Three myths about button and call-to-action design

Teams tend to reach for this after something has already gone wrong. A few things about button and call-to-action design that get repeated more often than they get checked.

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. Write the reasoning down alongside the decision, because the reasoning is what changes first.

“It only matters for big sites”

Buttons should say what happens next, not "submit". In practice this is a scheduling problem more than a technical one. The teams that stay on top of it are the ones who put it on a calendar rather than a wish list.

“We can deal with it after launch”

Sometimes true, usually expensive. Getting it slightly wrong is survivable. Ignoring it entirely is not.

“Our platform handles it”

Touch targets under 44px cause mis-taps on phones. The reasoning matters more than the rule, because the rule has exceptions. Assume whoever inherits this will have half your context and none of your patience.

In practice

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. Three things worth confirming about button and call-to-action design before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Buttons should say what happens next, not "submit" — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.