Request button. The system then produces scheduled reports according to the interval the user selected ...
9
votes
4answers
727 views
Is a cancel button necessary in a windows form?
After reading the question "Is a cancel button necessary for a web form?", I still ask myself, whether the same applies to a Windows form/dialog box.
Consider the following dialog box:
Compared to ...
5
votes
4answers
2k views
close button on the left or right side? [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
What is the important aspect to consider when deciding where windows interaction buttons should be placed?
From a ux point of view, does it make a difference if the ...
256
votes
22answers
11k views
Why do people clear the screen multiple times when using a calculator?
I've noticed that most people when using a real or a virtual calculator, they hit the Clear button multiple times when clearing the screen (even though hitting it once is enough), so I started ...
50
votes
10answers
4k views
How do rounded corners affect usability?
How do rounded corners on buttons and containers affect usability? Do they make buttons look more clickable? When used on other non-button elements, do they make the site look more friendly? I'm ...
34
votes
10answers
2k views
What's the point in electronic devices beeping on keypress?
Many electronic devices, mostly cell phones, by default beep on keypress. What's the point in that?
Once a key is pressed their state is changed and that's reflected in the graphic interface anyway. ...
9
votes
6answers
2k views
Save/Cancel/Close button behavior question
The attached image shows a dialog with a save/cancel button bank and a "x" icon to close the dialog. The question I have is this. Should the cancel button even be on the modal if it does not ...
15
votes
5answers
748 views
Toggle Buttons “Turn On” vs “Enable”
For about a year now, we've used toggle buttons on a couple of segments of our site. We try to be very consistent in our user interfaces, always using the same blue button styles for every clickable ...
3
votes
5answers
633 views
Button order Save | Save and next | Cancel | Previous
In an application, the user is able to edit the information of several objects.
The user is able to save and go to the next object.
What is a good order for this buttons?
29
votes
4answers
2k views
Where should the GUI light source come from?
I know that historically the light source on GUIs is in the upper left, casting a shadow on the bottom-right of buttons and the upper left of fields. Now, I see some places (like Apple) use a top ...
20
votes
6answers
471 views
Should “dangerous” buttons be big and red or small and inconspicuous?
In a web app, some people think a "Delete" button should be obvious and bright red, signifying danger. The trouble is that this draws the eye to the button and may make accidental clicks more likely. ...
11
votes
4answers
1k views
Is there a recommended location for a submit button in relation to a cancel on the web?
On the web, is there a recommended location for the submit (Go, Search, Submit, etc) button in relation to the cancel, reset or back button? I'm thinking the recommended positions makes it easiest for ...
4
votes
5answers
2k views
social share buttons best position
If you go to any site with content you will have social share buttons.
I was wondering where would you consider the best position for social buttons.
I saw 3 approaches:
bottom of the content page
...
5
votes
1answer
295 views
Is a 'back' button needed on a web form?
I am re-designing a multi-page web form that currently contains 'back' and 'continue' buttons.
I am wondering -- is the 'back' button necessary? If the user wants to go back, they will know to use ...
14
votes
5answers
772 views
What are the best practices of button alignment?
There are reasons to align buttons to the left, center, or right. What are the best practices of button alignment and what factors should we consider? Which buttons should be on the left, center, and ...
12
votes
5answers
1k views
Too many tabs - use buttons instead?
We have an admin page in our application that has toomanytab-itus (see the second set of tabs are stacking):
I've been tasked with solving this issue. Reorganising/grouping the content to reduce ...
8
votes
5answers
576 views
“Clear all” button history
Has anybody ever used "Clear All" button on the page?
Maybe someone know the history of this "magic" UI component.
I opened my eyes after this answer.
4
votes
9answers
235 views
Should the results of a calculation happen automatically, or require a button push?
This is a problem I've ran into several times, and I imagine that others have ran across it too.
Basically, I have a complicated equation, and I want the user to type in the values needed to ...
2
votes
3answers
408 views
Should I use customized social buttons
I am facing a cornelian choice.
Should I use custom social sharing buttons for UI consistency or should I keep them original for better recognition ?
40
votes
6answers
2k views
Should I provide feedback from a save button?
I'm currently in the process of developing a Windows Application which produces Word Documents.
In the program there is the ability to save your progress (different to the "Save as a Word Document" ...
75
votes
7answers
5k views
What reason could Nintendo have had for putting the A and B buttons the wrong way round?
When Nintendo brought out it's first game system, the NES, it had a controller with four buttons:
Select
Start
A
B
However, somewhere, a designer, in their infinite wisdom, decided that the A and ...
19
votes
7answers
911 views
Are grayscale buttons with icons usable and effective?
The image here is
old gmail
new gmail, when no mail is selected
new gmail, when mail is selected
new delicious
To me, the buttons are unlabeled and tough to discover.
I don't believe the ...
38
votes
20answers
3k views
Do I really need a login button?
We've been having a discussion in the office surrounding a login page we're developing for a new web application. The web application is in intranet-based application, and is mainly used by users who ...
12
votes
5answers
1k views
Are Flat Buttons Unusable?
What is your experience with the usability of flat buttons? The common critique against those buttons is that people can't distinguish them, and they only look like headlines with a background. But ...
19
votes
7answers
724 views
Should all button text start with a verb?
I'm reading The Grammar of Interactivity on UXBooth and finds it quite interesting. However, the article quotes David Hamill who said (or wrote):
Buttons are for actions, like “Get a quote,” ...
17
votes
5answers
766 views
What should be the difference between enabled and disabled buttons? (especially if they are grey)
What is the best way to show that a button is Enabled or Disabled? (especially if it has grey color)
For example what do you feel about the following button? Is it enabled or disabled?
How could it ...
12
votes
3answers
2k views
Smallest button size and spacing for a touchscreen
For a touch screen, such as the iPhone, what is the smallest size for a button you could get away with?
And how closely could they be shoved together?
I've got an app thats going to have a lot of ...
10
votes
6answers
486 views
Button bar: criteria and position
Me and my team are (re)thinking some UI details of our main application.
It's a "traditional" desktop application for the Windows platform. It's a business targeted application, and our customers are ...
2
votes
2answers
128 views
Social rating tool
I'm thinking of adding a like/favourite feature on my project but I'm currently finding it hard to choose a suitable social rating tool. I've spent days trying to think of an innovative rating tool, ...
17
votes
2answers
294 views
Social media sharing: Does simply showing icons stimulate action?
This is tangentially related to the question "Social Media Icons - show all visible, or group under 'share'?".
In my organization, we've generally found that displaying the individual icons for ...
16
votes
11answers
556 views
Separation of play and pause buttons for playing media
I seem to remember reading somewhere that having the play pause actions triggered from a single button that toggles is a bad idea
It seems to me that this idiom works well (e.g. pressing space to ...
11
votes
4answers
650 views
“Shaking” button leading to increase in conversion rate?
I'm just running an experiment on the UX Pin homepage. One group got a "shaking" button (the big orange sign up starts to shake after few seconds) and the other group got traditional "static" button.
...
10
votes
3answers
920 views
Should we use 'Title Case' or 'Sentence case' for headlines and buttons on the web?
I am wondering if we should use Title Case or Sentence case for buttons and headings and the web?
Title Case:
Sentence Case:
In Yahoo's UI guidelines I couldn't find ...
8
votes
3answers
789 views
What's the Best Placement for Save/Cancel Buttons on Very Long Forms?
I have a big project creation form having atleast having 30-40 fields where i have already grouped the relevant fields as a set(splitting into 3 columns) with proper headers, but still i have a long ...
8
votes
6answers
1k views
Difference between 'modify' and 'edit' buttons
Is there a difference between the words 'modify' and 'edit'? I am creating a form that will allow users to make changes to their order - what should the call to action button name be - 'edit your ...
6
votes
7answers
936 views
Red buttons in an e-commerce site?
I'm designing an e-commerce site with red buttons. It has a yellow/white background and it looks quite good that way.
Now, my boss finds the same, he likes it, but he is doubtful, because red could ...
12
votes
2answers
443 views
Which colors would best convey 3 difficulty levels?
I'm making a baby toy/game to learn numbers and I have a menu with 3 buttons. The first button enters "learn mode", the second button is an easy quiz, and the third button is a medium quiz.
Are there ...
12
votes
6answers
773 views
When to use the Back button vs. Cancel/Done on iPhone
I noticed that in some cases Apple uses Cancel / Done buttons, and in others there's only the the Back button.
In Calendar, for example, when you choose how often an event should repeat, you have ...
11
votes
8answers
233 views
A button with a link: understandable or confusing?
I'm working on a design of a touchscreen version of some web application. Since it's a touchscreen I would like all clickable elements to be rather big and easy to tap (it's a simple kiosk, so ...
