 Hi. I'm excited to be here. Okay. My name is Laura Strader and a little bit about me. I've worked for Bluehost for nine years, started on the phones and billing. And I love talking to our customers. It was just fun. And so, like, that. And then words. I love words. And I feel like each word has their own personality. So if I talk about words as though they're their own person, that's why. Oh, I should mention that after, you know, being on the support phones, I went to on a journey writing knowledge-based articles and like honing my writing skills. And then I got into writing copy for products and then moved into UX writing. And now I'm learning UX design and it's an interesting experience. Okay. So let's start with microcopy. Microcopy, these are the words in an interface, an app that give... I can do words today, I promise this way. Okay. Let me look at my notes real quick. Okay. Here's what it is. They help users accomplish a task. That is what microcopy is. And for example, these are button labels and calls to action, error messages, success and confirmation messages. They're the hints and tool tips. Form labels and just any text that they read as they're interacting with your website, your app, your software. Now, if you think of microcopy as the conversation between the company, the website and the user, the person visiting and interacting with it, think of it as a two-way conversation that is happening in person. And this is when you can come up with some very interesting conversations. I call them Borked Conversations. And it's when things go seriously wrong. So imagine these exchanges happening with someone sitting directly in front of you. Like, this is happening right here. Oh, okay. Then you've clearly failed to log in. So I'm going to lecture you and give you all the things you've done wrong. You know, since the third grade and, you know, your teacher needs to sign this note. And then the time that you forgot to check the terms in service checkbox. And so this little robot guy made you think you crashed the internet. The internet's fine. So let's just have a real conversation and use the words in our websites the same way we would talk to someone in person. But first, let's go over some fundamentals. So the three principles of UX writing are clear, concise, useful, clear. This is where you're consistent with names and labels. Like, don't refer to the same thing different ways. This is not the time to bust out the thesaurus and get creative. So if you're going to call something my account, don't refer to it as the account center later or your profile. Call it my account the whole way through. Use plain language. Just don't use the thesaurus here. Concise, keep the most important text upfront. Like the most important information should be first. Ruthlessly edit anything that comes after the most important information because it's not necessary. The editing's necessary. The fluffy stuff's not. That's what I'm trying to say. So every word, when you're being concise, every word should earn its place. It should have a reason for being there. Otherwise, cut it. It doesn't need to be there. As for useful, you want your text to help users know what to do next, where to go, what they're doing, where they are. The call to action, your buttons, they need to resonate with what's happening next, where they be very clear with the button, saying something like, get started. It's a pretty vague one. Or learn more, that's one I really don't like. It's like learn more about what? Sorry, okay. And then always ask yourself, is the information relevant right now? So you only provide what the user needs to know at that time. That extra information that could be useful later, maybe save that for later. Yeah? So see an example of this. Okay, so here's our first one. You've got failure. An authentication error has occurred. Okay. Okay, then clear, login error. You entered an incorrect password. Okay. Clear and concise. Wrong password. Okay. Clear, concise and useful equals, okay, it's a wrong password. Try again or forgot password, so that they can either, oh, I remember, I changed my password. It's a new one. They can try it again. Or I don't remember. Forgot. So you've got clear, concise, useful. So now, knowing those three principles, you also need to know your audience. Who you're talking to. And your audience, these are the people that are coming to your website that are your visitors. They're buying from you. That's your audience. And who are they? Why are they coming to you? What are they seeking? What are their goals? Knowing your audience will help you write words that resonate with them. And you can find words that are familiar that they're looking for and speak their language if you know your audience. Clicky clicky. There we go. So voice. This is the perceived personality of your brand. And this is something that doesn't change day to day. Your personality doesn't change day to day. So it's really pretty consistent. And voice. So when you're reading and interacting with an app or a website, you hear those words in your head. And it sounds like a person. You start to personify the voice and get a sense of this personality. And this is what voice is. And voice is what makes content and your copy all sound the same, like it all came from the same person. And if your voice is, your personality is changing place to place, then it sounds like you've got multiple personalities. It can cause some fun problems. For a personable personality, I really recommend using contractions and writing in an active voice. So, meaning instead of saying, let's see, let's get an example. We know what contractions are, but do not do this thing. It's like, don't do this thing. Or, you know, just like, we talk in contractions, we talk in very straightforward, not passive, passive meaning, like, you have been, dun-da-da, like, no, you have. Like, if you talk in these active voices, voices, that's fine, we're good. So if you talk with an active voice and using contractions, it'll be easier for your readers to connect and read it and it will sound more natural and more personable. Now, tone, this is something that varies depending on context. So, it changes depending on the situation. You have your voice, your personality, that is consistent, and then you adjust your tone. Like, if you're talking to your friend, you're giving bad news, well, you're going to choose, you're going to be more subdued, you're going to choose careful words and try to soften things. If you're giving good news, you're going to be excited, you're going to choose happier words and you're going to show the enthusiasm in the words. This is tone. So, voice is what you say, tone is how you say it. Here's some examples, like with error messages, your users are going to be confused, stressed, maybe angry, so you want to be gentle, serious, reassuring. With a tool tip, they're looking for more information and they're inquisitive, unsure, but interested. So, you want to be straightforward and helpful just to the point. With a product description that you're trying to show off its qualities and with that, your users at a state where they're hopeful, they're curious, they're inquisitive, they're looking for something to solve a problem. So, you want to be informative and helpful and enticing. This is your tone. So, as user progresses, I should start with user flow and content first design, what this is. So, a user flow is the steps from the first task to the next, the next and on until they are done meeting their goal. And the conversation that you're having with your user should flow from one step to the next. You should consider where they came from and where they're going next as the words are going through your design, your website. All right. So, let's have an example. So, here's how you can imagine a conversation. This is the website side. Here's our user. What's the name of your site? It's Ashley's pet shop. Great. Next, create an account. What user name would you like to use? Type in the user, the password. Now, set your password. Something secure but memorable. You'll need to make changes to your site. And it's just this fluid exchange that just, if I were asking Ashley in person, that's how it would happen. It's like, hey Ashley, what's the name of your site? Oh, this is the name of my site. Great. We need to create an account. What user name do you want to use? I want to use this. Awesome. Okay. We need to set a password. Make sure it's memorable. That's how you would talk to your friend. So, it's the same with this. So, how to get better at UX writing and writing these, yes. Yes. You're right. Absolutely. It is very important to, especially with the culture like you're saying and not everybody speaks the same language to understand that like who you're writing for, who your audience is, and you're not, you don't have to write for everyone. If you know your audience, you can narrow that focus and just worry about, you don't have to worry about it because you've got this. You can focus on that conversation and that interaction instead of trying to write to every single person in the entire world. And that's where you get a lot of the more, I feel like when you don't know your audience and you write to everyone, you have more words and more confusion because you're trying to cover too many things. But you know your audience, you bring it right down. You've got your personal conversation. So with that in mind, knowing your audience, how you can start practicing this is pay attention to the words that you see in apps and websites that you're interacting with. And when you like a phrase or just feel like, you know what, that was easy, what I just did. Write those words down, save it for later because that's a sign that you found something that was good and you can just pay attention, make note. Then another thing I like to do is simplify complex ideas. You can start with one that you're already like super, super familiar with and then try and explain it and very concisely using 140 characters or less. It's a game I like to play where it's like, okay, can I take this topic and just explain it in 140 characters and then test it, see if someone else can understand it and read it. And then you can move on to trying other ideas and see if you can understand it well enough to, but just practice it. Another way is map an existing user flow then rewrite it. This is very similar to paying attention to the words. What you can do is as you're going through websites and interacting like just maybe take screenshots of the whole flow and then rewrite it, rearrange it, reimagine it and be like, you know what, how could this have gone better and then practice imagining like, okay, I'm going to rewrite this, imagining myself, talking to my friend, I'll be this side, they'll be that side and we will talk. So, wow, I went through this fast. So, we can talk about a lot more though. In conclusion, overall the idea is we can talk like the words we use in our websites, we can absolutely, like it's okay to break some grammar rules, like you don't have to be strict with it, be human, like make it sound personable, have that conversation and like don't hide behind those technical words and the corporate jargon, just be yourself and it's okay. So, yeah, questions, comments?