Cute as a Button

The PubMed database provides hyperlinks to indexed articles. This sounds trite in 2008, but when they started doing this, there were not many journals that offered anything on the web. Initially, the hyperlinks were anchored to a simple black and white button with the name of the journal. We were not notified of this, it just happened. We noticed it because we (the Editors) use PubMed regularly. The button for Molecular Vision articles looked something like this (this is a recreation):

Shortly thereafter, Jeff Boatright saw that a journal had a button with blue text. It was not fancy, but it stood out from the original PubMed interface. Jeff and I modified the original button to use blue text:

Sometime later, other journals started using buttons that included branding. We had no idea that this was an option, but once it was, we wanted to get our message into the world. By then, many journals had developed a web presence and were trying to sell access to their articles. Most hyperlinks took you to a page asking for payment information. Our message was simple: "Click the link, read the article." I designed a button to subtly convey this message:

The button was rejected as too wide (249 pixels). I'm sure I was grumbling when I went back to my virtual drawing board. As I struggled to redesign the button, I had a passing thought that this needed to be our equivalent of a flashing neon sign on the Vegas strip. Not long after, I produced our current button:

(This is a preview; click it to see the actual button)

This button garners more than 10,000 clicks per month.