We’ve all seen the button that says, “Don’t Click Me”. I’m the sort of person that has to click them. I have to know what’s going to happen. And it’s clear that something is going to happen. So I inevitably click, and usually find some sort of gimmick or useless offer. But the fact remains that I did click that crazy button.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about web interfaces, and how we see realism bombarding the way they look. It’s for a good reason too. I’m going to want to click a button that looks like a physical button. It’s just natural (the curious kid inside us all). The more it looks clickable, the more we can click it.

The problem creeps in when we’re looking at a site, and don’t know what we can click. Even worse, what if we took the mouse away from browsing the web? You couldn’t hover over anything to see if it changes. Well in essence, that’s what touch devices have done. They don’t have a mouse, therefore you can’t see if things change by putting that little pointer over it. Before you touch that button, or link on your fancy iPad, you’re probably pretty sure it does something.

You have to be sure it would do something, before you actually touch it. Be sure to design your elements that are clickable, actually look like they’re clickable. You can’t simply rely on hover states to do the job. They aren’t always available. (i.e. all touch devices) If you’re buttons are important, make them pop. If it’s a link, be sure it’s underlined, or at least blatantly obvious that it’s a link.

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