Build Diary: Week 3 (is this thing on? 🎤)

This week was kind of a doozy. There are *so many* cool ideas, and focus can be hard to stick to. Aka, I totally spent 3 days going down a rabbit hole of a product idea that would end up taking over a year to build. So that’s no good…

But I am making progress 💥 I know I’ve been super cryptic about things, and for context, my first plan of action is getting course content for learning UX writing/content design in the most stupid-simple way possible on digital paper.

Speaking of the course content…

Describing the taste of water like… 🫥

It’s component week 🪩 That means I’m unpacking how to write and design for each and every UX component. Including defining what a component is… which feels about as tricky as describing what water tastes like.

Here’s what I have so far:

Aside from another piece of UX jargon, a component is a building block in a user interface. As content designers, we stitch these building blocks together to form intuitive, useful, and usable user experiences.

A component can be a line of text, or a headline, like this:

It can be a paragraph, or body copy, like this:

Or it can be a button, like this:

And when you combine these two components, you get a user experience:

As you can see, these various components work together to communicate a message and help you move forward.

In this Lesson 1, we’re going to walk through the main building block, or components:

• Headlines
• Body copy
• Buttons, or calls-to-action

These basic components work together to build communication vehicles, like forms and error messages.

Examples make everything better 🥰

I’m quickly learning you can’t explain our tech-y UX content jargon without IRL examples. For example:

Loading state explanation — the technical way:

Loading screens are an area in the user flow where the user loses control.

Loading state explanation — the IRL example way:

Have you ever waited in line at the grocery story for 10 minutes and gotten really frustrated? If you’re like me, you’re wondering what the hold up is and even getting a bit angry about it.

Now, imagine a store employee came to your spot in line and explained they’re short-staffed, doing the best they can, and apologized for the wait. Oh, and here’s a free sample of some dark chocolate while you wait 🍫

The chocolate might have been over the top, but knowing why the wait is being caused suddenly makes it OK. Nothing actually changed — you just got new context that let you rest easy.

The exact same is true for loading states. If you can tell a user why they’re waiting, and what’s going on in the background, they’ll be happy campers.

Friendly reminder: Be kind to yourself 🙃

Some days are just hard. Writer’s block is real. Imposter syndrome is real. Being kind to yourself can be hard. Treat yourself like your own best friend ❣️

Keep the part rollin’ — continue to read week 4📖

If you’re as excited as I am, get ahead of the curve, and join The Launchpad waitlist now 🤗