If the world were made to my specifications, all your clients would be happy to pay for a web writer to craft every sentence into something as elegant as it was functional, and the client would have planned the content so that you had it just when you asked, but we both know that won’t happen every time. Sometimes you just know they are going to write the About page, two company blog pages and a Facebook fan page before resigning their position as chief content writer and you are going to end up filling in all the details that will otherwise just be Lorem Ipsum.
Welcome to the big world of microcopy:
A man walks into a bar. The bartender nods a greeting and watches as the man scans the bottles behind the bar.
“Er, you have a lot of gin here. Is there one you would recommend?”
“Yes sir.”
Long pause.
“… Never mind, I’ll have the one in the green bottle.”
“Certainly, sir. But you can’t buy it from this part of the bar. You need to go through the double doors there.”
“But they look like they lead into the kitchen.”
“Really, sir? Well, no, that’s where we allow customers to purchase gin.”
The man walks through the doors. On the other side he is greeted by the same bartender.
“Y-you!” he stammers but the reticent bartender is now all but silent.
Unnerved, the man points to a green bottle, “Er, I’d like to buy a shot of that please. With ice and tonic water.”
The bartender mixes the drink and puts it on the bar just out of the reach of the man and looks up.
“Um, do you take cards?” the man asks, ready to present his credit card.
The bartender goes to take the card to put it through the machine.
“Wait! How much was it – with sales tax and everything? Do you take a gratuity?”
The bartender simply shrugs.
The man eyes him for a moment and decides to try his luck at the bar next door.
In the Choose Your Own Adventure version of this story there are plenty of ways to stop the man giving up. You could let him buy the gin right where he was; you could make the price more obvious; you could signpost the place to buy gin. The mistakes made by the bar and bartender are painfully obvious. And yet, there are websites losing users everyday due to the same lack of clear instruction.
A smidgen of well written copy goes a long way to reassure the nervous prospect. Just imagine if our man walked into the bar and the bartender explained that although the bar was here, sales were conducted in the next room because people were not then able to overhear the man’s card details. Instead, he is left to fend for himself. Online, we kick customers through the anonymous double doors with a merry ‘Paypal will handle your transaction!’.
Recently I worked on a site where the default error message, to account for anything happening that the developers hadn’t accounted for, was ‘SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG!’. It might have been technically accurate but this is not how to inspire confidence in your customers that they can make a successful purchase through you. As everyone knows they can shop just fine, thank you very much, it is your site they will blame. Card declined? It’s the site. Didn’t know my email address has changed? It’s the site. Can’t log in? It’s the site.
Yes, yes. I know. None of these things are related to your site, or you the developer, but drop outs will be high and you’ll get imploring emails from your client asking you to wade knee deep into the site analytics to find a solution by testing 41 shades of blue because if it worked for Google…? Before you try a visual fix involving the Dulux paint chart breeding with a Pantone swatch, take an objective look at the information you are giving customers. How much are you assuming they know? How much are you relying on age-old labels and prompts without clarification?
Here’s a fun example for non-North Americans: ask your Granny to write out her billing address. If she looks at you blankly, tell her it is the address where the bank sends her statements. Imagine how many fewer instances of the wrong address there would be if we routinely added that information when people purchased from the UK? Instead, we rely on a language convention that hasn’t much common usage without explanation because, well, because we always have since the banks told us how we could take payments online.
So. Your client is busying themselves with writing the ultimate Facebook fan page about themselves and here you are left with creating a cohesive signup process or basket or purchase instructions. Here are five simple rules for bending puny humans to your will creating instructive instructions and constructive error messages that ultimately mean less hassle for you.
Plan what you want to say and plan it out as early as possible
This goes for all content. Walk a virtual mile in the shoes of your users. What specific help can you offer customers to actively encourage continuation and ensure a minimal amount of dropouts? Make space for that information. One of the most common web content mistakes is jamming too much into a space that has been defined by physical boundaries rather than planned out. If you manage it, the best you can hope for is that no-one notices it was a last-minute job. Mostly it reads like a bad game of Tetris with content sticking out all over the place.
Use your words
Microcopy often says a lot in a few words but without those words you could leave room for doubt. When doubt creeps in a customer wants reassurance just like Alice:
This time (Alice) found a little bottle… with the words ‘DRINK ME’ beautifully printed on it in large letters. It was all very well to say ‘Drink me,’ but the wise little Alice was not going to do that in a hurry. ‘No, I’ll look first,’ she said, ‘and see whether it’s marked “poison” or not’
Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.
Value clarity over brevity. Or a little more prosaically, “If in doubt, spell it out.” Thanks, Jeremy!
Be prepared to help
‘Login failed: email/password combination is incorrect.’
Oh.
‘Login failed: email/password combination is incorrect.
Are you typing in all capitals? Caps Lock may be on.
Have you changed your email address recently and not updated your account with us? Try your old email address first.
Can’t remember your password? We can help you reset it.’
Ah!
Be direct and be informative
There is rarely a site that doesn’t suffer from some degree of jargon. Squash it early by setting a few guidelines about what language and tone of voice you will use to converse with your users. Be consistent. Equally, try to be as specific as possible when giving error messages or instructions and allay fears upfront.
Card payments are handled by paypal but you do not need a paypal account to pay.
We will not display your email address but we might need it to contact you.
Sign up for our free trial (no credit card required).
Combine copy and visual cues, learn from others and test new combinations
While visual design and copy can work independently, they work best together. New phrases and designs are being tested all the time so take a peek at abtests.com for more ideas, then test some new ideas and add your own results. Have a look at the microcopy pool on Flickr for some wonderful examples of little words and pictures working together. And yes, you absolutely should join the group and post more examples.
A man walks into a bar. The bartender greets him in a friendly manner and asks him what he would like to drink.
“Gin and Tonic, please.”
“Yes sir, we have our house gin on offer but we also have a particularly good import here too.”
“The import, please.”
“How would you like it? With a slice of lemon? Over ice?”
“Both”
“That’s £3.80. We accept cash, cards or you could open a tab.”
“Card please.”
“Certainly sir. Move just over here so that you can’t be observed. Now, please enter your pin number.”
“Thank you.”
“And here is your drink. Do let me know if there is a problem with it. I shall just be here at the bar. Enjoy.”
Cheers!
Comments
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08/12/2009
Great!
I’m glad it’s time for 24 again. Awesome post, as usual!
Cheers Relly!
ps/ does anyone know of other good articles about copy writing?
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08/12/2009
I’m a 24 freshman, first year for me. Love the content, great insight. Content is as important as graphic design, glad to hear someone finally say it. Thanks Relly.
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08/12/2009
Very useful! Discussions about website copy often lump all text together as “content”, but clearly this microcopy is more about usability and design than content. That said, the distinctions between all of these labels ultimately break down when you consider how inter-dependent they are.
However, there is a danger that too many words in an attempt to clarify will actually obfuscate. This puts me in mind of an Open University course that had 4 times as many pages devoted to instructions for writing an assignment as were in the original material being studied. Every time a student showed evidence of missing the point, the course directors would add more explanation.
A little goes a long way and maybe best saved for those times when common conventions and user expectations are being tweaked.
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08/12/2009
Very interesting read!
We try not to allow our clients the privilege to write their own copy, as we don’t like the wait and the end quality – we have our trusty copywriter do all the hard work and we end up with great stuff!
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08/12/2009
Marc – some great copywriting articles can be found at www.copyblogger.com . I especially rate their copywriting 101 series for people faced with writing copy for the first time.
Josh Porter’s blog bokardo.com also covers a lot of the design areas where content and design converge.
Dead tree style – the Words that Sell series are classics, and I always recommend Andy Maslen’s ‘Write to Sell’ as a slim volume that packs a lot of good advice in.
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08/12/2009
This was a great article, reminding us that quite often we expect the passive consumers of content to be active, while forgetting to help them through that process.
Helpful microcopy needs to be punchy and obvious – we all know that people don’t read instructions, least of all on the Web – and you’ve provided some great examples.
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08/12/2009
I think an entire 24ways post could be done revolving around this issue to be honest. The amount of times projects make it all the way through to deployment without anyone outside the tech team even acknowledging that there are things like 500 pages, 404 pages and various error messages that need Design, Usability and IA consideration is ridiculous.
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08/12/2009
Steerpike – it almost was. I ended cutting out another 1k+ words on just this sort of stuff :)
If the tech teams were able to rely on some better default messages that the Design/UX/IA crowd knew worked than that would be a good start. Like you said, an article for the future perhaps.
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08/12/2009
Brilliant post. The first bartender example is just awesome – it describes perfectly the user experience I’ve had on too many sites.
It really is amazing how much difference one sentence can make. I’d better go and check all of my sites…
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08/12/2009
Excellent article Relly, totally agree.
I can’t help but feel I was partially responsible for the proliferation of that particular “SOMETHING HAS GONE WRONG!” message. The new message is much more reassuring, I have taken note!
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08/12/2009
Ah, Dave! Don’t worry, yours is but one example in a very big file of them I have. I just think it is something that, as an industry, we only now have the time and resource to start working on.
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08/12/2009
what a brilliant article, Relly!
Fantastic advice and beautifully written – I know I’ll be referring a lot of people, colleagues and clients alike, to this :) You really bring home the ‘power of word’ message, so very true and so vital – thanks :)
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08/12/2009
Best 24 Ways article so far, copy is so underrated on the web.
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08/12/2009
Love the title :) Brilliant article!
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09/12/2009
Relly, this is awesome stuff. : )
And to the copywriting dead-tree reading list, I’ll add Letting Go of the Words by Janice (Ginny) Redish. It’s a nice introduction.
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10/12/2009
Although it has other related content in it, so isn’t just about writing style, I’d recommend looking at The Web Style Guide, Chapter 9 (http://www.webstyleguide.com/wsg3/9-editorial-style/). The website is also available as a book, which I find easier to use.
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11/12/2009
Indeed this particular kind of content is an important part of an interface’s usability. You simply should not expect design to be the only responsible for a good conversion rate.
Since most of the times it’s the designer that has to start planning content and content holders, shouldn’t they handle it in a most enjoyable way for the user?
Kudos for Relly! =D
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15/12/2009
Great article Relly and some sound advice. It’s good to see a few more articles on this subject appearing, as they are few and far between.
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16/12/2009
Best error message I’ve ever seen (and corrected) in code: “You must select a time between now and infinity.”
Um, yeah. Absolutely correct. And dumb as shit.
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12/02/2010
Excellent post and analogy. It is our job as designers and business managers to help the customer through the process. We are the professionals, the consumer is the newbie. As a former hotel/restaurant manager, now e-commerce consultant, I used to preach to employees that they know the product better than the guest. Their job was to gather information and deliver results, ‘tour the menu’ with the new guest, welcome the returning guest back and stun them when you know their name and offer to bring them their favorite drink by name. When I go out, I expect service, do not make me think. Tell me what & how to have the best experience. We have to recognize that on the internet. Everyday we encounter businesses that inconvenience the customer to convenience the business by not eliminating barriers or keeping things simple. If you shop on the net much, then you have an Amazon account (they dont accept paypal), a paypal account, a google shopping account. I guess visa is just Visa is not good enough anymore. I dont shop much on the net, nor do I use paypal. I guard my personal info because what is secure today is not tomorrow. If you don’t tkae by Visa, then you don’t get my sale! Great post, it is too bad this isn’t part of web 101.
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22/04/2010
What a perfectly gorgeous article. My hat, along with the flower on the rim and the fake beard off to you. You can now quip back or smile. Which one will it be?
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