Are there any major advantages / disadvantages in styling ones buttons like Facebook, Twitter and StackExchange - vs. not styling them like Craigslist and 4chan?
Answer
Stylize buttons
Advantages:
- Buttons are more consistant with other parts of your design (provided your ui has style)
- The overall look and feel is improved (provided your buttons don't look stupid)
- Buttons can have more meaning (express different contexts)
- Users are very accustomed to styled buttons, as most of the major websites use them : google, facebook ect. So its not a jaring experience
- Brand consistency and awareness
- You look like a pro.
Disadvantages:
- More effort on your part to have a full button ui, where the unstyled version is complete out of the box. (Mobile compatibility ect.)
- If you are a bad designer, you buttons may not be as recognizable as hoped.
- Styled buttons have an overhead in code and graphics.
- Your styled buttons don't match that user's OS, which may be jaring for cavemen.
Beyond the labor, design perception and professionally concerns the real UX motive to styling you buttons should be MEANING.
Unstyled buttons all look alike. By styling your buttons you can provide the user with more information about that button, and what it does.
Consider for example the buttons that come as a part of twitter bootstrap: http://twitter.github.com/bootstrap/base-css.html#buttons
They suggest using button color to indicate things like:
- Grey : Standard action
- Blue : Action with weight or importance
- Green : Success or positive action
- Yellow : An action to be taken with caution
- Red : A dangerous or potentially negative action
Things to consider it styling your buttons:
- Color
- Size
- Shape
- Icon or Text or Both?
- One line of text or Two? Different size lines of text?
Every aspect should be deliberate and provide value to the user.
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