My rule was generally Verbs show what the button will do, an adjective/description of a state will show what is currently happening.
I thought about it for a bit but Play/Pause is weird. In modern UIs the buttons follow this (⏸ appears when playing and ▶️ appears when paused) but thinking of video and audio hardware like VCRs and DVD players, you’d commonly see “▶️PLAY” and “⏸PAUSE” on the screen after pressing the button which is just feedback to show that the button press worked, but makes it more convoluted in my mind.
My rule was generally Verbs show what the button will do, an adjective/description of a state will show what is currently happening.
I thought about it for a bit but Play/Pause is weird. In modern UIs the buttons follow this (⏸ appears when playing and ▶️ appears when paused) but thinking of video and audio hardware like VCRs and DVD players, you’d commonly see “▶️PLAY” and “⏸PAUSE” on the screen after pressing the button which is just feedback to show that the button press worked, but makes it more convoluted in my mind.