What’s up! UI Microcopy
Hello! readers this is part 1 in 4 part series of, “UI Microcopy Writings tips”. It’s a way for me to share my experience in understanding and crafting user microcopies with the community.
What’s micro-copy in digital products and what are its benefits?
This article is an attempt to summarise my understanding of working as a newbie UX Copy Writer for an Insurance product.
“The means of communication between digital products(UI) and users are called microcopy. It informs the users on how to use the product (navigate); guide users on action to be taken(context), prevent human errors(optimise), delight users(experience), and talk about your brand value and products offering(communicate)”
1. Tone of Voice
How you choose to communicate with your user define the personality of your brands and the products in the minds of the users.
The Spotify new microcopy connects to the user emotion of listening to music they love. The word “love” plays a hook in the user mind encouraging them to remember the copy and listen more and often.
Tips: Understand your target segment better, it helps well in defining how would you choose to connect with your user. In an age of experience economy, it pays to stands out rather than standing in. Brands are not seen today as products or for consumption purposes only, but rather an extension of their belief, values and personality. The better you understand your group, the better is the copy.
2. Be Simple, Concise and Clear
“8 Seconds”- that’s what it takes for your mind to wander from one topic to another as per research by Microsoft corp. In the age of content supremacy and abundant choice, time is of utmost essence for your brand. The art of brevity is not a choice but must have to capture the attention of your customer.
Airbnb anchor its microcopy to the fact that users skim across content and have a short attention span. The short and concise content gives users instant gratification of quickly assessing, and understanding/consuming the information presented. Hence, making a quicker and faster-informed decision.
Tips: Use words that can be visually imagined, easily understood, always show your copy to your prospective target group, count your character not your words.
3. Positive Communication
Forming positive communication with the user helps in building confidence and trust with the user. Using a personal pronoun can take it way ahead.
Negative communication such as: “You can’t do this, You have no viewing permission” make the user feels blamed or not comfortable.
Instead, we should aim to empower and part of the process, help them and guide them to the correct path and process, direct them to the correct solution.
One of the most useful communication theories that apply to writing is the Feedback Method by David L. Cooperrider and Diana Whitney.
There are four types of feedback we can give the user
- ‘No’ is negative, destructive
- ‘No, because…’ is negative, constructive
- ‘Yes, but…’ is positive, destructive
- ‘Yes, and…’ is the appreciative response
Don’t: You can’t do this
Do: Contact xyz for permission/access.
4. Person — Me, you or ?
Which person to use in UI, first-person, third-person or neutral can be a fairly confusing and draining discussion. After basically understanding the intent of the copies and use case we can easily define, which to be used when:
My: When writing copies where data or information is secretive in nature, or user has concern over privacy and also when we want to give the user the feeling that the product is an extension of themselves. It is solipsistic in nature.
eg: “My account” in social media or in the bank account, where personalisation matters.
Your: To be used, when the product is about collaboration or assistance. It gives an impression that the product is helpful to you. It’s Servitude in nature.
eg: “Your account” in collaboration tools such as Figma and slack.
No pronoun: There are no hard or fast rules/laws that there has to be always pronoun associated. If you want to keep your product sound neutral and straightforward communication, we can do away with the consolation.
eg: Account- When you are too confused about what to use :P or when you want to focus on group activities or many users use it together.
Thank you very much for reading. For quick reading or skimming and also not to bore you with a wall of text, this article would be published in a series of 4 articles.
The link to other articles are:
Part -2: User conversion with UI conversation
Part -3: uX your U I microcopies
Part -4: Practical tips for UX Writers
Hope! you enjoyed reading the first part and will continue reading in future too. Take care, stay safe and keep learning. :)
