How to write clear UX copy
Photo by MARIA VICTORIA ECKELL from PexelsSo, if people aren’t actually reading, how do we get them to comprehend the screen and take action?
Clear UX writing is the answer.
Clear UX writing means the words in your experience are:
Easy to understand
Easy to scan
Obvious
Unambiguous
Leave no doubt
Can’t be misinterpreted
When UX writing isn’t clear, not only do people not read, they also:
Get confused
Go down the wrong path
Lose trust
Build a negative relationship with the product
Give up
Yes, the wrong words are that powerful and can leave people feeling frustrated and alienated.
On the flip side, clear UX writing helps people:
Grasp concepts quickly and easily
Get to where they want to go with speed
Feel like they’re in good hands
Build a positive relationship with the product
Keep going
With clear UX writing in your product, people will stick around, engage with your features, become valuable customers, and even evangelize your product.
So, how do you create clear UX writing?
First, there are 3 things to avoid that make your product unclear:
1. Jargon
Jargon is specific lingo only known by an exclusive group of people. It’s highly specific to those people and their specialty.
Think doctors, lawyers, and real estate agents. They all have their own language, which is made up of jargon.
If you use the industry jargon you might use around the office, it likely won’t be understood by the average person using your product.
It’s easy to forget that tech is a bubble, and not everyone who uses our product understands our techy terms. People who use your product will find jargon hard to understand and it can make them churn.
Instead, you want to use plain language. That’s because 80% of specialists prefer simple language to jargon whenever possible.
According to PlainLanguage.gov, “Plain language (also called plain writing or plain English) is communication your audience can understand the first time they read or hear it.”
Plain language is preferred by everyone, even the most educated people.
To write in plain language:
Know your user’s reading level, concepts and vocabulary familiar to them, and the questions they want answered
Pick words familiar to your users
Write short sentences and paragraphs
Aim for 6–8th grade reading level
Follow formatting rules for readability
Exception: If you are writing for a group like lawyers, doctors, or real estate agents, using jargon can build trust and credibility because you’re speaking their everyday language.
2. Slang and cultural references
Like jargon, using slang and cultural references can be alienating.
That’s because not everyone is in the loop.
For example, I’m totally out of the loop on Gen Z slang, so if a product called me a ‘stan,’ I would think they got my name wrong.
Similarly, someone who has never seen Friends wouldn’t understand a dating app saying ‘find your lobster.’
You can’t assume the knowledge and interests of the entire population of your product, so it’s best to avoid slang and references and opt for simple, clear UX copy.
3. Complex and complicated concepts
Whether you’re writing for a data analytics company or working through a complex error message, complex and complicated concepts are everywhere.
The thing is, if a concept is hard for you to understand, it’s also hard for your end-user to understand.
That’s why we need to deeply understand complex concepts so we have such a strong understanding that we can put into our own words.
We can’t rewrite a line about a complex concept, we need to translate it.
That’s easier said than done, but the first step is asking questions.
Once you understand a complex concept, make sure you don’t include more than one crystallized idea in a sentence or paragraph. Break them down and break them up.
Second, follow this process to make sure you create clear UX copy every time:
1. Find out how your users talk
Your product will be 10x clearer if you talk to your users in their own words. You just need to find out what those words are.
To research how your users talk, try:
Focus groups: While time-consuming, focus groups are a great way to hear exactly how your users talk and get relevant insights on the content you’re currently using.
Conversation mining: Another great way to dig into how your users talk is to mimic their lives online. Read their personal blog posts, social media pages, and forums to see the language they use. Read their favorite websites, influencers, and news sources to learn about the language they admire. You’ll not only learn how your users talk, but you’ll also gain insight into their motivations.
2. Write UX copy based on your research
Take the insights gleaned from researching how your users talk and marry that with the things to avoid (above) to make sure your content is clear.
After you’ve finished the first draft, ask yourself:
Am I making assumptions?
Would this make sense to someone with no prior knowledge?
Is this how I would talk to a friend?
Am I speaking in line with my target audience?
Am I using jargon, slang, or cultural references?
Did I translate any complex or complicated concepts?
3. Collect feedback
Feedback is crucial to shipping product content that succeeds.
To gather feedback, you can:
Hold a focus group
Run a test on usertesting.com
Share your work in a team critique
Ask another UX writer
Ask someone who has no context about what you’re writing about
4. Rewrite and repeat
Collect your conclusions and repeat the process until you’ve crystallized, clear UX copy ready to ship.
Writing clear UX copy is only one step toward mastering UX writing.
In addition to being clear, masterful UX copy is also concise and useful, as well as usable, helpful, and accessible.
Apply these best practices to your product this week, and test the changes with a few people. You’ll be excited by the impact clearer UX copy can make.
