The Importance of UX Writing: Creating a Cohesive Voice for Carta
As a financial software company, Carta’s customers are often using our platform to work on complex tasks. We have customers who range widely on the equity IQ scale–from brand new to the subject matter to highly proficient. This means that our copy needs to be both helpful, succinct, and clear. But without UX writing guidelines, there was inconsistent copy that echoed different sentiments throughout the product. Product managers, designers, and even engineers wrote user-facing copy. As a rapidly growing company, we are biased to action and shipped features quickly without paying much heed to our copy which resulted in subpar user experience, losing an opportunity to build trust with our customers.
What is UX Writing?
UX stands for User Experience. It is the process of designing a person’s meaningful interactions with a product such that they find it easy and useful, or as it is relevant to the company’s specific goals. UX Writing is the text within the user experience and the process of creating the words in the product, including but not limited to text in titles, buttons, labels, instructions, and so on. When Carta’s customers perform complex and specific tasks like issuing securities, transferring shares, and managing their cap table, the words we use have to be ubiquitous and effective.
I love this analogy by Torrey Podmajersky in her book Strategic Writing for UX. She wrote, “Consider this metaphor: an experience with broken words is a house with broken walls. Fix the words as you would repair the walls.” Companies often prioritize shipping their product roadmaps and working on improving their data models so that their product is robust and sustainable. That is akin to, for example, only working on the electrical and plumbing of a house, which makes the house functional, but without walls, it may not be livable. In this case, UX writing is the walls of our house (the product), we have to fix our words to complete the experience.
Putting our brand into words
Think about a character you enjoy watching on TV or reading about in a book. They likely have a unique way of expressing themselves that is quintessential to their identity, and a big reason why you feel emotionally connected to them. You can probably identify them simply by their speech and words. This is what Carta wants to achieve with its voice: a cohesive, recognizable, and trustworthy voice that is our brand. The voice of a good product takes into consideration who our customer is, and how they might feel throughout the entire end-to-end flow of using our product.
To address our wide customer base with varying levels of equity IQ, our voice has to be helpful and clear, while still being minimal. It is important to build trust with our customers while they entrust us with sensitive financial information and as we guide them to complete tasks that require new knowledge. Additionally, one of Carta’s main operating traits is to be kind. We want that to reflect not only in how we work with our coworkers but also in how we talk to our customers through the app.
Every customer’s interaction with Carta involves the words we write, which shape the customer’s experience and feeling. By having a common understanding of our voice, we can help cross-functional teams write cohesively so that we read as one. The hope is that by establishing writing standards, Carta will start to sound more and more like one cohesive entity that you know and love.
Identifying Carta’s voice
You might have heard of this very popular saying, “They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you make them feel.” Voice creates this feeling.
With the key ideas we’ve identified above in mind, we started working on a voice chart with our content marketing team. A voice chart basically holds a set of decision-making rules and creative guidance to ensure our writing aligns to the goals of the company.
Working on Carta’s tone spectrum
Once Carta’s voice was identified, we started to think about our tone. Tone is how our voice might deviate from one part of the experience to another. If, for example, your manager sent you a Slack message that said, “Can we talk?” you might think, “Oh no, what’s wrong?” However, if he were to rephrase it as, “Hey! Got a minute to chat real quick?”, you might feel a little less alarmed. That contrast is because of tone.
Our tone spectrum will change based on what the user is doing. For example, we might want to be welcoming and energetic when in success states, but more serious when they are in the middle of an important transaction.
When to start writing
Take any user interface that’s the most easily accessible for you right now. You might have gmail or twitter or some other page open in a separate tab. Now, imagine all the words on that interface, gone. Chances are that you would be left with less than half of the content. Without any words on the page, I’m willing to wager that it’s impossible to know what to do. Simply put, the words on an interface are crucial to the organization and their users achieving their respective goals.
In other words (see what I’m doing), writing should begin as soon as design does. After doing your research on who your users are and the message you wish to convey, write your first draft. Get all your ideas down. It would likely be terrible, as most first drafts are. But as any great writer will tell you, the secret is always in the edit.
“For me and most of the other writers I know, writing is not rapturous. In fact, the only way I can get anything written at all is to write really, really shitty first drafts.” Bird by Bird, by Anne Lamott.
Key guidelines for effective writing
Once a voice and tone spectrum have been defined, writing becomes a complementary tool that adds to the design process. Along with simple charts to help our teams write effectively, we also give illustrated examples of how to be clear, concise, and helpful in all our UX writing.
A global voice
At Carta, we are striving to build a platform that gives our users an intuitive, cohesive experience. As we develop our global infrastructure–welcoming customers across continents and different countries–the way in which we use words will become increasingly important. Understanding and defining the key building blocks of our brand voice brings clarity to our product design. More importantly, it ensures that in any interaction with Carta our users get an experience that feels tailored to them, wherever they may be in the world.
Connect with us!
Find more design content on our Medium blog and check out our team’s Instagram to get a slice of life on the Carta design team.
