UX Writing Challenge: Day 5
Scenario: The user works in graphic design. While critiquing a design in a mobile app, their phone abruptly turns off. When they restart the phone, they reopen the app.
Challenge: Write a message that the user will read immediately upon opening the app. What do they need to know? What steps (if any) do they need to take to recover their content? What if they can’t recover the content?Headline: 40 characters max
Body: 140 characters max
Button(s): 20 characters max
Output
Headline (40 characters): Recover a recent version from the cloud?
Body (138 characters): It looks like the last session ended abruptly. The most recent session was auto-saved on [DD-MM-YYYY, HH:MM]. Should we try to recover it?
Buttons (17 characters):
1. Yes
2. No
3. New session
Explaining the process:
For this one, I assumed that the app auto-saves in the cloud. It seems to be a common feature these days, so why not? The headline then offers to recover the most recent session upon restarting the app.
The body gives more detail by telling the user the abrupt termination was not their fault while allowing the provider to take responsibility for the error.
It goes on to say what has been done to prevent a substantial loss of information (i.e., auto-saving to the cloud) which should reassure the user upon opening the app again, because losing data is never fun. It gives detail of when the last auto-save happened, and hopefully this is not too far away from when the phone turned off.
Naturally, the date formatting should match the local settings of the phone, this is just a placeholder. I included a time stamp because sometimes you make small changes and you might want to return to a specific timepoint when you recover your session. It also saves time for the user, not having to recover the session if they already know that the version is older than what they needed.
The body message ends with an attempt to recover the data, implying that it might not be possible (e.g., data corruption or it wasn’t the version the user needed).
Lastly, I offered three button options; Yes/No to recovery of session data, and an option to start fresh. The latter to eliminate the need to click through the error dialogue, go through a menu system and then open a new session. I thought it would be nice to have that option right up front so the user can quickly get back to where they need to be — creating content. This also leaves an option for when the data cannot be recovered.
