UX writing and the customer experience: won’t somebody please think of the words?

Words are slowly getting the attention they deserve in the world of experience design. This is excellent news, because I’ve spent a great deal of time sounding a little like Helen Lovejoy. But there are a lot of teams out there still lost for words. So I’ve written this to help explain experience writing, why it can make the difference and how you can involve it in your existing design processes.

As a UX writer I spend a great deal of time harping on about “designing words”. To some that sounds odd, while to others it sounds downright wrong. Design is visual and words are for copywriters, right?

To me, experience writing is a design role, not a copywriting role. Your team are the developers, visual designers, UX designers, scrum masters and QAs you’re building the product with, not the other writers in your organisation. Sure, you need a copywriting skill set, but to be successful you need to follow processes you’d more commonly associate with design and development. You’re not measured by the words you’ve written, you’re measured by the success of the product you’re helping build. Like the visual components and the functionality, the words you write are part of the recipe for helping users complete tasks.

A definition I saw the other day that got me thinking was: “design is the rendering of intent”. And to aid my argument, I can’t think of a better way of rendering intent than to literally spell it out for users. Just as a pinch of salt instead of sugar can ruin even the most beautifully decorated cake, a poor choice of words can create an unpleasant experience for the customer and send their cash into the coffers of your competitors as a result.

That’s what I mean when I talk about “designing words”, but why should you start thinking of the words?

Conversation is the foundation of digital interactions

It’s time for businesses to think of their interfaces as a conversation, not a container.

Customers don’t expect the computer to just say no anymore. In fact they won’t tolerate it. They want to know the why and the how. And just like a conversation, the flow of information needs to go both ways in a manner that feels genuine and friendly.

But it’s more than just a matter of tone, it’s about empathy. This conversation needs to help users meet their needs. Every piece of microcopy should be purposeful and measurable. Companies like Monzo handpick every last letter to give you that feeling of a genuine conversation while the interface nails business KPIs.

I love this Monzo microcopy example because it works hard to meet a clear, measurable objective of reducing Apple Pay/debit card top-ups. Monzo can isolate the copy to track performance and iterate/optimise as necessary. And if you’re anything like me, I was immediately convinced by the transparency so was happy to bank transfer, even though it was less convenient (how often can you say that?).

Words are helping Monzo disrupt an enormous industry because traditional banks aren’t as open and litter their experiences with financial jargon. Whenever you interact with Monzo, it feels like a chat with a mate – they speak how we speak.

You can only achieve this level of empathy and familiarity when you’re deeply embedded in the design process from the start and you know the business objectives inside out.

So make words part of your iterative, multi-disciplinary process

When you start to think of your interface as a conversation it doesn’t make a lot of sense to fill in the words at the 11th hour. Or to not give them the due care and attention they deserve.

If you’re designing customer experiences, you’re probably doing the likes of user interviews, sketching, prototyping and user testing. All these activities are more successful and more fruitful when you’re thinking about the words. Here’s a few ways you can do this:

• If you’re in the position of conducting formal user interviews, have your moderators listen out for the language the participant uses. Jot these down, as they are just as important as requirements. Are different words used to describe the same thing by different people? Does any meaning change between different user groups?
• When you get around to usability testing, be sure to test the understandability too. Do the words tell the user where they are, what they’re expected to do and how to do it, or even what to expect next? Can you identify any opportunities to iterate and embellish error messages or labels/headings with the language the participant uses when discussing the task at hand or the wider subject?
• If you’re doing quick guerrilla testing to validate some ideas and concepts (product or prototype), it’s also worth using it as an opportunity to test your words. Grab a highlighter and get the participant to highlight any language that confuses them in red and anything that’s informative or delightful in green. You can use further colours to highlight anything that helps them meet any other objectives or task. Even iterate as you go by getting them to describe it in their own words and feed that directly back into the product where appropriate.

These are just a few examples of how you can start to design the words you use. If a copywriter merely fills in gaps at the end or any of the above is done with placeholders, you miss out on all this opportunity to fine-tune your conversation with your customers.

The words help provide the context, so the whole team needs to be responsible in ensuring that they’re duly considered.

And once the product has been shipped, make sure you look back at the data to see how you can optimise the words you use. For example, if you’re working on a product with a sales funnel, it might be that users are exiting key pages to find out more information. So figure out what that is and weave it into your interface. More often than not, the problem is language and not ‘usability’. The words are never final; you should always be looking to improve performance based on what you can find out from real-world behaviours.

Better yet…

Stop thinking about language and usability separately. The words are an integral part of making a product usable and the sooner product teams realise this, the better the experiences we’ll all get to enjoy. Especially as we move into an age where interactions are increasingly sans screens. Without a visual interface, the words become the only way to connect a business to the customer, so there’s no time like the present to begin embedding UX writing into the design process.