LOUDER

Shame Buttons

That’s what I call ‘em anyway. I think these are great. They give me that tongue-in-cheek, “All healthy people smoke Lucky Cigarettes for vigor!” kind of old-school advertising vibe.

Here’s one from Living Social:

Who hates cupcakes? Practically no one, that’s who. While they’re pushing the limits a wee bit with usability on this, I think it’s overwhelmingly clear which option lets you skip the ad and which one doesn’t. You’re used to seeing “No thanks.” — this makes it a lot harder to skip over.

And here’s one from the mobile gaming service OpenFeint:

Not as effective as the Living Social ad, but still great. You don’t just have to say “Nah, I don’t want it”, it forces you to acknowledge internally that what they are offering is in fact great, you’re just not interested right now.

I know this kind of button text isn’t new, but the small screen real estate of mobile—not to mention the frequent need for pop-over, full-screen advertising—makes them more interesting and more valuable. As long as designers don’t overuse the concept, I think we’ll continue seeing great “shame buttons” for years to come.