Introduction:-
UX writing is a unique type of writing that can have a great impact on a product’s success. Surprised? Let’s face the fact.
Maggie Stanphill, a UX director at Google, explained how UX writing helped one of their products to experience a 17% increase in User Engagement.
Earlier, when a user searched for a hotel on google, the search result label used to show the option “Book a room”. The UX team at Google found this label manipulating the users to take action, whereas the users were still observing rooms, rents, etc. The team then decided to experiment with the words and changed the phrase to “Check Availability”. This subtle change in wording increased user engagement by 17 percent.
The above example shows that quality UX writing could be a masterstroke in any product’s success.
What is UX writing?
UX writing is writing that fills the conversational gap between technology and humans. It involves all the words that go unnoticed while using a digital product, such as an app or website.
It is the microcopy that helps the users to navigate the entire digital product. The main aim of UX writing is to develop user interaction and thus, engagement.
Now that you know what UX writing is, let’s learn about the three golden principles of UX writing. For the success of the product, UX writers must try to balance the three principles named Clear, Concise, and Useful.
1. Clear
A UX writer should write as simple as possible. The content should be easily understandable by the user. The use of technical terms should be avoided, i.e., the content should mean the same to professionals as well as laymen.
Earlier, Google used to highlight the technical terms as shown in the image. Later, it changed the phrase.
The phrase that was earlier indicating the software problem now focused on the user problem.
Now, the text is jargon free. It is offering context from the user’s viewpoint.
Likewise, while launching a new feature, transferring the focus from “technical updates of that feature” to the “new action user can perform” will help you get better UX.
2. Concise
Concise means keeping content short that gets right to the point. While writing concisely, one should look at the content and make sure that every word plays its role.
As research and data say, people prefer scanning the page instead of reading every word that is present on the screen.
It is another well-known fact that people’s eyes follow an F-shaped pattern as they read over the screen. Most probably, they read the first two lines and then start skipping the page by catching only the first two words of each sentence.
For this reason, UX writers tend to keep the text frontloaded as well.
Frontloading is the habit of placing the most important details first.
The phrase that Google made “Clear” earlier, contained the most important details at the end of the sentence.
So, the team decided to fix this flex by reshuffling the words. They then placed the important text up front.
Another example of concise writing is an email from Slack that was intended to inform users about an unrecognized login.
Earlier, it contained a lot of unnecessary information from the user’s point of view. The email was over brimmed and users often faced difficulty.
Then, the team changed the content to be concise and frontloaded. Now, the email highlights only the required actions.
3. Useful
Every interaction with the user is an opportunity and as a UX writer it is our sole objective to make this conversational interaction useful, i.e., it should guide the users to take the next step.
Call to Action (CTA) is all about prompting users to take the action that helps them to get where they want to go.
Considering the same example from Google, where the team made text clear and concise, it was still lacking usefulness.
Earlier, the ‘OK’ button was leading users towards a dead end. The team found ‘Try Again’ a better option, but this was not fulfilling the users’ needs. What if the user has forgotten his password? If this were the case, it might leave the user annoyed. So, it added another CTA button labeled ‘Recover Password’, and this change was followed by an improved User Experience.
Summing up, a UX Writer must keep in mind
- User First approach while writing
- Your Natural Brand Voice
And the content written should be,
- Clear: Jargon Free Writing;
- Concise: Scannable and Efficient; and
- Useful: Direct the next action
Asking yourself “how user experience can be improved” for every line of copy that you write will help you to better connect with the users. Whatever you write must go in hand with your brand voice. Brand Voice represents your unique perspective as well as emotions. Pick your moments to express whether it be conversational and positive or formal and succinct.
