Wordalicious
By Colleen Jones on Wednesday, April 11th, 2007User experience is like a delicious cake. (And I love cake!) Just as a cake requires a variety of quality ingredients, user experience requires the “good stuff” from many disciplines, ranging from cognitive psychology to communication to information architecture to visual design. And just as a master pastry chef knows how to combine these ingredients in the right way, user experience experts know how to combine the best and most pertinent aspects of these disciplines, “baking” them into a satisfying experience.
An important, yet sometimes forgotten, ingredient in user experience is effective words. It sounds so basic—precisely why it’s so important. Like flour in a cake, words are almost always a part of user experience. Below are a few principles and simple examples to make a website or interface wordalicious:
Concision – Pick the right words, not more words.
Users don’t typically read; instead, they scan. Therefore, it’s critical to make the most of the words in an interface by selecting them carefully. For example, the headlines on news websites, such as cnn.com, convey the crux of each story in very few words.
Clarity – Say what you mean.
Again because users scan, it’s important to pick words that are clear to the targeted users. Generally, simpler words are better than more complex ones. Even if the targeted users are well-educated, they will recognize simpler words more quickly than complex ones. For example, e-commerce websites say “shop” or “buy” rather than “procure.”
Tone and Brand – More than words.
Just as graphics and colors give a website a certain look and feel that conveys a company’s brand, words convey a company’s brand through tone. One way words create tone is through their connotation—their implied, subjective meanings beyond the dictionary meanings. It’s important to pick words and phrases with connotations that resonate with users and are consistent with a company’s brand attributes. For example, Virgin Mobile creates a fun, informal tone through wording, even in its log in instructions.
Agreed. Concise and clear word choice is extremely valuable to me for weeding out the information that I do not want to read and conveying the information I am looking for in an efficient manner.
This is more great justification for why companies don’t just need copywriters, but experts in understanding how to write and present content on the web.
There are so many more words on a site than just “copy”.
Great pointers! I find that applying these principles is quite a challenge with an organization like the CDC. Much of what the CDC has to offer is produced by highly educated researchers and targeted for specialized health professionals. The written output is enough to melt a readability meter. Our team collaborates with others to translate this great work into products that will reach the broadest audience possible. These principles are a crucial part of that process.
Tone can be especially tricky. CDC is historically a very formal institution. But to achieve our goals for improving health, we need to go where the people are and adapt our messages accordingly.
These principles become especially critical when we consider pushing content to the tiny screens of mobile devices. Because more and more people in our target audiences are using mobile phones, we need to morph CDC’s messages into forms that suit that medium. Concision is the name of the game, but we still need to maintain the appropriate tone.
This is great information, concisely and clearly written with a pleasant tone (love the cake analogy!). It’s always nice to learn about a topic from someone who can demonstrate their own recommendations.
It would be great if more websites followed this advice and realized that the words on a web page create an “atmosphere” and affect the user experience in much the same way that visuals do. Movie and TV producers would never discount this principle - the web medium needs to incorporate it also!
Hey Colleen–great blog. These are three great topics that everyone should keep in mind. If there is one thing I have learned from you, it is to be clear and concise.
Several of you have hinted at the fun part of applying these principles–you have to do it in the right balance. Sometimes, you can be so concise that you are vague, not clear. Or, you can be so concise that you are not creating the right tone….too concise can seem abrupt. Cindy’s latest blog entry gives a humorous account of tackling this challenge!
All you say is very true. Word choice is incredibly important when working on voice interfaces, like IVR’s. In this case its difficult to imagine what the words are like spoken over the phone until you hear it. For visual interfaces, error messages can either make or break the tone of your site.