How to make your buttons look appealing in French

Localizing buttons from English to French or Swedish to French may look

simple at first. But it requires to follow some standard rules not to make them

look awkward to your target audience.

Size matters

First of all, the allowed space for your button must be taken into account. You

do not want the text of your button to overflow the space allocated to your

button. French being usually longer than English (around 20%), this

element needs to be taken into account during the localization.

The next question is the tone of voice. Of course, English does not have this

issue, imperative and infinitive form being the same. However, this is not the

case in French. So which tone choose?

Infinitive is often priorized for the translation of buttons. Imperative voice has

three different values in French:

However, the imperative is often perceived in French as rough and has an order,

something that French people tends to hate. That's why infinitive form is

preferred for buttons.

Let's look at an example from Amazon website.

We can see here two things.

First of all, the infinitive form has been used for translating the buttons to French.

Then, the translation for Buy Now in French is not the direct "Acheter maintenant", but "Acheter cet article". Why is that?

As said before, French people do not like to be given orders. As such, something

smoother has been used on this website, to nudge people to buy the article,

but not to make them feel compelled to buy it. This is also something to take

into account in the localization of your website.

Last but not least, the French language hates caps. If we go lower on the same

page, we have the option to Add to List (Ajouter à votre liste in French). This is

because in French, only the first element of your button will have a cap, unless

if there is a proper noun in the name of your button like "Buy on Amazon"

(Acheter sur Amazon).

This can be seen lower on the same page on the Product information. In

French, the translation for "Specs" or "Care" have no caps for that same reason.

Do you want the buttons of your webiste or of your app to sound more French?

Contact me now to discuss about your needs!