Buttons that are links - should we style them differently?

[rnickr]

Buttons and links are different. Links are for navigation to other places, buttons trigger an action.

We use buttons as calls to action (CTA). This usually acts as a link taking the users to another place. Should we look to style these CTA links differently from buttons?

Do users care about the difference? Using buttons as CTA's is common across the web. Do users understand the distinction or do they just see buttons as something you click that does something (either perform an action or take you somewhere else)

Taken from: https://adamsilver.io/blog/but-sometimes-buttons-look-like-links/

_"In Resilient Web Design Jeremy Keith talks about ‘material honesty’.

He says that “one material should not be used as a substitute for another, otherwise the end result is deceptive”.

Making a link look like a button is materially dishonest. It tells users that links and buttons are the same when they’re not.

In Buttons In Design Systems Nathan Curtis says links should be distinguished from buttons because “button behaviours bring a whole host of distinct considerations from your simple anchor tag”.

For example, a link can be opened in a new tab, or copied or bookmarked for later. Buttons don’t share this behaviour.

Calls to action—which again, are just links—are deceptive. Their styling stops users from knowing they’re links and therefore obscures their function.

We could make calls to action look like regular links. But this makes them visually weak and hard to spot. That’s the problem."_