[Day 5] Daily UX Writing Challenge: Saved and Unsaved Changes

Melanda Utari
3 min readSep 22, 2022

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Scenario: The user works in graphic design. While critiquing a design in a mobile app, their phone abruptly turns off. When they restart the phone, they reopen the app.

Challenge: Write a message that the user will read immediately upon opening the app. What do they need to know? What steps (if any) do they need to take to recover their content? What if they can’t recover the content?

Headline: 40 characters max

Body: 140 characters max

Button(s): 20 characters max

Gathering The Context

There were two contexts that I got from this challenge. First, the app didn’t save any data of users when the app closed immediately. For this case, the copy has to empathize with users by the error and kindly ask them whether they want to continue to edit their content or not.

Second, the system saved their data. The approach of this copy will be different from the first case. This one will reassure users who were maybe being panicked that their data was saved, together with the option to continue or not.

Crafting The Copy

Ver 1: The system didn’t save the data.

Copy 1

Selamat datang kembali!

Maaf, kami tidak menyimpan perubahan terakhirmu karena aplikasi terhenti tiba-tiba. Ingin melanjutkan sekarang?

Nanti saja || Lanjutkan

Copy 2

Selamat datang kembali!

Maaf, kami tidak menyimpan perubahan terakhirmu karena auto-save dimatikan. Pergi ke Pengaturan dan nyalakan auto-save sekarang.

Nanti saja || Pengaturan

Ver 2: The system saved the data.

Selamat datang kembali!

Perubahan terakhirmu tersimpan. Ingin melanjutkan sekarang?

Nanti saja || Lanjutkan

Rationalization

Overall, I didn’t make significant changes to each copy that I created. For both versions, I welcomed back users for the headline and asked for their preferences before going to the CTA button. I also tried to do a formal and professional tone for this copy.

For the first version, there I made two copies that provided different solutions. The first one was directing users to continue their work while the second was giving options to users to turn off the auto-save feature. But, the approach for both was the same (apologize for the unexpected error, give them the context, and provide a solution). Since both of them had different solutions, I can’t decide which one to use so I’ll go with both.

For the second version, I’ll make a short copy so the sub-copy only contains the information about their changes being saved and asking them what they will do next.

Final Copy

Thanks for reading. I’d be happy if you were willing to give me some feedback. Let’s connect through LinkedIn!

Also, check this out!

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