Death to marketing copy! Long live UX Writing!
In my role as UX leader working on digital products like websites or apps, I spend a lot of time trying to convince partners to slash and burn copy. “Would users really miss that first paragraph at the top of the page? It feels a lot like marketing copy, but the user is already here. The marketing worked! Let’s just get right to the point.”
Amazingly, partners sometimes disagree with me completely. So I sometimes share research, post links to articles, or cite examples in an attempt to influence their thinking. That’s why I’m writing this post. This will be my definitive source of my thinking on UX Writing, complete with links at the bottom.
Copywriting vs UX writing
Copywriting and UX are two separate and distinct practices. Here are some of the main differences:
UX Writing
Uses simple words
Seeks to remove clutter and cognitive load
Removes everything not necessary
Shares instructions
Tries to be intuitive
Focused on understandability, usability, and accessiblity
Copywriting
Uses sexy words
Seeks to generate an emotional response
Uses tag lines and repetition
Tells stories
Tries to be clever
Focused on driving sales
Most of the time, the people doing your copywriting won’t be great at writing for UX. It’s a completely different animal. In her article Copywriting is not UX Writing, Hannah Locke gives a couple examples of the different approaches. Copywriters tend to deliver this:
Instead of something like this:
Why avoid marketing copy?
Nobody actually reads it. You’re spending time and money in vain.
It adds visual clutter which increases cognitive load with little to no user value.
It distracts from the task users came to do.
People are tired of advertising and can spot it a mile away.
It’s unauthentic and cheesy.
Common responses and my answers:
“We need an introduction to the page.”
You really don’t. Give users some credit. If we design it well, make it easily scannable and intuitive, users will be fine.
“We need marketing copy to convince people to buy the product/do the thing.”
The most valuable thing I learned from BJ Fogg’s Behavior Design Bookcamp is this: Design experiences for people who already have the motivation and ability to take the action you want them to take. Motivation is mostly intrinsic and thinking you can make people want to do a thing is a fool’s errand. In short, it’s basically impossible to increase someone’s motivation by dropping a wall of text on them - even if they do take time to read it.
“I disagree! Some people actually do read.”
Every study disagrees with your opinion (links below). While you’re technically correct, there aren’t enough who read to make it worth degrading the experience for everyone else. Not to mention the time and money you’ll spend maintaining that extra copy. Also - if our design target has motivation and ability, the additional copy isn’t necessary and is begging to be ignored.
“It will help with SEO.”
First - that’s super hard to quantify. And second - there’s a fine line between designing with SEO in mind and letting SEO lead you down a dark alley and knocking your over the head. Don’t ever sacrifice your customers’ experience on the altar of Google. Plus, there are probably other ways to get the same effect without having to resort to cluttering your experience with marketing copy.
“We need to tie into other marketing materials like email or print materials.”
So in your marketing, you said “this thing is awesome because A, B and C - click on this link”. So they clicked on that link - a clear indication that they are interested in the thing. So now you want to repeat A, B and C? Instead of just getting out of the way and letting them get the thing they’ve already told you they want? The marketing already worked - now let’s get out of their way!
“That’s just your opinion.”
That’s my professional opinion based on my experience building digital products since 1993. And based on research. And based on observable success of best-in-class digital products. You can choose not to listen to me, but at least read the articles.
UX Writing Principles
Until I get a chance to spend some more time crafting my own version of these principles, I recommend this great post from the Justinmind blog. Scroll down to the principles section.
Conclusion
Please - just…stop it already.
“We provide a full array of blah blah blah…”
“We understand that yada yada…”
“In today’s fast moving world blibbity blibbity blarg…”
We can do better for the humans who come to the experiences we create. Let’s stop patronizing them and wasting their time. Let’s get out of their way and let them do what they came to do. Let’s stop obsessing about our own brand and focus on customers instead. Kill marketing copy wherever you see it in your digital experiences. Slash and burn.
Let’s improve our UX Writing practices. Let’s keep learning and influencing our partners.
