Improving site conversion: 5 ways to avoid creating bad microcopy. Part 1

Today we want to share the first part of the Bill Byrd material on what exactly you shouldn’t do when writing microtexts to keep usability positive. In this article, we first give examples of a microcopy, and then analyze in detail 5 cases.

Imagine that you were able to create a great user interface. You have great headlines, images, banners, “buy” buttons. Have you thought of a microcopy? Do you know what it is?

Microcopy - small phrases or even individual words that add personality to your site, increase customer loyalty and encourage them to perform a targeted action.

Unfortunately, we rarely pay attention to this conversion enhancement tool. Meanwhile, a microcopy is found everywhere - for example, it can even be text on a label that hangs on the left in the figure below:
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An example from the site siprod.ru . Shortcut made in the service Witget.com

Moreover, microcopy also includes a short instruction or even a phrase under the heading.



Example from qiwi.ru

To summarize, these are tiny phrases that ultimately improve or degrade usability.

Examples of microcopy:



A microcopy affects both the process before the purchase and after it. The site visitor is faced with a microcopy everywhere. If your microcopy does not work at this key moment, you will lose clients - and perhaps you will not have a chance to return them.

We always remember this, and therefore we offer you five ways to make a microcopy of this in order to preserve positive usability, and not to destroy it.

1. Look at the product through the user's eyes.

I bet that you are perfectly familiar with the terminology associated with your product, you are well versed on the site and remember all the items from the form. But it's no secret that every company speaks its own language, which, if you are not careful, will slip into the site.

The correct approach to the target audience in the text:



Example from knopka.com

An example from the site mango.ru , where the number of terms and names exceeds the possibilities for understanding by a simple user:



Do not let this happen. You should not naively believe that what is obvious to you will also be clear to the user.

Here is an easy way to check if your microcopy is too complicated and confusing for a client.

Suppose that you run usability testing with the help of testers who perform actions according to specified scripts and record video with voice accompaniment during testing. (For information on how to find testers on a remote site, read the article " 6 tools of accessible usability testing for websites ." In the comments to this article, we were introduced to another usability testing tool www.fabuza.ru/ , which allows sending testers to site for the job and record a video of the answer to the question for later analysis).

In the process of testing, you will certainly observe the user's actions and phrases with which he accompanies the study of your product. You can not only watch, but also listen attentively (and make appropriate notes), and pay attention to what words the user says during testing. Remember the phrases that the client describes their actions. In the end, you yourself asked him to think out loud.



Image from www.blinkux.com

Listen carefully to the intonation with which users read a microcopy - have they uttered some name or a term with an interrogative intonation?

You will certainly be surprised how much useful information you can learn about a potential client, if you pay attention to seemingly insignificant trifles. Any detail that the user tells about himself will be useful for creating a new microcopy.

2. Users are people too, speak to them in human language

Among Internet users, brevity is now in trend, so many of us are striving to cut everything - especially short inscriptions in the interface. The labels fit perfectly into the design, they organize the most important elements of the user interface, such as navigation and forms to fill out.

Unfortunately, short phrases have their own drawbacks: their understanding is individual for everyone and depends on the user's thinking, since these microcopies do not provide explanations.

Not so long ago, we encountered this problem with the signature of one of the forms in the TheLadders service.

TheLadders is a service that helps you find jobs. As in other similar systems, users need to specify the necessary information in order to find a suitable job.



It seemed to us that this form was very clear and simple. We have used the title “work goals” to select appropriate criteria for almost 10 years, implying the requirements that the applicant has made for future work. This inscription helped us to make navigation as clear and convenient as possible. However, during the last redesign, we noticed that users continued to “stumble” during the first visit to the page.

It turned out that people who did not work in the field of job search thought that the work objectives implied the career achievements that they were going to achieve in the future, and not the details of the new work.

(Along the way, we also fell into the trap described in the first paragraph: you cannot use internal terminology in communication with users!)

So, we used a more colloquial version: “What kind of job do you want to find?” This made an instant effect - users no longer hesitated. Why? Because the ambiguous understanding of information was excluded, this phrase cannot be pulled out of context and understood in any other way.

Instead of using the usual microcopy template for any form in the user interface, try to make phrases in a simple and understandable language. The user interface should be a form of communication with the user, and not a set of stationery through which your potential client should wade.

Remember that it is not so much the inscriptions in the navigation system that are important as the correct understanding by the user of the purpose of the pages that represent these inscriptions.

A simple and clear chain of actions for creating a resume on the job.ru website:



Source: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/06/17/five-ways-prevent-bad-microcopy/