DAILY UX WRITING CHALLENGE, DAY1: CANCELED FLIGHT

Photo from kathleen Schlais https://pin.it/7nkiEsq

Starting my journey as UX writer has been an amazing experience, being a part of the great @uxwritersafrica community has helped me in developing my writing skills and has helped in adding greater value to my experience as a writer.

For the purpose of this learning process we were tasked with writing UX microcopy of different scenarios and interfaces everyday for the next 15 days. All my entries will be documented here on medium. Below is my first entry;

DAY1

Scenario: A traveler is at an airport waiting for the last leg of a flight home when their flight gets abruptly canceled due to bad weather.

Challenge: Write a message from the airline app notifying them of the cancellation and what they need to do next.

Headline: 45 character max

Body: 175 character max

Button(s): 25 character max

Purpose for this UX writing:

The purpose of this microcopy is to assist a traveler who is confronted with the difficulty of a canceled flight and how to help the traveler navigate their way around the situation at hand.

Possible solutions:

For the purpose of this writing this information will be sent out through a push notification, there are other ways and methods for which this message can be sent out this includes, emailing, In-app messages, phone call, SMS notifications or airport announcements.

Having considered where the user will be at the time they receive the notification, being that the challenge specifically mentions that the user is on their last leg, we will assume that the user is already at the airport and ready to board.

What information will the user need?

From the above information , we can conclude that there are a lot of information the user will want to know such as;

• They would love an explanation as to why their flight is delayed
• They would want to know how long they delayed flight would take
• They would love a possible solution to the delay

For the push notification we will focus on the three factors above.

Final Copy:

I’ve tried to make this copy precise, straightforward and empathic. Therefore, the first part of the message tries to sympathize with the traveler for the situation that may bring them any inconvenience;

1. The “Flight 11247 cancelled” heading signals to the user that this is an urgent notification, and not something to be ignored.
   2. In the body text, I’ve put the most important information first, which is the flight number and destination. I’m also telling the user where to go to reschedule the flight, which is essential.
   3. The thunderstorm icon communicates to users the cause of the cancellation. This is important, because the notification will initially be compressed, which means this icon will provide the most context out of all the UI elements.
   4. The CTAs play a crucial role too; “Check details “could open the app itself and take the user to a screen with more information about the cancellation, such as how long the flight will be cancelled for. “Contact us” could open the app and provide the user with options to contact.

I am open to feedback so please feel free to leave a comment below!