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Discussion on: Should a button communicate the current state, the intended behavior, or both?

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Kirill Shestakov

A toggle should show a current state. A button should show an action.

When the button shows a current state, it stops being a button, and becomes a sort of a tag. Whether alternating between a tag and a button on hover is good user experience - is quite subjective. Users might not realize that a tag could be actually clickable or would become a button on hover. Moreover, it is even less intuitive on mobile, because there is no such thing as hovering.

Most of the time the actions can also convey the current state. For example, Unsubscribe button would imply that the current state is Subscribed. I don't personally think that the users really need an extra confirmation describing the state in that part of the UI. Perhaps another UI is needed to list all user subscriptions and allow them to manage them all in one place, maybe something like a "SUBSCRIPTIONS" section on YouTube.