What is UX writing?

UX (or user experience) writing is the creation of copy related to interacting with a digital product, such as a website, software, app, or game. At its core, UX writing is about understanding the user, anticipating their needs and challenges, and writing content that seamlessly guides users through their experience. By following good UX writing tips, there’s no second-guessing, because there’s no first-guessing, either.

Some examples of UX copy include:

• Form field labels, plus tooltips 
• Helper text that provides how-to instructions
• Onboarding flows
• Error messages 
• Button text
• Menus and nav elements

Basically, the stuff you might not think about even as you act on it, unless it confuses you or doesn’t help you the way it should.

What isn’t UX writing?

UX writing isn’t writing marketing or advertising copy. These are about being the voice of the brand, while UX writing is largely about being the voice of the user. Instead of selling a product or service to a customer, your goal is to help a user achieve their goal. 

How do I write good UX copy?

Start with being user-first. That is, focus on the user’s goals, challenges, questions, and concerns. Unlike splashy ads, you want UX copy to be simple and seamless. Good UX copy has a lot in common with good design in the sense of principles and hierarchy. In fact, Scott Kubie, a respected UX writing thought leader, describes writing for user experience as “design, but words” instead of designing with colors and images.

To help you get started, keep these 5 UX writing tips in mind.

1. Be useful for users

Whenever someone uses a digital product like a piece of software, they’re trying to accomplish a particular task. So before anything else, you need UX copy to be useful. Provide the information they need to get something done. Be action-oriented with wording, especially for buttons. The more contextual you are with you UX writing, the fewer issues you and your users will run into down the line. 

Questions to ask yourself and answer for the user:

• What action am I trying to take? 
• What information do I need to do so? 
• What can confuse me here, and how do I prevent that? 

Let’s say you want to pay for something in an app. One of the things you need to complete that action is to include credit card information, including the CVV or security code. That means you need to know what a CVV/security code is (3-digit code for credit card verification), or at least where to find it (back of the credit card). That can be a lot of info, and people generally only need to learn this once, so you can put it in a tooltip like is often the case with payment form fields.

2. Be clear with users

Remember the importance of being useful? That means you also need to be clear, because people can’t get things done if they don’t understand what’s happening or how to make something happen. Keep language simple and free of jargon. Another UX writing tip: Use shorter sentences that are easy to understand. Especially for buttons/calls to action, be specific and straightforward when describing what the user wants to do (like “Sign Up”) instead of generic or roundabout (like “Join Us”). You want to avoid confusing the user and prevent ambiguity. You also want to manage expectations, to avoid surprises. 

Questions to ask yourself and answer for the user:

• Where do I click to find the thing I want? 
• What happens if I tap this button? 
• Why is this taking so long? Does this mean it’s broken?

Consider an onboarding flow for a piece of software. They take some time to complete and can be annoying, confusing, or even overwhelming. Keep things clear with simple language and straightforward instructions. The less friction there is, the better the experience is. To help manage expectations (and decrease dropoff) during multi-step processes, tell users how many steps there are, how long it usually takes, and which step they’re currently on.

3. Be concise for users

Think Twitter’s character count is restrictive? Try microcopy like button text, where you only have one or two words. The briefer you can be without sacrificing clarity, the easier it is for users to focus on what they can do. Part of being brief with UX copy is also frontloading the most important information first, which often means leading with the goal someone wants to accomplish. 

Questions to ask yourself and answer for the user:

• Is this quick and easy to understand?
• Is there a simpler way to make this clear?
• What’s my goal, and then how do I do it?

For instance, think of those little lines of helper text in every app or on every website. The instructional words we take for granted, until we find ourselves unsure of what to do or how to do it. The faster you can convey the helpful info, the more likely people are to take the time to read it. And the sooner you convey what the goal is, the easier people can find the instructions they need to achieve that goal. For example: “To update your profile photo, tap the + symbol” is more effective than “Tap the + symbol to update your profile photo.”

4. Be consistent for users

These UX writing tips tend to interconnect, and it’s no surprise that consistency helps with clarity. Consistency is key to avoiding confusion, ambiguity, and loss of trust with the user. While traditional copywriting often recommends avoiding repetitive use of the same word or phrase, UX writing thrives with consistency. This isn’t just about branded or protected terms, either. Skip the thesaurus, you don’t need to hunt for synonyms for “generic” words like verbs or common nouns. 

Questions to ask yourself and answer for the user:

• What does this term mean? 
• Are these two items similar but different?
• Whenever I see X, does that mean I’ll get the same thing every time?

Take a step back from any interactive digital product and you’ll see some actions that users frequently take. For a chat app, you want to use consistent language whenever you refer to “sending a message” instead of mixing things up by sometimes using “messaging your friends.”

5. Be human for users

This advice covers a lot of ground, from where you start to how you end up sounding in the final product. In a way, it’s multiple UX writing tips in one. Always begin with curiosity to help you learn as much as possible about your users, their objectives, and their obstacles. Along the way, you always want to stay empathetic so you can adjust and adapt to new information and new design as products evolve. And remember to sound accessible and conversational enough that users don’t zone out to the monotonous drone of a UX robot.

Questions to ask yourself and answer for the user:

• Can a typical human being understand what’s going on?
• Has anything significant changed about the product since last time?
• Does this sound like [brand], even if it might be more straightforward based on the situation?

While technology is increasingly part of our daily lives and is advancing rapidly, not everyone is a whiz with tech. A shining example of poor UX writing is convoluted error messages when a PC crashes. While “error code xb397jr21-alpha-99999991” might be useful for an IT person to diagnose what happened, it’s frustratingly confusing and useless for the average user. A better alternative would be a message that leads with a human-centric explanation of why the crash happened and what the user can do to resolve the issue. You could even still include the error code, with a suggestion of looking up that particular code for more information.

Want help with your UX writing?

To save yourself time and stress, send us a message below for UX writing support. Hey, look at that, it’s tip #3 in action!