Signs it is time to revisit button and call-to-action design

The advice here is unglamorous, which is probably why it gets skipped. A few signals that button and call-to-action design is due some attention.

Design decisions are the ones clients feel most confident arguing about, which makes it worth separating taste from evidence early. It rarely shows up as a line item, which is exactly why it slips.

The signals

• Nobody can say when it was last reviewed
• The answer depends on who you ask
• Buttons should say what happens next, not "submit"
• One primary style, used sparingly, keeps it meaningful

Where to start

Touch targets under 44px cause mis-taps on phones. Where this goes wrong is almost never a lack of knowledge. Most teams find the first pass takes an afternoon and the maintenance takes minutes a month.

How to tell if yours is fine

Consistency is the quiet half of design work: it rarely gets complimented, and its absence is noticed immediately. 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

Worth checking on your own setup before it becomes someone else's problem to fix.