Part Three: The details · Words and feedback
Makers know what a button does, so the question never occurs to them. The person about to press it does not know whether they will be charged, who will be told, or whether it can be undone.
At the moment of pressing, people have questions the screen rarely answers. Is this the last step? Does my card get charged now? Is this public? In a tool used at work the worry is usually other people. Will "Publish" email the whole company? Will my manager see that I changed this?
The label on the button says what it does. It has no room to say what follows from it.
People have two bad choices. They can stop, and many do, leaving the form at the final button until they feel surer. Or they can press and hope, and sometimes learn the hard way that "Continue" meant "Pay."
Either way the product has spent trust. The first person never becomes a customer. The second becomes a customer who checks everything twice.
A few words fix it. Under its Reserve button, Airbnb puts one short line: "You won't be charged yet."
Plan: Team, 5 people
Start free trialPlan: Team, 5 people
Start free trialNo charge until June 14.
Cancel any time before then.
Therefore:
Beside any button that commits a person to something, say in a few plain words what will happen and what will not: money, who gets told, what becomes public, and whether it can be undone.
In practice. For each important button, ask someone who does not know the product: "What do you think happens when you press this?" Where they hesitate or guess wrong, that is the sentence to add. Keep it small and next to the button. A warning box in a different color reads as an alarm, and people skip alarms.
Goes with. The button itself should already follow BUTTONS SAY WHAT THEY DO (80). What you say must be true, which is HONEST STATUS (82), and the heavy warnings are kept for CONFIRM ONLY WHAT MATTERS (78).