In general, button and call to action (CTA) text should tell the user what happens next.
A good rule of thumb to follow when writing the text for buttons is that the user should never be surprised by what happens after they click or tap. The text used in any button should be accurate, specific, and explicit—not vague. Do not use Yes and No for buttons. Say what action really happens when the user clicks.
Some more best practices for writing button text or CTA text is as follows:
- Always start with an action verb: Something happens when you click or tap a button. Say what happens with a verb.
- Navigation buttons are an example of an exception to using an action verb. These often use Next and Back.
- Use 'Create' for things started from scratch, e.g. 'Create Assessment', 'Create Dashboard', 'Create Audit'. Use 'Add' for smaller things added to an existing collection, e.g. 'Add User' (to a user list), 'Add Item' (to a list of items), 'Add Row' (to a table).
- Avoid 'Create New Assessment', 'Add New Assessment' – 'new' in this context isn’t need.
- Choose specific words over vague words: ‘Try it Now’ is a common call to action, however, it doesn’t really tell the user what will happen next.
- Choose words that logically align with the preceding content: if your headline says ‘Sign up for incredible deals!’ then your button text should also say ‘Sign Up.’
- Capitalise every word on buttons except prepositions
- For UI writing, do not use more than three words in a button, keep it short and simple. For mobile screens, very few characters will fit.
- For marketing writing, it can be OK to use more than three words if there is space, however, avoid having more than about five words. If it is too long, users will not even know it is a button.
The example below illustrates the downside of poor choice of button action words. What will happen if you click or tap?
In this example, there’s a 50:50 chance you’ll click the right one.