“The Perfect Button”
is a quest I have been on for a while. When in 2000 I created my first flash movie I quickly realized that creating my own GUI elements is not easy. I have been inspired by the work of others and tried many things in the interactive work I have done in Flash since. I use to change my winamp skin weekly and enjoyed looking through the hundreds of user-made skins available. Finally, after much effort and carpal tunnel syndrome, I have designed the perfect button:
This work predated and influenced the current RUNNINGMAP interface. It is very simple and slightly sculptural which gives the buttons a tactile feel and makes them look clickable. I think buttons should look clickable which means that I don’t favour the in-vogue flat one-dimensional look of some ajax based web apps. You should not have to hover over something to see if it is a button.
