From the beginning of mankind/womankind, buttons have been useful in interacting with the physical world. Here’s a quick rundown on how humans have developed buttons for special purposes:

Exhibit: History of the button. Not approved by the Smithsonian, but it could be.

Since the button transitioned into the virtual world via Apple computers in 1986, there really hasn’t been that much of a development. Sure, there is a one less border (or maybe no border at all) and some color added, but it looks very much like it did back then.

Now in technicolor!

Interests

So, as the second part of the Email Design Trends of 2016 article, I took every email submitted to ReallyGoodEmails.com in 2016 and broke down their CTA buttons. I logged multiple data points for each email to learn everything I could about what people were doing with their branded buttons. It was pretty tedious. It sucked. I kept telling myself: “Do it for the children!”

Here’s what I was looking for specifically: