[ACCEPTED]-Ideal button Size-user-interface

For what it's worth, according to the Vista UX Guidelines the 8 default button size should be 14 x 50 "dialog 7 units" (about 28px by 100px on a 96dpi 6 monitor), with about an 11px border from 5 the side.

Regardless of how you feel about 4 Microsoft as a company, I think they do 3 a good job with an uniform UI. If you are 2 working on Windows apps then I think this 1 guideline is a must follow.

I vote for buttons that do not get wider 6 as the form gets wider. Personally, I think 5 it is just ugly and makes the buttons harder 4 to use because your eye is no longer drawn 3 to the text in them.

Also, with 16:9 and 2 16:10 ratio monitors becoming popular, those 1 buttons will be abnormally wide ;)

Please don't resize the buttons...

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I think it would depend on exactly what 8 else is going on in your app. If everything 7 else resizes horizontally, maybe it would 6 make sense?

The only way to know for sure 5 is usability tests. Get real users, sit 4 them down, have them try it out and see 3 what they think, and whether they are confused 2 (or annoyed). Asking a bunch of developers 1 and designers can only get you so far.

It's not the size of the button that counts, but 7 what you do with the button.

Resizing buttons 6 based on the screen is fine if they stay 5 in proportion and they still need to have 4 a cap - this is normally done when the form 3 is launched and not during any resizes. However, resizing 2 the buttons when the window resizes - that's 1 a no-no.

When thinking about button sizing that need 4 text captions (i.e. not icon type buttons) it's 3 always good to allow at least an extra 60% for 2 non-english text, if you ever expect to 1 localise the app.

I agree that some scenarios where localization 5 of an app is needed requires you to take 4 into consideration the button size.However 3 that still does not call for buttons that 2 stretch to 75% of your screen in width(height 1 remaining the same).

Usability wise I think it is import to keep 9 buttons in a consistent size and position.

The 8 button should be anchored, the user should 7 not have to hunt for it. The user should 6 not have a "woah, why are the buttons so 5 big now" moment. Remember "Don't make me 4 think"

To me it sounds like one of those 3 times when a developer wants to resize buttons 2 because they can, and the code ts cool, not 1 because it would make a better user experience.

Buttons that resize would annoy me.

I'm 3 no designer, but that just doesn't sound 2 right.

Actually, that would drive me nuts 1 and make me very angry at you.

Resizing is bad, IMO, but do be sure to 1 anchor buttons to the appropriate corner(s).

Buttons should not resize, for a variety 19 of reasons. Firstly, it would be a hell 18 of a task to style and implement resizable 17 buttons. QAing them would be a nightmare, probably.

Secondly, much 16 of usability is based on pattern recognition; people 15 look for familiar concepts when they seek 14 information. When you show a user a bunch 13 of different button sizes, you risk confusing 12 them; they might think some buttons are 11 more important than others.

I am not opposed 10 to buttons that are liquid with the amount 9 of text inside them, though. Sometimes 8 a button just needs to be a bit wider to 7 accomodate text.

That being said, the text 6 inside a button should be clear, concise, and 5 to the point. If you are having to create 4 buttons that are super wide to accomodate 3 the sentence you put inside them, you need 2 to cut-down the label to a word or two that 1 the user can understand quickly.

If you create buttons, please make sure 7 the text has enough space left. Because 6 if you want to translate the text into an 5 other language (than english) you will probably 4 need more space.

We use a fixed size for 3 buttons but there are some exceptions (just 2 because our software has to be translated 1 into several languages.),