There are literally books about e-commerce and website design in general, and we are not going to talk about all of that now since we can’t cover it all. We are going to talk about essential things on how to improve user experience in e-commerce and website design.
What is UX writing?
UX writing is a skill of writing texts for user interfaces for web and mobile. That includes all text on the website or app, from button text and titles to navigation, error messages, notification, etc. basically everything that is a part of a content on the website or app.
Isn’t that a content writers job?
The answer is yes and no. Content writers can write all of that, but not as good as a designer. A designer is the one who organizes a website or app, do research, test, creates a user interface, etc. It is way better for a designer to learn this essential skill since the task is creating texts that support and enhance users communication with interfaces, let them clearly understand what’s going on and lighten the negative experience in case of errors or problems of interaction.
Apart from that, Copy or Content Writers main goal is creating texts that sell something, products, services, tools, etc. They are not known with the user experience as well as designers.
Is the text really that important?
For sure images are the most important and can speak a thousand words, especially because visuals are transmitted in the brain much faster than text. But it happens that images can not perceive the whole message clearly every time, and can have a double reading. That is why we needed to have text to follow up with the image. That doesn’t have to be the case for every image, but in e-commerce, it is very important.
Next, to the product image, people want to see name, details, prices, discounts (if there is any), etc. Picture of a product alone is not enough to give users all the information they need.
Things to consider in website and e-commerce design:
- A clear message: Users need to understand what is about, to not be confused or too complicated.
- Condensed sentences: All the sentences and text, in general, need to be on point and meaningful, no pointless sentences to fill the empty space.
- Helpful copy: Text needs to assist users with their experience on the website or app, by giving them all the necessary information to find what they are looking for.
- Consistency: At all times you need to keep the same tone of voice, style or terminology. If you change that, users might fill confused and see you as unprofessional, which may reflect on leaving the website forever.
How to improve your UX writing
Keep the writing real
- For starters, when creating a website or app, try to avoid random and dummy text (Lorem Ipsum), and try to write real text. Like you are writing it for a real user, even if its a very early stage of design. That will help you to progress and be better and better in writing for users. Also, real text can make a design look different, because of the number of words and how each word and letter look in every design. Keeping it real will help designers have a better understanding of a visual hierarchy in the project.
Create scannable content
- As we mentioned, visuals are the very first things users see on the design and that grabs their attention. When users come to the website for the first time they scan the page, and that is why they first see the visuals. The second most important thing is the text. Headlines are very important, since they are bigger than other parts of the text, and they first catch users attention. If the user is interested in what he reads in the headline and first few sentences, they will then decide if they going to give that text a chance. Messages need to be clear and concise, without unnecessary elements. All the text elements should be organized according to the typographic hierarchy so that scanning the page or screen, the user could quickly understand which part carries the core message and which is less important.
Show them the numbers
- Based on the Nielsen-Normal Group studies of users behavior, peoples eye always look for something to catch on, that is different than a plain text, such as numbers, bolded words, stats — something potentially useful for them. The reason why people subconsciously do that is that they think, whatever number represent, will help them to make the content time-saving for skimming the data. There are a few more tricks to persuade people to read your content. One of them is negative space. Creating enough space between the lines, splitting it into the sections (even if its a long section, split it into a few parts), all that will give the text a space to breathe, and eyes to rest. If you just show too many things all the once, will just make people go away and probably never come back.
Grammar flexibility in UX writing
- Grammar is essential in any text writing, but it can be different when it comes to microscopy. Microscopy is a very small piece of text on a very small element, such as buttons, pop-up screens, etc. There you are limited with the number of words you are going to use, which means avoiding complicated constructions and unnecessary punctuation such as periods in copy for labels, hover text, bulleted lists or dialog body text. Keeping an Active voice instead of Passive is good to use, especially for those users who are not English native, and looks more natural and clear. It is not about breaking the rules in communication, its more about the best expression and minimalism in what you are trying to say. It is also proven as more effective for the user experience.
Always test
- When it comes to testings, most of the design companies consider it as a waste of time and money. Many of them say: “You can predict what users will do”. That is a very bad example of how things work in design, and that should be changed if you want to have a good design process and satisfied clients. Testings, especially in this “small” but impactful elements is very important. What is written in the button should direct users to the action and let them understand what happens next? Things to consider while testing the buttons are colors, size, placement, and the button text. One of the best test solutions here is A/B testing. For example, you create the product for elderly people with low-level of tech literacy while you yourself are a young advanced user of various software. Testing will give you an understanding of how real users perceive the label and what kind of text is more convincing for them. It is important for user experience and business to write interface copy that rather supports than undermines decision making the process.
Capitalization in the copy
- It’s important to point this out since many writers in many articles don’t know to use this properly. They usually want to point something out, but think if every word is all-caps, that will make people notice it faster. For English speakers, it’s still a natural feature of the language that apart from feeling the text as less or more formal marks the levels of text hierarchy. Which means that the decision is up to you how you are going to use it, but need to have these things in your mind:
- Title Style Caps are used to mark field labels, actions, menu items, and page titles,
- Sentence Style Caps are used for longer copy such as page or field descriptions and tooltips
- ALL-CAPS are used only for really important items (brand names, core navigation in the website header, a short tagline, call-to-action text, and buttons) and avoid it at all the rest of cases.
Most important comes first
- Don’t ever start your website or blog with the “warm-up text”, it is the worst decision ever. Rather start with the short and on point sentence, followed up by the short information. That way will catch users attention faster and will increase your chances in having them read all the way to the end.
Learning UX writing is not something you will master in a day, it will need a lot of time, dedication and learning to master it. But if you work effortlessly, will make it happen and be better from time to time. This article for sure didn’t cover all the things about writing, but the point was to share essential things to consider when it comes to UX and writing itself, it is up to you how far you will get. Follow us and we will make sure to help everyone who is willing to learn and progress.
Thank you for reading!
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