Question

GUI: should a button represent the current state or the state to be achieved through clicking the button?
I’ve seen both and it sometimes misleads the user. what do you think?

Answer 1

The label on the button should reflect what the button does, i.e. it should describe the change the button makes.

For example, if you have a call logging system a button should say “Close Call” and the user can click it to close the call. The button should not have the label “Call is Open” and the user clicks to change the call status as that’s very counter-intuitive, since the button is effectively doing the opposite to what it says on it.

In my opinion the label – and so the function – of a button should rarely, if ever, change. A button is supposed to be a like a physical button and they usually only do a single thing. (There are a few exceptions like play-pause on a media player where it’s OK for the button label/icon to change, but at least this is copying a button from a real physical device.)

To carry on the example from above, I would say usually you would want two buttons, “Open Call” and “Close Call” and disable whichever one is not appropriate. Ideally you’d have a field elsewhere displaying the status of the call.

In summary, buttons are for doing things not for passing on information to the user.