From Communication to Closure — A UX/UI writing guide to clearly communicating with customers

If you already think that UX/UI message screens are a system and not just grammatical sentences, you are on the right track.

What I mean by that, is any user interface communication is not a standalone message, but primarily dependent on another screen, process, or any sort of confirmation, and the primary goal is to communicate it with the person. A simple communication; that can go wrong in multiple ways.

In many cases, as a writer, you want to deliver what’s intended. If not, you could lose the precious customers on the other end. You can perfect all the sentences you can but fail ultimately when not delivering the intent or having empathy.

This book will guide you on the prerequisites you must have, before approaching a UX message. Or, I could say how to communicate with customers and give them closure with your text.

Points to remember:

Communication

• What needs to be communicated
• The tone of communication (informational, warning, tip, etc)
• Level of knowledge of customers
• Level of information that needs to be said
• Brainstorming with teams

Closure

• Work on button texts
• Headers of error/pop-up texts
• Describing the action taking place
• Arrange text in hierarchy order
• Removing redundant words

How to pull off an effective communication

Two best ways to do this:

• Brainstorm with development/PMs/designers
• Decide on the Placement of the text

Brainstorm with your engineers on what we are trying to capture. Writers will be usually involved with new designs at an early stage. If that’s not the case, you may want to follow it.

Meetings with designers, help you understand the primary use case we are trying to solve and the pain points of the user in the previous version. Sometimes, when it’s a total revamp, you may want to communicate to users that this entire page has a new look, with additional features. It’s because, not every time, the user reads the what’s new blog before starting to work, would they?

Things to note down before writing:

• Pain point of users
• Advantages of the new design
• Need for introducing new design/additions to users
• Need for page tour

Placement of text

The UI placement decision is made by the PM, nevertheless, you need to know where it appears. In the case of a standalone pop-up box, you can include more info. In case of inline errors, the character length is pretty tight to adhere to.

Points to note before writing:

• Is it an inline error in the case of online forms?
• Size of the pop-up errors
• Are we showing text, before or after a specific action?
• Requirement for Label/placeholder text/button

Eliminating redundant text

When people say, to write crisp and short sentences, what they really mean is to eliminate redundant text. The How lies in figuring out the meanings of every word you write.

For example, to write instead of describing this image, sometimes we write as we speak: Describe this image In a few lines. The word “In a few line” become redundant as “Description” already means the same

Similarly, instead of Present a meeting button hover text, you may write, Click to present a meeting. This is not required as “Click” is an implied action for a button.

Remove redundant text using the table method:

• Divide the sentence which needs analyzing into columns
• Add a row under, and define its action/intent
• Analyze your inputs
• Repeated actions/implied meanings can be deleted

Assuming VS ensuring what users would know

Endless writing decisions are made on the statement that, “that’s fine not to explain, the user already knows that ‘’. It can be true and sometimes not. The challenge strives in the act of finding it.

__________________________________________________________________

Let’s assume, a pop-up is shown to the user, after he has made the decision to delete files.

(i) We can delete the files and give the confirmation to the user

Files were deleted successfully!

(ii) Whereas, in a product with a concept of bin/recycle/archive, the user needs to know what happens, thus we need to convey an extra text:

This action deletes all files, and you may not recover them in the archive too. Proceed?

__________________________________________________________________

Similarly, a pop-up showing a new integration screen has two options

(i) Success message after a new integration, as the user had initiated this entire process.

Successfully integrated with XXX.

(ii) Redundantly, informing users of their action, along with the success message

Created a new integration. Successfully integrated with XXX.

__________________________________________________________________

Points to remember:

• Analyze who initiated/triggered the action:

(i)If the user, then communicate only the status of the action

(ii)If a system generated, communicate the action in detail and update status

• Recommunicate to the user the trigger along with the action, only if it involves crucial items like money, data, etc

The hierarchy pyramid for pop-up messages

A pyramid listing information in a crucial hierarchy.

The trick is to lay out a pyramid in order to find out the Label text, Description, Listing of items, and buttons.

Assume a scenario for a pop-up, that restricts users to delete an item, as it is associated with another configuration. The pyramid for that will be:

Action is restricted

______

The reason is multiple associations

____________________

List of items associated

__________________________________

Steps to resolve this

______________________________________________

Button to acknowledge

____________________________________________________________

With a pyramid, the output will be easier to draft.

The “Crisp” Theory

It isn’t a writing tip blog if it doesn’t suggest UX writers write messages in a crisp manner. This could make sense for mobile apps, as the screen size is constrained. But for any others viewed on ipads or desktops, you can have them.

When to be Crisp

• When a tooltip is accompanied by the text
• Mobile-based screens
• When a link is accompanied by the text
• Advertisement related pop-ups
• Template scripts

When it’s okay NOT TO BE CRISP

• Entry pop-up/tour messages
• Description texts
• Configuration/set up guides
• Errors and other re-routing actions

Points to remember

• Reduce proportional run-ons/pronouns
• Use conversational style
• Active voice wherever possible
• Dictate steps, than give summary

Conclusion

The last-minute tip — avoid overcommunication and always provide closure to customers.

The devil is in the details. Yes, get the specifics right, but still, don’t let it be a distraction. As you get the details into your copy, strike a balance by placing it the right way, so that you do not end up reading long sentences.