Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Anjana Menon

A few simple writing tips to keep in mind when writing for user experience.

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1. Clarity: say what you need, not what you want

Don’t use words just because they sound better. Try not to use ‘discover’ when you mean ‘find’, or ‘retain’ instead of ‘keep’. This list is endless, but a quick tip is to think about how you’d say this to someone in conversation.

2. Structure: organise your content

Format big blocks of text with headers, sections, bullets to break them down. Highlight specific words by making them bold or italic. This will help users read (skim) content better. Be concise, keep things short and simple. Use words that are easily understood. Take out the extra words. No fluff.

3. Instructional: explain what to do

Write down the steps you want your users to take. List down the labels and buttons you want them to click on. Make this into a (numbered) list so they know exactly what steps to follow. Use the active voice wherever possible, as it is crisp, direct and instructional. “Click here to review and submit” is a lot more direct than “This should be clicked when you are ready to review and submit”.

4. Politeness: be empathetic

Things may not always go as expected. When something goes wrong, explain what steps the user needs to take politely. Users don’t want to read “Incorrect password!”. They would rather see “Wrong password. Please try again.” This little tip is often overlooked and any technical jargon or text could mislead or scare your users.

5. Contractions: use them, but with care

They’re informal, conversational, and you’ll be thankful they exist when you battle character limits. Just make sure you use the common ones (it’s, you’re, don’t, can’t) so you don’t confuse anyone.

6. Consistent: condition your users

Some words and phrases might appear in multiple places or flows in your product, so make sure you keep these consistent. For instance, don’t use ‘Reserve a Table’ in one place and ‘Book a Table’ in another. While they might mean the same thing, labels and CTA (Call to Action) buttons condition the user, while they learn how to navigate through your website/app. Come to a consensus about using Title Case, Proper Case, or Sentence Case for labels, buttons, headings before you start. Keep building a style guide as you go along.

7. Familiarity: write the way you speak

Use ‘Your’, and ‘Us’. Be conversational and talk to your users, not at them. You can use ‘I’ or ‘My’ when you need to highlight the user’s ownership of their actions.

8. Abbreviations, acronyms, and jargon: avoid

Unless they’re widely known and accepted, like days of the week (Sat, Sun), countries (USA, UK), and other common terms (JPG, GIF), of course.

9. Negativity: no room for this here, folks

Be positive or neutral. Use the passive voice when you’re giving bad news or if something’s gone wrong — it tends to come across softly. “If your account is closed due to an unpaid balance, you’ll continue to be a customer.”

10. Inclusiveness: it’s for everyone

It’s best to use ‘they’ instead of going the gender specific way. You need to be inclusive of your audience, you don’t know if they identify as male, female, or anything else. Write for everyone!

Of course, this isn’t a definitive list, but it’s a pretty good place to start. Let me know if you have any more tips and tricks up your sleeve on Twitter! Special thanks to my personal editorial and feedback peeps: Shantanu Basrur / Shanty, James Bell, Laura Cunha, and Dhananjay Basrur.

Writing for UX: some practical tips was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Writing for UX: some practical tips

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