The text on all the buttons in an app, the tiny instructions under a toggle on a website, and the pop-up tooltips you encounter on an otherwise confusing form is called microcopy, and writing it is a facet of user experience (UX) work.
These snippets of text can be tricky to write because they need to help users understand what’s happening, what will do what, and how to accomplish what they want to accomplish in a succinct, ingestible manner (and ideally in the written voice of the brand whose app they’re using or form they’re filling out).
There are all sorts of tricks to writing better microcopy, from using specifics and leading with outcome-related verbs (“Save as PDF” rather than “Click to Save”), to ensuring you include clear, interruptive modals (pop-up interface windows) so the user has one more opportunity to reconsider before something destructive and irreversible (like deleting a database).
I enjoy UX writing, partly because it’s so fiddly, and partly because it requires using words in a dramatically different way than (for instance) one might use words when writing a novel.
But I also find a great deal of satisfaction in learning about the various ligaments and tendons that alchemize mere words into successful communication.
In one-on-one, in-person communication, for instance, instead of leveraging system windows and well-honed microcopy, you might pick up on the other person’s spoken rhythm and default approach to conversational turn-taking, and slide into that same cadence, while also offering them appealing conversational doorknobs (spoken opportunities for them to expound upon a topic on which they may be keen to elaborate).
Communication at all scales and contexts can feel awkward or frustrating at times. But by thinking of every interaction as an opportunity to learn and grow, teach and share, guide and be guided, and then applying the appropriate scaffolding, it’s possible to convert otherwise purposeless prose into something situationally productive, and to upgrade an interaction from a verbal jumble into something memorable and meaningful.
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