The convolution of actions on the web — with the advent and prevalence of touch screens — means we are going to lose what a ‘click’ or a ‘tap’ is when relating to our input method.

Take a text link for example. Since the dawn of the internet whenever we have the need to inform a user of the action they need to take it has been ‘click x’. Either as microcopy to explain or as part of the link itself. This improved slightly by trying to remove ‘click here’ from the link text and make it more implied such as ‘find out more’ rather than ‘click here to find out more’.

Now that we have touch enabled devices (and soon to be gesture based – Kinect, Playstation Move, Wii) for use with navigating interfaces, ‘click the link’ no longer makes sense to inform a call to action. If you’re only dealing with touch enabled devices — like iPad & iPhone — it makes sense to refer to the user action as ‘tap’ but if the interface spans multiple device input methods; how should you deal with that?

What happens with responsive design across multiple platforms & inputs?

It’s clear we need to define a new metaphor for user action. No longer can it be just ‘click’ or ‘tap’. We need to actually take a look at the physical context in which we would invoke said action. One solution would be to use feature detection such as Modernizr to determine if a particular input method is available and perform some trickery to display the correct terminology, but this seems like an antiquated approach treating the symptoms and not the cause.

Use more generic but contextually aware terms.

The only solution that makes sense, going forward, is to use more generic terms for user actions. We need to start relating these actions to the context in which they are to be applied. Using physical metaphors in the digital space to reinforce a user action. This may even result in is not having to even worry about explaining what a call to action does. For example; people innately know how a light-switch works. So let’s use this existing schema!

This means using ‘push’ for buttons not ‘tap’ or ‘click’. It means using ’flip or toggle’ for switches or toggles and not ‘tap’ or ‘click’ etc. Actions such as drag still hold true as they are already based on physical contexts that we can easily understand. As such, they can be transferred to any context.

So what?

I guess all we need to be aware of is how we are describing the usage of a call to action element to users. If it toggles between two states; then imply that in the design. I’m not saying that user’s are idiots; if something says click and they are on a touch device, the concept is familiar so they can translate that quickly. All I’m saying is that they shouldn’t have to, regardless of how well they can. All that matter is that you make sure users will understand what they have to do no matter what input device they  are using.