Creative Director of ArtVersion, a Chicago design consultancy. We craft ideal user experiences for the world’s most innovative companies.
getty
From visual learning to the comfort of aesthetics and design, most humans are inherently drawn to the appeal of visual design. In UI/UX design, graphics and visuals are paramount to strengthen a positive user experience. However, a key element that can often be overlooked is the world of lexicon that guides the user through the experience with written content. Content can be found anywhere and everywhere on a UI/UX interface.
From menus to buttons and headers to body text, wordsmithing solid copy is just as important as any other detail within that interface. Word composition attains immense value that guarantees an enjoyable experience and has so many boundless benefits when purposely composed.
Content Enables Clarity
UX design is about placing the user at the forefront of the whole design. Therefore, navigation must be crystal clear to protect that experience. Written content functions as a facilitator to offer user clarity on decision making and what interactions result in and shares the story of a brand’s identity.
When written with intention and fluidity, content can be powerful enough to bridge the gap between context and visual design. Although a UX design should be crafted with ease to avoid cognitive friction, design without written instruction and guidance can minimize the experience.
MORE FOR YOU
Imagine buying a product in a brick-and-mortar store that only possessed the visual design and included no descriptive language. A consumer would know what it is, but the written element that offers further clarity is void, which could be abstruse. The same can be applied to UX design; a user could recognize an interface by its common navigational icons and menus, but without content to guide them, it becomes unclear what those interactions entail and dilutes the overall emotion of that design.
Making Your Brand’s Voice Heard
Written content may go under our radars as “invisible design” because it’s an element that is always expected to be included. However, when content is written with intention and creativity, it functions as another underlining layer to design. When navigating an interface, written content allows consumers to understand the value that can arise from buying a product/service within UX design. Visual design can function to peak a consumer’s interest; however, written content allows the value of that product/service to be captured with detailed information that UI design may not be able to fully encompass on its own.
Aligning with the tone of a brand’s identity is always fundamental, but utilizing content to voice a brand’s personality is what allows them to stand out from the crowd and strengthen their positioning. Robust content can strengthen a brand’s authenticity because the tone that the content delivers can be creatively driven.
In a saturated marketplace, it’s no longer enough to simply describe what a brand’s story is with flat language to deliver its message. Rather, content building is about ensuring that a brand feels unique and memorable with emotionally driven syntax that will optimize the experience.
Creating Content With Intention
With the possibilities that word compositing can offer, understanding the best practices to fulfill a user’s experience can be captured in a plethora of ways. The most central step when writing content is ensuring that it intersects with the design to work as one cohesive entity. As stated, design and content need to function as counterparts to fully enhance the user experience. Thus, content should propel the design by working with it to encompass a unified feel.
Writing For Human Emotion
Written content is, in part, meant to deliver clarity, but what is truly potent in its craftmanship is its ability to appeal to human emotion. Shifting the utilization of words from a technical standpoint into a creative and human approach to writing, allows users to feel what a brand’s purpose is, how they will feel if they engage with that product/service and why their brand is a differentiator because those emotions were able to rise to the surface. Compelling storytelling needs to also feel all-inclusive to further appeal to emotion. Focusing on a target audience is essential, but language that is wide-ranging to any potential user/consumer opens the door for new conversions.
Impactful CTAs
Once emotion is placed as the centerfold of design, it is important for consistency to be carried into your company’s call to action (CTA). Engaging content in a CTA can encourage a user into interacting with a product/service further to drive conversions and user loyalty. However, the days of merely requesting a user to “buy here!” are long over. Instead, utilizing a lexicon that builds a sense of trust and confidence for a consumer matters most.
Language is meant to be persuasive but never over-the-top that it feels heavily sales-driven. User experience is about the emotions users feel, so a sales pitch will most likely drive away consumers, even on e-commerce platforms. Consider, instead, a much more approachable, conversational take on your CTA language. This enhances that layer of brand trust users would much rather encounter. Strengthening your mindset that effective content is about adding to the experience—not bombarding your user—will make an impactful difference in engagement.
Brevity Can Say A Lot
A practice to ensure content uplifts the experience is brevity. Overly descriptive content can disrupt the experience by making it appear too heavy. Instead, focusing on powerful word choices that have a purpose but remain succinct conveys an optimal delivery of information.
The window to engage your audience with compelling content is fleeting. Succinct content ensures that your audiences’ attention doesn’t drift, and with the quick pace of our modern world that expects results as quickly as possible, it’s highly unlikely that a user will read through excessive content. Leveraging quality over quantity offers an opportunity to emotionally engage your user.
Like any other component of digital design, content strategy is a vital layer to a user’s experience. UI/UX design attains many moving pieces within its development, and the content that is embedded within should never be overlooked.
Forbes Agency Council is an invitation-only community for executives in successful public relations, media strategy, creative and advertising agencies. Do I qualify?
Go to Source
Author: Goran Paun, Forbes Councils Member
