Microcopy: Tiny Words With A Huge UX Impact

by Nick Babich

When we think about designing a great user experience, it’s easy to get caught up with all the things. The flows, the content, the color scheme. But there’s another component to UX that can have a tremendous impact on user experience and product teams tend to overlook this component. I’m talking about microcopy.

What is Microcopy?

Microcopy is the term for the small bits of copy in UI that help users do things. Microcopy examples are error messages, labels in contact form, ecommerce hints. At a glance, these words seem insignificant when compared to the overall app design. But surprisingly, those tiny words have a huge impact on conversions.

Author/Copyright holder: visualpun.ch. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-SA 2.0

Why Microcopy Matters

But just because microcopy is small, it doesn’t mean it’s easy to design. There are multiple factors that play a huge role in designing great microcopy. Here are just a few tips to remember when you want to make the most of microcopy design:

Revisit it When Things aren’t Working

Usability testing gives you insights into what parts of your product clear to your users, and what parts create confusion. And quite often, small tweaks can make a huge difference. Analyze the microcopy when things aren’t working.

When Veeam noticed through their on page survey, that many visitors were asking for a price .

Veam Product Page (before)

They tested changing the phrase from “Request a quote” to “Request pricing” and saw a 161.66% increase in clicks to their lead gen form.

Veam Product Page (after)

Takeaways: Revise your copy based on insights gained from user testing

Alleviate the User’s Worries

Your microcopy can alleviate users doubts during registration, subribing or buying. But to make it happen, you should anticipate user’s questions.

Here are a few common examples:

Fear of Spam. When you ask users to sign up in your product using Twitter, not to auto-tweet should be taken for granted (if you want to have a positive experience). However, many users still afraid that their account will be used to send a promo messages. Microcopy from Timely covers all the potential user concerns in one tight little sentence.

Timely Connect to Twitter account

Data loss. Basecamp app reassure their users that they don’t need to worry about their data when they use Basecamp:

Why Do You Need this information?! Facebook makes it clear why the service asks for particular information.

Facebook Sign Up

Takeaways: Microcopy should address all user’s concerns.

Use Helpful Error Messages

When something goes wrong, it’s helpful to know exactly what happened. But if you aren’t explicit about the error, your users are going to have a hard time figuring out how to fix it.

Mailchimp handles the error state

Takeaways: When you show error message, try to talk to your user like a person. Have a conversation and convey technical information in simple terms.

Keep Instructions Short and Helpful

When implementing microcopy use simple unambiguous language and short sentences. Users don’t want to read long instructions on how to complete a single task.

Personalization in design

Pick Your Moment

Microcopy can motivate users to complete the action. For example, when potential customers see how large the customer base it, they are more willing to complete a sign up procedure.

Basecamp Sign Up

Conclusion

Well-written microcopy guides users. So, the next time you’re creating or improving an experience, I hope you employ some of the tactics provided here.

Thank you!

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