UX IN MUSIC
UX never goes out of style
13 Taylor Swift lyrics I relate to as a UXer
Taylor Swift, the history-making award winner and talented megastar, is known for her incredible songwriting, among a great deal of other remarkable achievements.
I grew up listening to Taylor Swift and have spent my life relating to her songs. Her music covers topics that are familiar to most people’s own lives, like reflecting on your childhood and growing up, dealing with a bully, or grieving a loved one’s illness.
Her lessons in user experience (UX) might not be as obvious as a lot of themes in her songs, but if you look closely, you can find some. Here are 13 lyrics I found:
1. “The devil’s in the details” — Peace
If you’ve never heard this phrase, it means “even the grandest project depends on the success of the smallest components.”
For UX, the details are extremely important. Using consistent language, icons, and design components builds trust with users, helps users reduce cognitive load, and establishes a brand.
For example, let’s say you are browsing a website and notice a few typos and inconsistent capitalization. On one page the headers are all capitalized, on the next page they are in sentence case. While these tiny mistakes don’t impact the usability of the site, you may think the site isn’t as credible or trustworthy.
The overall success of a product or service is in the details.
2. “Long story short, it was the wrong guy” — Long story short
Just like UX writing should be, Taylor is concise and uses simple language. She cuts the fluff and gets right to the point. It didn’t work out because it was the wrong guy. Plain and simple.
In UX writing, it’s important to be clear and concise. According to the Nielson Norman Group, “A study of five different writing styles found that a sample Web site scored 58% higher in measured usability when it was written concisely, 47% higher when the text was scannable, and 27% higher when it was written in an objective style instead of the promotional style used in the control condition and many current Web pages.”
3. “Sorry, I can’t see facts through all my fury” — Happiness
Emotions play a big role in decision-making. If a user is frustrated or mad, they might not return to your product, even if it is the best fit for them. UX is about meeting the user where they are and providing the support they need at that time.
There are several elements that factor into the emotions of a product for a user, including the actual subject of the product, imagery, sounds, colors, and tone. Storytelling is a great way to build empathy.
To help understand the emotions of your users, start with an empathy map and user testing. Empathy mapping is “Visualizing user attitudes and behaviors in an empathy map helps UX teams align on a deep understanding of end users.” Doing this will allow you to consider the mood that your users may be in at different stages of your product.
4. “So I’ll say words I don’t believe” — Bigger than the whole sky
This one might be a little bit of a stretch. In user testing, sometimes users say things they don’t actually do. That doesn’t mean they don’t believe they do it, they just might not realize how they actually would react in a given situation. That is why it is so important to observe what the user actually does during usability testing.
Nielsen Norman Group recommends that you:
- Watch what people actually do.
- Do not believe what people say they do.
- Definitely don’t believe what people predict they may do in the future.
5. “She wears short skirts. I wear T-shirts. She’s cheer captain and I’m on the bleachers” -You belong with me
Here is Taylor breaking down personas for us. We have the popular cheerleader and the girl next door (if you haven’t seen the You Belong with Me music video, go watch it now).
According to Nielson Norman Group, a persona is “a fictional, yet realistic, description of a typical or target user of the product” and is used to “promote empathy, increase awareness and memorability of target users, prioritize features, and inform design decisions.”
When creating personas, it is important to understand everything and anything relevant about the user. You want to understand their goals, frustrations, and lifestyle — which can include what they wear and their extracurricular activities (like cheerleading or band).
6. “You booked the night train for a reason. So you could sit there in this hurt”- Champagne problems
Taylor reminds us that there is usually a reason for people’s actions and to dig into the why behind users’ actions. Don’t assume.
If we assume users want night trains so they don’t have to take time off work or miss anything during the day, we may try to promote the wrong benefits of the train. An advertisement or header may look like “Don’t miss a day. Book a night train now and make the most of your time.”
But if we dug into the users’ motivations and found that people like the night train so they can sit in their feelings, it might look like “Nobody will bother you on the night train. Tissues included.”
7. “This is our place, we make the rules” – Lover
While consistency is super important and sticking to UX principles helps make the experience for users easier, as UXers, we get to decide when to break the rules.
As a content designer, this might look like breaking grammar rules you’ve been taught your whole life to make a message sound more conversational. Like using conjunctions (and, so, but, if) at the beginning of a sentence. So, make and break the rules.
8. “If one thing had been different, would everything be different today?” — the 1
I think this is a thought that runs through UXers’ heads often, or at least it runs through mine. If I had just changed this one thing, would the designs be more usable/accessible/friendly? What if that button was a different color, would more people have clicked on it?
The good news is we can actually test for this. Instead of questioning if everything would be different, test test test. One great way to see what works, what needs tweaking, and what’s confusing is to run usability tests. According to HotJar, usability testing is ”a method of testing the functionality of a website, app, or other digital product by observing real users as they attempt to complete tasks on it.”
Usability tests can help validate your prototype, develop empathy, find pain points, and keep you from wondering if you changed that one thing would the outcome be different?
9. “Never be so kind, you forget to be clever. Never be so clever, you forget to be kind.”- Marjorie
Well said, Taylor, well said. As a content designer, balancing being clever, friendly, clear, and concise (and more) can be hard. You can’t focus so much on one aspect of your brand that you forget about others.
Let’s say some of the traits of your brand are enthusiastic, friendly, innovative, and sincere. If you are too enthusiastic, it may come across as more market-y and not as sincere. It’s important to keep in mind all of your traits, not just one.
10. “I’d be a fearless leader”- The man
This is what everyone wishes for, right? Regardless of your role, being a leader will help drive a more user-centric design and evangelize UX. If you want to sharpen your leadership skills, consider taking a course, like Being a UX Leader: Essential Skills for Any UX Practitioner by Nielson Norman Group.
11. “You’re the loss of my life.” — loml
When Taylor released the track titles for her album The Tortured Poet’s Department, many people assumed “loml” would stand for “Love of my life” because the acronym is so commonly used to stand for that. Knowing this, Taylor used “loml” to stand for both love and loss of my life.
While the double meaning works beautifully in poetry and songwriting, in UX writing you should keep a consistent meaning in your acronym use and write out the meaning the first time you use it. Mailchimp’s Content Style Guide recommends “If there’s a chance your reader won’t recognize an abbreviation or acronym, spell it out the first time you mention it. Then use the short version for all other references.” Don’t leave people guessing what you mean.
12. “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. Strategy sets the scene for the tale.” — Mastermind
Being a UXer doesn’t mean just making pretty designs (although that can be fun, too). A huge part of UX is strategy. Without planning and understanding the purpose and audience, the designs are most likely going to fail.
NNG breaks strategy into 3 parts: vision or statement(s) of intent, goals and measures, and the plan. Before you even start on designs you should understand where you are going and why, know how you’ll measure progress, and have a plan to achieve each goal.
Set yourself and your designs up for success– don’t fail to plan.
13. “They said, baby, gotta fake it ’til you make it and I did.” — I Can Do It With a Broken Heart.
Feel like you’re just faking it and people are going to realize you don’t know what you’re doing? That’s imposter syndrome, and it is pretty common in UX. You’re not alone if you feel this way.
‘Fake it ’til you make it’ can be great advice. Scared of presenting in front of your team? Pretend you love it again and again until it isn’t so scary. Don’t want to volunteer to take on a new project because you aren’t sure your skills are as sharp as they want? Only one way to improve them.
Everyone feels imposter syndrome from time to time (or most of the time). Even the biggest star in the world, Taylor Swift, felt like she was faking it ’til she made it. If you feel like you know what you’re doing 100% of the time in your role, it is probably time for you to find a new job that challenges you.
What Taylor Swift lyrics can you relate to UX? Or for any Swifties out there, just let me know your favorite lyrics in general.
Have a story of your own? Write with us! Our community thrives on diverse voices — let’s hear yours.
