Recently I have read an article showing the success of Call to Action buttons used in our Web 2.0 world today. It’s often subtle features that make the biggest difference in our perception of an overall product or action.

One of the fundamental concepts of good design is eye movement. You know you’re on your way to a successful design when you can direct the majorities eye where you want them to go. When designing a Call to Action the task to me usually became an afterthought. It wasn’t until I started importing my old blog entries at SSS that I made a link for Downloads.

The process to make such a button in my eyes was simple.

1. Examine existing theme.
2. Create a small button following the theme with replaceable text to represent the action.

I paid so little attention to such a thing that I would just whip up a button in five seconds just so that it would be finished and I may move on with life. Now while browsing a website, then moving my cursor to click on a ‘download’ or a ‘join us’ link I pause to think about all the times I mindlessly wandered to click on this link in the past. If I know that I could would have normally found this link with my hands tied behind my back and a patch over my eye then I know they had made a successful Call to Action button. Good design is often invisible.

The influence a successful button has becomes a great deal more than I once imagined. I sometimes wonder if some of the websites I’ve signed up for I did simply because it felt easy. Perhaps it’s more than a coincidence that every major browser (aside from IE) has a similar large Download Now button smack on it’s main page. Because it works. The next time we all design a website or a button in our applications perhaps we should wonder how that button will influence our user’s decision to click it. Until then, I really need to redesign my download button…