Sorry, but those buttons are absolutely atrocious. I get that underlined links aren't that great, but I'd much prefer it to that. Or maybe something like this: https://dribbble.com/shots/7299868-Download-Buttons
But sure, they're animated. I'm referring to the design of the buttons, not the animations. Try this on for size: https://dribbble.com/shots/5915773-Unlock-calls
I don't get this obsession with Skeumorphism. IMO it's not a good look and should be left in the 2000's.
Buttons are great. We still press lots of them every day.
They might not be to some non-tech-savy people... If you don't understand the concept of a virtual button that thing might just look like a rounded, blue rectangle with text in it. Nothing hints that it is supposed to be touched, it might as well just be some kind of highlighting.
The only exception I can think of is that it's obviously a button if it uses system controls.
Those are a thousand times better than "buttons" that are just underlined text.
I'm no UI pro but there's one thing I'm confident in saying through my experience and it's that you can't be certain something is intuitive until you've tried it on real people in a real scenario.
Your example button is fine with me but I feeling like it's the sort of thing that would confuse my mother. Acceptable depending on your app but I'm guessing that's Skype or similar and the 60+ market is probably important for them. But maybe I'm wrong, test test test.
Lots of websites use that little pill shape for other things.
A button should announce that it is clickable, while the rest of the UI isn't. Just because something has a different background and shape doesn't tell me it's clickable.
I don't see any statistics that the average user has any preference over which button to use out of the 3 examples provided. I think most users would assume buttons are supposed to look like the sites/apps they visit/use most, amazon, facebook, google, instagram, etc. If you button functions similar to those examples your users would be happy.
[EDIT] which is to say I think a lot of application design hours/$s have more to do with cargo-cult "brand styling" from the marketing department, and internal promotion of a project + personal portfolio-building and design-insider signaling than with benefits to end-user marketing, sales, or usability. It's not all useless from that perspective, obviously, but I'm very confident a lot of it is.
Wrong dichotomy. "Design" is not about the amount of eye-candy. Design is about how to make a product so that the user can use it most effectively. Making it visually appealing is an integral part of that, but only part of it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dieter_Rams#%22Good_design%22_...
I personally doubt users would know the word Skeuomorphic, let alone care what the button looks like.
> and I honestly do not want any of my products to perpetuate this emotion.
Why would you not want nostalgia? There are entire product brands built on taking advantage of nostalgia.
And nostalgia doesn't even imply "Hah, this is old and inferior".
Surely that's not appropriate for every brand, though? Especially if you're trying to look cutting-edge.
You can look cutting edge while taking advantage of nostalgia.
To be entirely honest, the "flat design" doesn't look "cutting-edge". It looks basic, which is because, well. It is. Intentionally so. If users don't care what your buttons look like, why spend tons of time making them look a specific style. That's just more time spent.
I'd argue that the reason it's become so prevalent, is exactly that. Less time spent designing, more time spent on features.
Have you tested this assumption, or is it simply something that you suspect? There's nothing wrong with having an opinion, but don't mistake it for an analysis!