Buttons people actually press

A button is the smallest thing on a page and the only thing that makes money. Everything else — the photos, the copy, the layout — exists to get someone to press it. So it is strange how little thought most buttons get. Here is what we have learned from watching people use the things we build.

One button per screen, in the lead

If a screen has five buttons of equal weight, it has no button. People pause, compare, and often do nothing. Pick the one action that matters on that screen — call, book, order, add to basket — and make it the only thing that looks like a button. The rest can be links: present, quieter, not competing.

Put it where the thumb already is

On a phone, the bottom third of the screen is easy; the top corners are a stretch. The main action belongs low, ideally within reach without shifting the grip. The classic "Book now" tucked in the top-right corner of the header is in the hardest place to tap on the device most people use.

And keep it available. If the action matters, it should not scroll away. A slim bar at the bottom with the one button, on mobile, quietly outperforms almost everything else we have tried.

Say what happens next

"Submit" says nothing. "Send" is better. "Send my request — we reply within a day" is a button that answers the question in the visitor's head. Labels are the last piece of copy someone reads before deciding, so write them like the answer to "and then what?"

• Not "Learn more" but "See prices".
• Not "Submit" but "Book my table".
• Not "Click here" but "Call the workshop".

Make it look pressable

A rectangle with a clear edge or a fill, a colour that appears nowhere else on the page, enough padding that a thumb lands inside it, and a visible change when pressed. Flat design has taught a generation of visitors to hover hopefully over things that may or may not be buttons. Do not make them guess.

Do not ask twice

A button that leads to a form that leads to a confirmation that leads to a login has asked four times. Every extra step loses people. If someone taps "Call", the phone should ring. If they tap "Order", they should be ordering, not reading about ordering.

Then measure

Every button we ship is tracked. Not to make a dashboard — to know which ones are pressed and which are ignored, and to change the ignored ones. A button that nobody presses is not a design choice. It is a question with an answer, and the answer is usually the label or the position.

Small thing. Only thing. Worth getting right.