Glad to read this Joshua since I agonize over copy, trying to read it aloud in my head and imagine I don’t yet know what the copy needs to tell me to see if it clearly informs.

A by-product of Twitter’s 140 char cap is that it’s helping me keep succinct.

I know Flickr is always mentioned in this sort of context, but the majority of their microcopy is really good. Ditto Hunch’s microcopy which was picked up in the review on UX Hero

http://uxhero.com/user-experience-reviews/ux-review-hunch-dot-com/

Well said Joshua. We’re online copywriters and we love it when clients ask us to do this, because they tend to be the clients who get what we do and understand that it can give them real business benefits.

These examples are great but I’d add another point too: make damn sure the form (or app, or whatever) can back up what you say in the microcontent. It’s no good saying “we hate spam as much as you do” if you then turn round and sell your database to an email marketer. That’s maybe an extreme example but it’s easy to overpromise on things like response times and delivery dates, especially if you’re not the one directly responsible for keeping those promises.

(Something we wrote a while back about form copy might be interesting for a bit more detail: feel free to chop this if you think not, though: http://www.stickycontent.co.uk/blog/2008/12/15/online-forms-how-to-get-the-copy-right/)

Cheers
Martin

Absolutely true, I’ve been arguing this for ages!

And with this microcopy, what we don’t say is often as important as what we do.

For example, don’t call a field “username” when you really mean “email address”, or anything wacky like that!

Yes, agree, the smallest details make a huge difference. Advanced search pages and search results often lack decent microcopy.

Another example that I wish I saw more often:

“Your password must contain a minimum of 8 characters. At least one character must be a number” (Don’t wait for the user to discover this in an error message)

If this level of detail makes your head hurt, outsource it to a UX/QA person or copywriter. Your customers won’t necessarily thank you directly, but they’ll be happier for it.

Excellent article and great points. Thanks!

Couldn’t agree more! (Short enough for ya?)

Too true. I ran into this with a custom CMS I developed a while back. The client was fairly computer illiterate. After getting call after call with the same questions, I decided to take action. I added little hints above each form field that was a potential stumbling point for my client. As I wrote the hints, I tried to channel my client and think like someone who feels intimidated and clumsy. I pushed the changes onto the server quietly and waited. I didn’t get called for three weeks after that. Eventually, she called me to say thanks for adding that stuff and that it saved her lots of time, which made made me chuckle since, honestly, I only did it to save myself trouble. Double lesson learned.

Great stuff Joshua!

I run large internet projects myself and don’t write copy. I am always amazed that copy tends to be forgotten. Clients ask trainees to write articles on their websites or allow anybody to put content up since it is ‘free’ and anyone can write so ‘how hard can it be’.

Micro content is often written by designers of developers and at best reviewed by a marketeer. Truly amazing since it can indeed make or break an application or worse an entire business or business case for a new product or launch.

However most editors do an extremely poor job at explaining what they are worth. Most don’t like micro content. They would rather write major pieces. Almost no editor likes their work to be researched and improved based on data or user feedback.

It would be a great help both for me and for themselves if they would put at least a minimal effort in proving the value of their work based on hard data. They don’t have to turn into account managers but should at least make a minimal effort to look at user data/attend usability research and connect with users.

At the moment it is way easier to get budget approval for an impressive CMS or a serverpark than it is to get approval for 1 FTE Editor.

If in doubt, try running your copy through a style checker. A style checker will bring complex phrases, redundant expressions, and confusing terms to your attention. On Windows, there is StyleWriter and GNU Style/Dict for UNIX Users. I also wrote one you can use at http://www.polishmywriting.com

I can’t agree with you enough on the importance of microcopy. I am co-designing a social network currently and find I agonize over it everybit as much as I ever did creating full length content. I find all the editing tricks apply and particularly the write it place it and sleep on it. Its amazing how it will sound just as right the next day or way more wrong then when you first wrote it. Try it if you deal in Microcopy

Yes, yes, I have seen it make a difference so many times. We think people don’t read them, but the little instruction lines do help people build trust and take the next step.

Thank you for this reminder and for something I can show my copywriting clients when they are reluctant to take the extra time on microcopy.

Fantastic article, I am going to save this article to show people at work tomorrow. I’d written down today a load of tasks to do tomorrow, and a lot of them were ‘rewrite copy on X tab in the control panel’ – they’re small things but I have a rule – the first time I look at it, I have to instantly know what it’s saying. Anything too long that isn’t direct and instructional or helpful is being chopped tomorrow… and now I have the support of your article is my boss asks why! Not that you’d think I could write short, clear and direct messages from this rambled comment (I’m soooo sleepy!!) Good night, and thank you.

Facebook seems to be having some trouble with their micro copy at the moment. I think they are trying to tell me they’ll start using personal URL’s soon (/myname) but they communicate it as follows: “Soon you will be able to have a username”

Very good tips! It’s the small things that matter the most sometimes.

This is living proof that direct mail techniques are a viable source for web design strategy. We always never assume that people know what they are expected to do and much less do it correctly. “Mice” type is powerful copy! Sometimes the most important in getting an action. Like the suggestions for how to use “micro” copy for different situations. Thanks good article.

Yes, it’s true that small bits make a difference, especially today when we are so overwhelmed with a flood of information. Small changes all add up.

Sweet. Will definitely use the advice here. Working on microcopy right now. Good points to remember.

Spot on, Joshua. I try to add microcopy wherever I can. It’s also a great way to add character and reinforce the overall tone of the copy; if the body copy is quirky and conversational, the microcopy should be, too. Small gesture, but it all adds up to the brand identity.

Like those above me said, great article and great points.

Tumblr uses microcopy effectively on their signup form. When choosing a URL for your blog there’s a helpful sentence that reads “(you can change this at any time).” Great for those of us who would sit there and agonize over the perfect blog name.

Nice article and very usefull. I think I might need to use this on my blog for the e-mailupdates function.

I heartily agree, but

“Be sure to enter the billing address associated with your credit card”

could be tightened to “Must match the billing address for your card.” And since the name comes first, “address” might be “information” instead.

Another example is the

(not published)

microcopy note for the “Mail” field of this comment form.

Joshua, you are absolutely right. Even the tiniest change in microcopy text can have a huge impact on business. For example, on my site signup screen, we used to have a line, separating what is required versus option fields. But most people just ignores that line, so we had additional text telling people what is required. The day we did that, our signup rate went from 1.3% of visitors to over 5%. Then we realized what we did wrong.

Technical writers and communicators use the term ‘user assistance’ for what you term ‘microcopy’. The end result is the same — making the experience better for the user. But it would be nice and less confusing for searchers and researchers if the technical and marketing writing communities could use a common term for these small pieces of text on user interfaces.

Great post, thanks! Reading the comments I’d also call microcopy on forms an “affordance”, in usability terms. But microcopy applies to navigation and tooltips as well, I think.

This is good stuff (I esp liked the tumblr example) but you have to be careful that you do not use microcopy as a crutch. Sometimes, when you see microcopy, it should really be zerocopy. For example, in the first example I would have just made a header/title on the billing address area called something like “Credit Card Billing Address:”

And in the 2nd example, I would just not show the Paypal logo at all–just “Pay with your credit/debit card now!” and be done with it. You don’t need a crutch when the leg (the user experience) is not broken.

Came back to read this again and wanted to mention that it’s still so true. Thanks again!

Offtopic: dates for comments are missing the month. It says “Wed 12th, 2009″.