Microcopy: Smallest giants of UX
An incident that happened not many moons ago with my mother and me led me to write this small piece.
Background:
My mother is a housemaker who didn't have advanced education.
She has basic education, in her mother-tongue, which is certainly, not English.But thanks, to her regular usage of Whatsapp and multiple Shopping apps, she knows few english words and sentences, and can use her smartphone, without anyone’s help.
Some day back, We found ourselves sitting at our dining table, I was working on my product study, and she was forwarding messages to her friends on Whatsapp.
After some time, she switched to another application on her phone, an Automatic call-recording application, which I installed a few days back. She was browsing through the list of call recordings and selecting each item in the list. After 3 mins of constant clicking, she managed to select all 50 entries.
Then She clicked on the bin icon, which she knows means “Delete,” and a standard popup comes up, but the interesting thing was:
Both of the actions available on the popup were of the same color: Blue buttons with light-gray Text
My mother stopped for a second and clicked on the first button left, and the action she wants to perform was completed with no issues.
This action caught my attention; as an advanced and passive user, I could not understand how she knew what the right step to perform was.
I immediately asked her few questions:
- How long have you been using this app?
Today was the first time I opened this app after you installed it a few days back. - How did you know what was the right button to click on?
Even though both buttons' color is the same, Button said “Yes, Delete” and understood what it meant.
This intrigued me because, even though the Designer of the application failed to create differentiation of the Action through colors, and
As an advanced user, I was still looking between differentiation of colors to select between two actions; the text was the one that made the difference.
This interaction led me to wonder how often we give thought to the importance of texts and messages and what type of messages we share in our designs.
We, designers, spend a lot of time focusing on layouts, colors, typography, and interaction patterns. We are convinced that this all effort will lead to a good experience for our users.
But we often forget to fix one of the most crucial aspects that makes design work — The Microcopies.
Even though it has Micro in it, its impact in creating a cohesive UX is anything but micro.
What is Microcopy
Microcopy is the small, instructional text content on our forms, modals, buttons, prompts, tips, and more.
Microcopies' primary purpose is to notify or nudge users towards the correct path in a small way as they are using a product.
And, Why should I care?
Words and Contents are the building blocks of any design. These are some of the crucial parameters that separate an okay and a good design. And a right user of microcopies helps us identify a great design from a palette of good designs.
These small collections of letters act as a secondary tool that differentiates between different types of actions available to users when the color theory fails, as we saw in the example mentioned earlier.
The microcopies that we provide in our designs act as a conversational tool between the system and the user.
When the user is invested in an application, it becomes paramount that these microcopies build empathy, trigger emotions, and create more robust relations with users.
Great, But Who writes this?
Person(s) who write Microcopies depends on the team's size in making the product.
It can range between an entire team dedicated to this task (for large organizations) or a single person (for small organizations) who is undertaking this challenge on its own.
In any case, whomever responsible for writing Microcopies must be equipped with knowledge of:
- Content Writing
One who knows what to write to motivate users. - UX
One who knows the value of actual and useful content that can engage users. - Technical Understanding
One who already understands a system's complications can explain the complex systems in a simple, understandable format.
Straightforward enough, right?
Well, It’s not like a person needs to master all given domains, but specializing in one of them and still understanding the importance of other disciplines is expected from an influential Microcopy writer.
So to summarise,
An influential Microcopy writer knows what to write that can motivate users to understand the complications of a system or interface before them and perform specific actions that may provide the best UX possible.
Well, I can manage all of that; How do I write this?
Each microcopy does have few requirements that it needs to uphold to become the most effective:
- Easy and straight to the point
Content needs to be as clean and unambiguous in its delivery.
No confusing terminology that an average user can’t comprehend. So it's essential to understand about targeted demographic before writing. - Answers a question
It tells users precisely what they need to hear to clear out any confusion or misunderstanding so that users can proceed without any doubt in mind.
Just like providing users with a solution to the error they encountered. - Triggers Emotion and stay empathetic
Understanding user’s behavior and triggering similar emotions is one of the trademarks of an effective microcopy.
Easing off users' tension by giving them a breakdown of their product's whereabouts during the delivery process. - Consistent all across the product
Consistency is the name of the game in anything design and is valid for this as well.
Effective microcopies need to be consistent across the product line, even the brand itself, so that users can expect and foresee what type of content they will engage themselves when they are using the product. - The tone needs to be part of as human as possible.
How is the tone of the content — is it robotic, or is it bossy that is scolding you to take actions, or is it conversational that feels like a good conversation with a person (not a system) on the other end with an intent of solving a problem.
What tone goes with any given brand, well that is up to Microcopy writers to decide.
But, When does the work of Microcopy comes into play?
Like all other processes, Microcopy is a part of the UX process that comes into play after all the research, understanding user’s problems, and exploring User behavior finalizes, but before concluding with the final prototypes that are going to be handed over to developers.
Microcopies take full context of available data on users, behavioral discoveries, and shape in what suits best to nudge users in the right direction.
Closing Thoughts
Content is a building block of any suitable design, and to understand what to give, we must understand our user's behavior, psychology, and problems.
And similarly, it is important to give content on our design its much-needed space in the Design process to ensure it can build upon the vast amount of Design data and help users achieve the best possible experience.
Here are some essential pieces of literature that I found beneficial in writing this piece.
- Silent Importance of Microcopy by
- Microcontent: A Few Small Words Have a Mega Impact on Business by NN Group
- Best microcopy examples and some great insights by
- How People read Online: The Eyetracking Evidence by NN Group
- UX Writing versus Microcopy by Bobbie Wood and Patrick Stafford
Hey, If you liked what you read, please share your insights with me. I would love to hear what you think.
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You can view my design work on my website. And I am also available on LinkedIn.
