Fancy Buttons Are Here!

Better Button and Nav Interactions

The iPhone user controls are responsive, like tactile objects in your hand. The panels slide and the icons glow when you touch them. It gives the illusion of tighter control over the app. Switching to a touchscreen-less web browser, interactions feel stiff and unsatisfying and lack of response creates a feeling of distance been the user and the interface.
In this well described tutorial the button you will build has a distinct :hover and :active states so that it depresses when clicked. The text also bumps down 1 pixel and the text-shadow changes to give it a 2-dimensional feel. Now that CSS3 is gaining wider support, most of this styling and behavior can be done pretty easily.