Online shopping is more relevant than ever nowadays. So we’re going to use it as an example of what UX copywriting is and why it matters.
Let’s say you go to an online store to buy a Christmas present. You’ve got a whole series of actions you need to perform:
If the store is well designed, you won’t notice that you’re going through all these steps. But if the store doesn’t have the filters you need or you can’t find your cart right away, its design, selection, and pricing just don’t matter anymore. You’ll probably just get frustrated and go to another store that’s easier to use. It’s not like there aren’t plenty more to choose from, right?
So how do you need to keep customers from leaving? And, by the same token, how do you get them to keep coming back? You need an intuitive interface that exceeds their expectations. In other words, you need a well-designed UX. “UX” is short for “user experience” and refers to everything that contributes to the experience a person has when using a website or app.
The simpler and more intuitive your interface is, the easier it is for customers to get their bearings. This makes them more likely to make purchases.
Design is extremely important when it comes to UX. This includes button and icon placement, shape, and color, etc. But the text customers read is just as important. Text is what leads customers to their goal. It helps them order a product, buy movie tickets, or call a plumber.
UX copywriting involves writing tiny chunks of text for a website or app’s interface elements, as well as informational and system messages. This includes the names of buttons and menu options, short notifications, product descriptions, tooltips, etc.
While a regular copywriter’s goal is to attract people’s attention to a product or service via text, a UX copywriter helps potential customers who are already interested. So UX text needs to meet a number of special requirements.
If someone goes to a product’s page, they’re already interested. They don’t want to read a big, long spiel. A lengthy text will just irritate them and distract them from the buying process. A UX copywriter’s main goal is to provide the minimum amount of necessary information as succinctly as possible. Sometimes the length of a piece of text can be limited for technical reasons such as the size of a button it field.
UI text needs to be not only short, but also understandable to the target audience. Communicating ideas in a creative, original way will probably just hurt you here — it’ll just confuse the user, and that’s the last thing you want. If your interface is full of complex terms or seems ambiguous, the customer might not buy the product at all.
Many companies’ brand books list specific ways they do and do not want their products presented. For example, premium brands might prohibit the use of words such as “discount,” “gift,” or “accessible.” It’s important to keep these requirements in mind when writing UI text in order to avoid harming your partners’ reputation — as well as your own. On the other hand, mass-market stores are eager to attract customers with these exact same words.
The UX text in any website or app’s interface needs to be written in language its target audience can understand. For example, slang might annoy or even offend premium customers. However, slang might give the customers of a youth clothing site the impression that the brand speaks their language.
The UX copywriter and UX designer need to work together very closely. An excellent user experience requires a number of different components to fit together, and it’s hard to accomplish this without coordinating the efforts of these two people. A perfectly concise, comprehensible, and attractive chunk of text will be wasted if it’s displayed in a font so tiny, the user can’t even make it out.
As you can see, some of the requirements for UX copywriting are the same as those for regular copywriting (comprehensibility, following the brand book, etc.), but a number of them are different as well. In our experience, it’s difficult for someone to switch from regular copywriting to UX copywriting.
There are similar alternatives out there for almost every store, product, and service nowadays, so customer retention can be a real challenge. The quality of an online business’s text can be a major factor in determining its success.
That’s why we recommend leaving it to the professionals.
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