Choosing a “better” copy with validation
Stop arguing. Let’s settle the debate with data.
Disclaimer:
This article was written in part of my UX writing exercise and by no means to discrediting any works of freelancer.com team. Please enjoy!
User experience (UX) copywriting excites me! As I learn more about it for a few months (and still counting), I’ve come to know one thing that changes the way I see the creative process; that is validation.
For many out there, validation probably isn’t a fun part. It takes more time, more people, and more effort to do. But, validation can be a great tool to get away from any unnecessary debate.
Let’s say there were 2 or more copywriters working in a project, and all of them think that each of their copy was just as good the others. How would you settle that fairly without validating?
I am not (yet?) a UX Copywriter. The projects I’m covering right now are mostly for printed media instead of digital. But my excitement has sent me so far and I wanted to know if I can write a copy and prove it that works with a certain validation method. So here’s how I went with my plan:
Observation
A few days ago, out of curiosity, I was signing up to a website called freelancer.com. It’s a website where freelancers (obviously?) can submit and/or get hired for a project from all over the world.
I was done filling up my email and password and the site asked me to choose for a username in the page after that. This username apparently is for permanent. I knew that after taking some time to think and spotted a copy above the text field (inside the red box) which informed me so.
The copy did not immediately catch my attention. If I wasn’t pausing, I might just go with a random name and who knows what’s next. And so I think this is a good case to test myself.
Ideation & execution
I consider username as a crucial part, especially when I only get to choose it once. As a user, I wanted to have better heads up for this. Something that will easily catch my attention and send a clear message on what I should be aware of.
The default copy tells me the message. But the deliverance, for me, was rather plain and emotionless. I believe that including a conversational phrase into the line would do something to it.
My mind was aiming at several phrases until I decided to come up with “Take your time”. I chose that phrase because it could not only act as an eye-catching heads up but also as an expression that switches up the tone to sound more like a human.
Validation
Now that I’ve created an alternative copy for that, how would I know if it works? Some articles on Medium told me that the proper methods to validate it can be done through usability testing, cloze testing, highlighter testing, FGD, etc.
But aside from having insufficient knowledge to perform anything I mentioned, I was not very optimistic that people would spare much of their time to get involved in this exercise.
The most possible thing I could do was to create simple voting in which people only need to press a button once; A or B. And what would be the easiest tool I can use to do that? You’re right, Instagram.
I put the default and alternative copy into a frame using Photoshop and uploaded it through my Instagram stories. I waited for 24 hours, and from 40+ “respondents” joining the voting, this came up as a result.
The gaps
It was certainly far from a proper validation method. But as for someone who’s just learned about UX, it was such a fun introduction get started with.
Along the way of writing this article, I realized a few things that I can improve if I want to come up with a better result next time:
- I should have known the user pain point, so I can work more purposefully.
- I probably would have written a better copy, had I read the full copywriting guidelines from the brand itself.
- It would have been more valid if I could filter the respondent based on a specific target market/persona.
- By only using Instagram stories voting as my tool, I should have formed a more specific question to come out with a more “conclusive” result.
Let me know if I’m already on the right track!
Hi, I’m Iqbal. Thank you for reading this! Let’s have a conversation about Copywriting, UX Writing, or anything at all. If you’re on Twitter, please say hi to me at @dwihariantos.
