Learn to Design “Buttons” from Spotify, YouTube, Dropbox, Twitch, Uber, Airbnb, etc.

What is Button? If you ever used an application and see a rectangular-shaped element (sometimes circular) that has something written on it and when you press it, it directs you to someplace for achieving your task effectively then boom you just use the button without even knowing them.

How do Buttons look like? Buttons inside the interface design mimic the real-world buttons you've seen on the TV remote which helps users navigate and use things properly.

What is the Anatomy of Buttons? Buttons Anatomy is defined in the picture above which includes various things that I’ll try to explain in few lines below.
Colors: Designers use different types of colors to indicate different types of buttons just like the remote has a power button colored Red to grab the importance of the user.
Corner Styling: Nowadays, designers are changing the styling of the buttons by adjusting their corner radius that makes the button look smoother without even damaging the user experience.
Text or Icons: Text(Labels) or Icons helps users to understand what a button does if you remove them it’ll leave your user thinking what exactly that button does, and if the app has more than one button your user is sure going to a mental hospital.
Margin and Padding: Buttons are used together with various elements like Texts and Images, making the interface cluttery; therefore, designers use padding and margins for better spacing. Margins are Outer Spacing and Padding is Inner Spacing of the button.
Shadows: Designers also prefer using shadows sometimes to give the button a feel of elevation that mimics the real-world button styling.

How Can I Learn to Design Buttons? Now you ask the question that I’m waiting to answer.. And the answer is to Learn from the Experts in the User Interface Industry and those experts and not from sites like Dribbble or Behance, they are from the companies that create apps for real-user and have a user base that tests their design daily.

I’ve picked up some of the best-designed apps on the app store that definitely worth breaking down to learn about designing buttons.
Let’s Start Learning

Now, you have learned the basics that you needed to therefore let’s begin talking about the pro lessons I've learned from the Apps on the App Store that helps me in becoming a better “Button Designer”

All of the Lessons are not taken from one app particularly, they are like universal lessons for designing buttons that apply for all buttons, so with that said let’s learn the first lesson that helps me even today..
#1 Design the Buttons with Consistency.

Consistency is the first lesson I’ve learned from the apps as when I saw every application in detail from Spotify to Dropbox, from Airbnb to Uber all of them follow the same rule of Consistency while designing the buttons.




After analyzing and using hundreds of apps, I have found that they all have designed their button with similar designs, if some apps have rounded buttons like Spotify, Pinterest, or semi-rounded like Twitch or Dropbox, they have that styling all over their app for consistency.

First Lesson Learned: Design buttons with consistency as they help users remember the button's styling properly while using the particular applications.
#2 Make The Labels Short and Clear

While designing buttons always take care of their labels, just like the big apps do. they focus on making their labels as clear as possible so that users don’t have to read a lot before clicking a button most of them just use simple sentences sometimes to explain things better but not more than that.




Every big and popular app on the app store use this lesson as they all want to design their button with simplicity and giving simple names to button helps them do so, if every app on the app store uses different labels for a single button then it’ll make your user remember some not so useful things.

as a human being, we love to use familiar things because our brain doesn’t like to remember new things and making labels like other do or adding short words on to the button help your users a lot.

Second Lessons Learned: Make sure you give short and clear labels to your button because this helps your user save their time and efforts. Use familiar labels like sign up, download, login, next, play, for ease of use.
#3 Don’t Forget About Whitespace

Whitespaces are necessary for styling better buttons, as we know we use various elements like text, images, icons, with buttons so it is important to tell the user the difference between them and have much spacing so that the user can click any button without touching the another.




Using whitespace around the button separated the button from the whole content which forces the user to click on them, this is physiological, as if there is something different we tend to focus on it more and we do it subconsciously. so adding whitespace will work with you.

Third Lesson Learned: Design interfaces with Whitespaces around the button, as it helps in better viability of the buttons and also helps the user to click one of them easily. if you make the clutter of button without whitespace your user will click the button they don’t want to, as a result, your user will uninstall your app and install your competitor’s app.
#4 Make Buttons Easy to Find

Make your button purely visible to your user's eyes, if the user has to hunt the buttons your user will get frustrated. Make your buttons bigger with the help of increasing size, improving the shape, and increasing the margin and padding to make users notice that it is the button we have to click.




By changing some styling like size, colors, you’ll be able to design a button that is easy to find, you don’t have to make bigger buttons for making your buttons stand out you can do it by making simple twisting and turning things like typography, colors, corner radius, shadows, etc.


Warning: Don’t do it a lot, anything in excess will do more harm than good.

Lesson Fourth Learned: Try to make your button as visible as possible because it helps your user to click on the button to perform some task as well as you’ll make your application more engaging which definitely improves your profits one day. use colors, bold labels, highlighted styling for better visibility.
#5 Describe, What Buttons Will Do!!

Describe user what task the button will do when you click on them, you can use explaining labels, text along with the buttons, illustrations, to help in explaining to your user about the use of the button. make the explanation as simple as possible, if you don’t want to frustrate your users.




If your app offers complex things which user don’t use every day than just add a line of text that explains the work on the button just like dropbox. Uber also did something like that but Spotify didn’t as we all listen to songs from centuries and we all know how to play a song rather than uploading data to the cloud storage of dropbox.


Fun Fact: Many people think that Cloud Storage means saving files in real clouds

Lesson Fifth Learned: Every big app explains their use of what their button does, sometimes with short labels and sometimes with the tutorial or visuals. If your application also offers something complex with buttons don’t forget to explain what your button will do what you pressed it.
#6 Size Them Properly.

Make your button clickable especially for mobile phones as users have to tap from their fingers which are not point accurate, make your button size enough bigger for your user's hand size so that users can click on the button without working too hard to do it.




for designing the perfect sized button that the user can tap on easily you can go with the rule of designing mobile buttons over 40x40 pixels as we operate mobile with fingers and our fingers aren’t accurate like stylus or mouse cursor. for the web, you can use smaller buttons as the cursor can point to it easily.

Lesson Sixth Learned: Size your button Properly, make your high priority button bigger and low priority button small so that your user can tap on the button easily. The less user has to struggle, the more user will love your app.
#7 Align the Content Inside Buttons

one of the most important points you should note as all of the big apps follow this lesson. Make your content like labels, icons, aligned properly as it gives the user a feeling that your app is developed properly. Using Center alignment because it helps in better visibility of the text even in rounded buttons.




Every big app on the app store aligns its button, this isn’t the exception you have to do it because this is so widely used that users get addicted to it, if they see buttons with left or right alignment they feel that this button is not designing properly.

Lesson Seventh Learned: Almost every app use Alignment inside buttons to arrange their text and icons properly for better viability and making user tap on the label which gives the user a feeling they tap the right button, every button In real-world does this and you should also.
#8 Mind The Order

While designing your interface take care of the order of your button, by the order I mean to place the button accordingly. First, clear your goal and then design your buttons. If you want to make a user signup then your goal is to make the user signup, so place the signup button at the first place of your button’s order.




Design buttons in order for better usability of your application, user have less time and much to do so make the high priority buttons bigger and low priority buttons smaller, don't remove the low priority button else just make them smaller in size (above the minimum i.e. 40x40) which works pretty well.

Lesson Eighth Learned: Order your buttons by prioritizing them. Higher the priority, higher the level of the button in your order.. lower the priority lower the level of the button in the order. You can only find your priorities if you have your goals clear.
#9 Avoid Using Too Many Buttons

Using Various Buttons on different screens works but when you place all those buttons into one screen it’ll overwhelm the user which not a great way for designing the interface. So make sure you have fewer buttons and add the important ones.




Use fewer buttons as we already understand the power of fewer labels, now you have to design your buttons less.. the lesser your button the more your user can make a decision of doing or buying something in your app easily.

Lesson Ninth Learned: Use less but important Buttons on the screen which helps you clear up some space for other content and also help user to make the clear decision without thinking a lot. Too many buttons create stress and user become frustrated, so make your design simple with fewer buttons.
#10 Provide Feedback

Many designers take this thing for granted but turns out that providing feedbacks (when the user taps on a button) really helps the user. Feedbacks can be audible or visual which means you can put a sound when the user clicks the button like Facebook’s Like button or you can change shape or text when the user taps on the button like Spotify.




If you don’t get the response of your action in visuals or sound you many times feel that that thing doesn’t happen. If you just go to the toilet and flush out but you don’t see water coming or you didn’t listen to the sound of water you’ll but your stuff gets flushed, then you’ll freak out. just like that user freaks out when they see something happens without giving the feedback.


Every Action Has a Reaction, therefore users expected something to happen when they click on something like buttons.

Lesson Tenth Learned: Feedbacks are an important part of designing buttons. Just like when you switch the fan's button on or off it makes sound and provide visuals effect, designers have to put that real-world thing into the digital world.
Bonus: Test Your Buttons And Improve Continuously

As you read till the end, I have a bonus point for you that every big app in the universe does for their continuous growth and success and that is to Test your buttons and Improve the faults whenever you find one as quickly as possible.

There is nobody better than your audience who can test your app as they use it daily and provide feedback regularly.
TL;DR Take-Aways

To sum up this article, I’ve written some points below that sum up the whole lessons I’ve Learned by analyzing big apps buttons in one line, if you like any lesson select it and highlight it.. that'll help you a lot.
Design your buttons the same all over your app for better consistency
Don’t forget to add whitespace around your buttons.
Make their labels short and clear for better understanding.
Make your button visible so that users can find it easily.
Label your button according to what they’ll do when the user clicks it.
Size your buttons properly so that your users can easily touch them.
Align the content inside your buttons for better looks.
Arrange your buttons in order (from high to low priority)
Avoid using too many buttons if you don’t want to confuse your users.
Provide visual or audio feedback when the user clicks your button.

Bonus: Test your buttons with your audience and improve continuously by listening to your user's feedback.

thanks a lot for reading till the end, I hope you take ways some useful stuff from this article that’ll help you in becoming a better button designer. I don’t want your follow or clap, I just want you to follow these points in your next project as my main goal is to educate you to design buttons.

thanks for reading.