Writing labels people actually tap
A link row gives you one line, sometimes two. Most pages spend it describing a tap the visitor was already about to make.
Name the destination, not the action
A row has one line to earn a tap, and the line is not free. Spent on the destination, it tells a visitor where they are about to land: «Spring print set», «Booking form for autumn», «The album on Bandcamp». Spent on the action, it describes what a thumb does, which the visitor had already worked out. «Click here», «Tap this» and «Check it out» are the same empty label in three coats of paint.
The check takes a second. Read the label aloud with nothing around it. If someone could tell you what opens, the line is working. If they have to ask, the row is a guess, and a guess loses to whatever sits below it. Rows get read out of order too: a visitor arriving from a story does not start at the top, so every label has to stand up alone.
| Where it goes | Weak | Strong |
|---|---|---|
| A print shop | Click here | Prints, framed and unframed |
| A booking form | More info | Book a session in October |
| A single on Spotify | open.spotify.com/track/… | Listen to «Harbour» on Spotify |
| A newsletter | Subscribe | A letter every second Friday |
| A menu | Our menu link | Lunch menu, updated weekly |
A URL is not a label
Pasting the address into the label spends the line on something the browser shows anyway. «instagram.com/yourname» adds nothing to a row that already carries the Instagram mark, and a long address either shrinks or truncates. It also hides the one fact that matters — whether the page behind it is the shop, the portfolio or an old campaign. Write what is there, and let the address stay in the address bar.
The quiet second line
Under the label there is room for a note: a smaller, dimmer line carrying what the label had to leave out. It is the cheapest space on the page, because nobody is obliged to read it. A scanning visitor takes the label; a serious one reads both. Use it for facts rather than enthusiasm.
- A price or a range, so nobody taps just to find the number.
- Dates and hours: «until 14 October», «Thursdays from 19:00».
- What they actually get: «12 prints, 30 × 40 cm, signed».
- A warning worth having: «opens in Google Maps», «PDF, 4 MB».
Two lines that repeat each other are worse than one. If the note restates the label in longer words, delete it and let the row breathe. The note is optional per row, and a page where three rows carry one reads better than a page where every row carries two.
Badges spend a currency
A NEW badge works because it is rare. Put one on a row and the eye goes there first. Put one on six rows and the page has a decoration instead of a signal. A badge does not describe its link; it takes attention away from every other link, and there is only so much to take.
So give every badge an expiry date. When you add one, decide the day it comes off, and take it off then. A release still marked NEW four months later says something about the page, and it is not the thing you meant to say.
Length, and whose language
Labels are read on a phone held in one hand, often in a browser inside another app, where the row is narrower than in your editor. Somewhere past thirty characters a label begins to truncate, and truncation lands mid-word, which is where short becomes broken. Front-load the meaning so the first two or three words carry it and the row survives the cut.
Write in the language your visitor reads, not the one you administer the page in. The interface language and the content language are separate settings, so an English editor can hold a page written entirely in Ukrainian. If your audience is genuinely split, two pages beat one page carrying every label twice, where each row is double length and neither reader gets a clean list. Transliterating a foreign word into your own alphabet is usually worse than leaving the original: people search for the spelling they have seen.