Microcopy: Discover How Tiny Bits of Text Make Tasty Apps and Websites
By Niaw de Leon
4/5
()
About this ebook
Microcopy consists of small pieces of text like headings, hint texts, placeholders, summaries, and instructions throughout a website or app. These little bits of content often get overlooked to the detriment of the application or website you’re building, which is tragic since they make the difference between technology that fades into obscurity and technology that goes on to become extremely successful products.
In this book, we'll see how:
● One retail firm increased its monthly revenues by $25,000,000 by changing one word
● A website prevented hundreds of credit card billing errors using a single sentence
● An enterprise chat app used playful microcopy to grow to a $3.8B valuation
You'll understand the power of microcopy through many real-life examples and learn how to:
● Analyze microcopy for strengths and weaknesses
● Identify opportunities to use microcopy
● Plan your microcopy
● Start writing better microcopy
● Validate its effectiveness
Here's some praise for the book:
"The content is good. Copy is something that I've been trying to get my hands on so Chapter 7 was very helpful for me." -- Jelvin Base, UI/UX Designer
"I really like it since i'm still new in microcopy and gives me an idea why microcopy is important for every app and website. It's easy to understand and apply specially for beginners like me. I will definitely recommended this book to my friends." -- Eric Luciano, Front-End Developer / Designer
"Niaw prepares her readers for the wonderful world of Microcopy (and burritos) with great examples here and there partnered with the value of using it, reasoning as to how Microcopy works, and flavourful wordplays. This short but tasty book proves how powerful small things like microcopy can make a big difference to your designs." -- Pierce Jonota, Designer
Niaw de Leon
Niaw de Leon is a designer, developer, writer, and entrepreneur with 11 years' experience in IT, half of which were spent on technical roles, with the other half on design, marketing, and communication. In over 60 IT projects within the last decade, she's collected roles as if there were no tomorrow: she's been a programmer, framework developer, trainer, proposal writer, front-end developer, UI designer, UX practitioner, business analyst, SEO specialist, and marketing manager. Niaw combines her deep love for technology, an unbridled lust for communication, and a growing interest in cognitive science to help cross-disciplinary teams build sexy software that sells. When not working on technology projects, Niaw runs creative agency and production house Tempest as its co-founder. She's also the editor of Invent.ph, a publication that celebrates Philippine innovation. Niaw graduated with a B.S. Computer Science degree from University of the Philippines, Diliman.
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Reviews for Microcopy
5 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Good introductory into UX writing best practices. Can be a bit too broad in areas where digging deeper would have been beneficial, but gives a good starting point to appraise existing writing and avoid easy mistakes.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5It uses humorous words and examples from our daily life
Book preview
Microcopy - Niaw de Leon
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - Introduction
Chapter 2 - Gain Users' Trust
Chapter 3 - Guide the Way
Chapter 4 - Encourage Action
Chapter 5 - Make Them Feel Good
Chapter 6 - Process
Chapter 7 - Writing
Chapter 8 - Conclusion
Appendix A - Bibliography
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Dedication
About the Author
Chapter 1 - Introduction
I like burritos. They’re filling, delicious, and with the right ingredients, nutritious. But here in Manila, where I live, they’re not exactly cheap. Since I spend way too much money to satisfy my craving, I recently learned how to make them myself. To my surprise, my first attempt turned out to be delicious. I made a batch of twelve, which we quickly consumed in one day.
A few days after that indulgence, I made another batch using the leftover ingredients. Sadly, it wasn’t as good as before. There was something missing that made it taste different. It turned out that some ingredients that I thought didn’t matter actually made a huge difference.
Now, you may not care about burritos, but I’m pretty sure you care about building great software. You care about making good apps, websites, and innovative technologies that will create an impact and make the world a better place.
I've spent the last 11 years of my career learning about all the aspects of making software. I started out as a programmer, then became a trainer, lead developer, proposal writer, UI designer, business analyst, and marketing manager. Like you, I’m driven by the question, what makes great software?
After a decade of searching, I finally realized the truth: there is no single magic ingredient. Just like in my burrito story, the key is having the right mix. If you care about designing delightful technology, you've got to think about the whole recipe.
Consider Slack. You’ve likely heard about it or have even used it yourself; it’s one of the biggest and fastest growing tech products today. As of this writing, it’s valued at $3.8 billion dollars [1]. Huh? But it’s just a chat program, which isn’t exactly a new idea. How did it get this way? Wouldn’t it be interesting to know?
Fortunately, the firm that designed it published an article that explains their secret sauce. According to MetaLab, Slack differs because it does three things differently from other enterprise apps.
First off, it looks different. Slack uses electric and vibrant colors—something that you don’t normally find in enterprise apps.
Secondly, it feels different. It uses hundreds of little delightful interactions and animations that make you feel you’re playing rather than working. Just like its name.
Finally, it sounds different. Here’s how they explain it in the article [2]:
In Slack, every piece of copy is seen as an opportunity to be playful. Where a competitor might just have a loading spinner, Slack has funny quotes like, Need to whip up a dessert in a hurry? Dump a bag of oreos on the floor and eat the oreos off the floor like an animal.
A strange little injection of fun into an otherwise boring day. Slack acts like your wise-cracking robot sidekick, instead of the boring enterprise chat tool it would otherwise be. Like Interstellar’s TARS, compared to 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL9000.
In this book, we’ll cover the ingredient that’s often overlooked—those little bits of text throughout your app and website.
What is microcopy?
Microcopy refers to the letters, words, phrases, or sentences in a software product or on a website that help instruct and guide the user
[3]. Specifically, these are:
404 Pages
Screen/Page Title
Screen/Page Headings
Taglines
Hints
Hints and Explainers
Summaries
Email Subject Lines
Buttons
Form Fields
Navigation
Success Messages / Toasts
Error Messages
There’s some disagreement as to whether microcopy includes menu items, field labels, and error messages. For example, the Nielsen Norman Group excludes them from the definition of microcopy and uses the term microcontent
instead. In their words [4]:
Not all forms of UX copy can be considered microcontent in our sense of the word, though: menu items and other commands, field labels, and error messages are self-sufficient, as opposed to being stand-ins (or summaries) of bigger things.
Others, however, don’t make this distinction. Regardless of the scope of their definition, most practitioners agree on the role of microcopy: to address user’s concerns in the most contextual way. They reduce commitment, build trust, encourage action, and foster relationships.
They might be small, but their power is immense. In the words of Joshua Porter, the usability professional who coined the term microcopy, Don’t be deceived by the size of microcopy. It can make or break an interface.
[5]
Why did I write this book?
This book is the product of equal parts passion and frustration.
I’ve long been a language and design nerd. In the various