TABLE OF CONTENTS As anyone who has been to the Science Museum with a kid knows, seeing a button creates an irresistible urge to press it. Indeed, young kids often skip from one exhibit to another pressing buttons as they go and not even waiting to see the effect the button has. Adults do it too. Have you ever pressed the button at a pedestrian traffic light even though the wait light is showing, as if it will make the little red man turn green faster? Or pumped an elevator button to make the lift hurry up?
So how does this translate to a website? Websites consist of buttons, graphics and text. The idea of a button or hyperlink is crucial to all website navigation. This button could be a text or a graphic. It is important that all visitors to your site can first identify what a button is, and that having found it, they are motivated to click on that button to get through to further information on your site.
As we have already indicated, a 3D button oozes appeal. There is no trouble recognizing it, as it looks like a button from the real world, and on a website we have an added advantage in helping the visitor hit that button. Website buttons inherently have three states. First, the dormant state of the button waiting to be noticed. Secondly, the 'rollover' state as the mouse hovers over it, will the visitor succumb to the...
