Notes and badges: twenty characters that answer a question
Most links are not refused because the offer is wrong. They are refused because one small fact is missing.
Two fields, two jobs
A note is a short second line under the label: up to a hundred and sixty characters, quiet grey, always visible. A badge is a small tag on the button itself: up to twenty characters, loud, impossible to miss. They do different work, and using one for the other’s job is the usual mistake.
The note answers a question the visitor would otherwise have to tap to answer. The badge announces a change: something is new, something is ending, something has a number attached to it this week.
- Price, when the price is the question: «From €40», «Free».
- Time, when time decides: «9:00–14:00, Saturdays», «45 minutes».
- Place, when the place decides: «Campo de Ourique market», «Online».
- Format, when the format surprises: «PDF, 12 pages», «Waiting list, not a purchase».
Badges that keep working
- «New» on the one block that is genuinely new, removed within a month.
- A count that is true today: «3 spots left». If you cannot keep it true, do not write it.
- A discount with its number: «−20%», not «Sale».
- A date that is close: «Until Sunday». Anything further away is not a badge, it is a note.
How they go wrong
Notes go wrong when they repeat the label. «Shop» with a note that says «My shop» has spent a line to say nothing. They also go wrong when they hold a sentence: a note is a fact, not a description, and a description belongs on the page behind the link.
Badges go wrong by staying. A «New» that has been there for six months is not information, it is decoration, and it teaches visitors that your badges mean nothing — which costs you the next badge, the one that was true. Two badges on one page is already close to the limit; five is a sale rack.