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i'm working on a multi language mobile website and the translations of some of the buttons are turning out to be quite long

which we should be the right approach to this

  1. ask the local translator to come up with a shorter version.
  2. change the layout so that the button will be wider to accommodate to the longer sentence. the button will look slightly unusual tho
  3. come up with a multi line button variation

I haven't come across many examples of multi line buttons in mobile. is this a common practice or is it not a good one?

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    Could you please give an example of such a translation? I'm interested in the english (original?) wording and any translation that then would break into multiple lines.
    – Marvin
    Jan 18, 2017 at 10:19
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    Having worked on a few multi-lingual sites I'm surprised to find you're having this problem. Could you post a few English examples of the longest text buttons please?
    – DarrylGodden
    Jan 18, 2017 at 17:55
  • the languages i'm working with are bahasa indonesia (malay) and vietnamese.
    – Blue Ocean
    Jan 19, 2017 at 1:15

3 Answers 3

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It is better to keep the buttons with a shorter, clear text, but my opinion is you shouldn't take this like the most important rule and forget about the importance of the message you want the user understand.

For example, basecamp has buttons that appear on two lines on mobile.

enter image description here

It is interesting to see also the old design. I saw the image below on an article on smashing magazine. You can see they improved the message, the text is shorter, but is long enough to be relevant.

enter image description here

The best solution in your case is to ask the local translator to come up with a shorter version, as long the message remain relevant and be sure the design is responsive and the button looks ok on multiple lines.

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No 2 will look very bad specially in mobile version.

And with auto translation multi-line button can look pretty bad as its height would be long.

so you are left with the lone option option 1 which is always considered to be the best approach. Hope this helps!

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For mobile buttons, I'd suggest trying to keep to shorter words as if you are doing 3 words or more, it's too much text for a user to read when you are trying to convince them to click that button and with some type of urgency. It's always good to design the buttons with the longest possible text you would use to see how it will turn out.

You could always check competitor websites to see the choice of words they use for their calls to action.

In addition to making the buttons work well for user experience, the choice of words in the button is just as important for influencing conversion rate and stuffing too many words in a button might not help especially given the limited space to deal with for mobile. If you need further text to re-inforce the CTA then you can do this around the button.

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