Can you pick out a brand just by their button design? (opens in new tab)

First of all, this is a brilliant topic and this article does a really good job at trying to get people understand the importance of buttons.

But, at the same time, I disagree with the author that buttons are the only thing that represent your brand and it is extremely important to get them right.

I would like to cite everyone a real world example - Google. They use a combination of blue (Search), grey( Gmail, Search, Apps), red (Gmail) and green (Adwords) buttons across their product ranges. And their buttons aren't the same across their product ranges - For example, the orange button on the Blogger platform is totally different from the one on the Search home page.

As a start up, it is important to do only one thing with buttons - Maintain uniformity. Google maintains uniformity within its product ranges, though they vary from product to product. (I use Google as a reference, because they are one of the most successful companies on the Internet)

So, if you notice Apple, they maintain the glossy-ness of their buttons throughout their product pages. In no one page about a particular product will you find a non-glossy button (like on the Windows Metro UI) mingled with a glossy button. This is the only thing you should be careful about. Otherwise, it's actually okay to use what you like. I've even seen many companies rip off each others' buttons. (For example, 500px and Stripe use the same blue glossy button).

Buttons don't represent brands, it's the colors that do. When it comes to buttons, you actually don't have much choice, and this article doesn't point that out. Buttons are usually call-to-action elements and need to be represented with good contrast or 'attention-seeking' colors to convert well. That is why most websites use Green colors for sign-ups (or blue, sometimes), because they convert well (You can read more on Psychology of color to understand this).

Important buttons are mostly colored red for the same purpose. (The Compose button in Gmail, for example). So in short, the color of your button doesn't (and cannot, unless you are someone like google with all the prominent colors in your logo) represent your brand entirely. Your brand is composed of various things - Color schemes, Logos, Typography, etc. Buttons are just a tiny part of it.

The color scheme for every brand is what that everyone recognizes. Just get that right, and you should be good.

Hope this helps.

Well, I had absolutely no idea on any of the buttons. So I'm:

> 0 - Congrats. you’re normal, not an internet nerd like the rest of us.

Perhaps that should be better written as:

> 0 - Congrats, you are strong evidence against my claim

I think my takeaway from this article was, design attractive buttons that look and work consistently, and then go do work that matters.

I didn't recognize one brand from their buttons (even Facebook which I kicked myself for not recognizing)

EDIT: Incidentally, I got 8. There were only 9 services that I have ever used, so I don't think that's too bad. Are there really that many people who have used all of those services?

I scored 1 (recognizied Amazon's buttons) but I'm confident I would have gotten much, much higher if instead of seeing the buttons with no text, we were shown the text with no buttons.

Are the ones I got.

Actually thought Square's was bootstrap.

The the average user, buttons styles may not mean much if at all, but for those that with a keen eye and pays close attention to minute details and pixels, it's quite telling which button belong to which brand.

Saw #4 and was wondering 'What the fracking frack? Is my Little Pony Friends part of this test?' Then I learned it's Microsoft…

The 'easiest buttons to identify for me was Facebook's and Google's.

I didn't even get Facebook even though I knew one set had to be Facebook..