Stomme,
You’re making me rack my brains tonight?! 
I appreciate your comments, but after kicking some things around, I think I’m going to have to push back on some points… 
Remember that comment!
If you have a bunch of buttons all doing the same thing, they can have short names. “Add Event!” if I think it’s a sumbit button I’ll expect it to take me to another page to “Do Something About This Event I’ve Just Claimed I Want”, but if it’s like a checkbox, easiest is keep the Next Step (Register) button simple but as I mentioned before, a single line of text before it will tell any hesitant sheeples what’s coming up. And here I’m not using sheeple as a degrading term, but for the Hesitant Uncertain Web User. Which we all are at some point in our online lives, depending on the site.
I hear what you are saying above, yet I feel conflicted, and this is why…
On my Page 3, Step #1: Select a Date and Attendees…
-
The goal is to select which Event the user wants to attend.
-
As such, I can’t have a set of “Choose this Event” buttons AND a “Get ready because here comes a Log-In form!!” button?! (:
-
I suppose I could add in a text note, but since there might be a listing of 4-6 Events, each with their own “Choose this Event” button, I’m not sure visually how I would tie in a message like you are suggesting with several buttons…
Here is the form again…
(Page 3)
[COLOR="#008000"]=========================
[b]Register in 3 Easy Steps...
Step #1: Select a Date and Attendees
Event Cost Attendees [COLOR="#0000FF"][u](Update)[/u][/COLOR] Total[/b]
Flower Show $20 _1_ $20 <<Choose this Event>>
Mankato, MN
Sept 24, 2011
Flower Show $20 _3_ $60 <<Choose this Event>>
Willmar, MN
Oct 1, 2011
Banjo Jamboree $50 _1_ $50 <<Choose this Event>>
Brainerd, MN
Oct 8, 2011
[b]
=========================[/b]
[/COLOR]
I’d like to think that - even for a light-weight Internet user - “Choose this Event” implies that we are moving towards purchasing a ticket(s) for the Event we just selected, right?!
Yes, I could add in a prompting message, but as mentioned above, how do you tie that in visually with my 3 buttons above??
And if I changed “Choose this Event” to “Log-In or Create Account” it would confuse users because the action we want is for the user to choose which Date/Location they want to attend…
Now, one way to alleviate this problem is to re-design this page. And I am also conflicted on this topic as well.
I could have a re-designed page/form which looks like this…
(Page 3)
[COLOR="#800080"][b]=========================
Register in 3 Easy Steps...
Step #1: Select a Date and Attendees
Select Event Cost Attendees [COLOR="#0000FF"][u](Update)[/u][/COLOR] Total[/b]
___ Flower Show $20 _1_ $20
Mankato, MN
Sept 24, 2011
_X_ Flower Show $20 _3_ $60
Willmar, MN
Oct 1, 2011
___ Banjo Jamboree $50 _1_ $50
Brainerd, MN
Oct 8, 2011
<<Log-In or Create an Account>>
[b]=========================[/b]
[/COLOR]
If I use this second approach, it helps out the “Hesitant” users you describe, but my fear is that it will also confuse those same users having to figure out how to navigate Radio Buttons, Drop-Down Lists AND a warning <<Log-In or Create an Account>> button?!
Aside from this conversation, people like Paul O’ seem to like using Radio Buttons with one “Submit” button at the bottom versus having multiple “Add-to-Cart” buttons next to each Event.
(Obviously I sorta like the idea of an “Add-to-Cart” button next to each item since this is what nearly all e-commerce sites do.)
And - in general - I like your advice above, but I’m not sure how well it fits into this more complex arrangement…
There is a yet another way to approach things but it has it down-sides as well…
I could just have a page where people “Select an Event” and then somewhere later have people choose how many tickets they need. However, then that opens up the issue where people snipe at me for “having too many clicks/steps”?! 
(When does it end?!)
Possibly. If you are able to offer two different forms depending on what the user chooses (instead of a single page with both a login form and a sign-up form, which seems to differ from place to place which setup is better), it’s quite common to see a sentence “log in or create an account” with “log in” being one (obvious) link and “create an account” being another. One sentence with two links, which isn’t as shiny and obvious as a single large button, but the two-choice sentence has been popular.
Okay, I follow you, but have to give you a hard time here…
1.) If I do that, the people referenced above will complain that I’m adding an unnecessary extra step.
2.) Currently on Page 4, I start the page off with “Step #2: Log-In or Create an Account” which tells the timid user what is going on.
I totally see your point of “announcing things in advance”, but based on what I said above, and the fact that I am announcing what is happening at the top of each page, it should be too big of a deal if someone wants to ditch. (Then again, how else are you going to buy Event tickets online?! Subliminal e-commerce?!) 
See what I mean?
As far as your suggestion about offering both options on one page, what about this example…
New Egg Log-In or Create an Account example
If you don’t focus on the styling and extraneous stuff, I think it looks pretty straight-forward and it is all on one page minimizing steps.
I like it. If you’re afraid of “long” buttons (and yeah, short action words are more awesome especially to get someone started in a process), check out some of the places like amazon.com and other e-commerce and charity websites… longer “button” are common enough. Go ahead and make the text larger and simpler and still somewhat button-like or pill-shaped. Enter Payment Details is three words, and really clear. It immediately makes me think of a form, too. Awesome.
Maybe I could make Page 4 look like this…
(Page 4)
[COLOR="#800080"][b]=========================
Step #2: Log-In or Create an Account
Existing Customers:[/b]
E-mail: ___________
Password: _________
<< Log-In then Enter Payment Details>>
[b]New Customers:[/b]
E-mail: ___________
Re-enter E-mail: ___________
Password: _________
Re-enter Password: _________
<< Create Account then Enter Payment Details>>
[b]=========================[/b][/COLOR]
While you try to keep them short and sweet (and commands), if you test your form on your mom and anything seems not suddenly and 100% clear to her (the mom test, also known as grandma test and mother-in-law test), you’ll need to consider more label text. 3 or 4 words can still be in a button and not be totally weird. More than that, you’d have accessory text. As I said, people who feel confident and skim stuff will only read your buttons. The labels are for reassurance… if your instinct really is “this is clear enough” then either go with your instincts or do user testing to see if you’re right.
Don’t just take the word of some random stomme poes on teh internets. I mean, I do use the * selector in my reset part of my CSS, and nowadays everyone around here knows that’s a wasteful pile of code.
I think you offer good advice, but hopefully you see some of my concerns above? (If I fix one issue then it creates another issue in someone else’s mind. It seems hard to please everyone…)
“Bestly” was my favouritist.
You’re one cool cat, Stomme! (The Bestestest!!)
Debbie
