Empathy is a common word in UX. As a personal trait, it is a highly valued one, and it’s the kind of thing we hope professionals bring to the projects they have on their hands.

Likewise, the Research field, and its importance within the organization, has (fortunately) been growing. Not surprisingly, tho. It’s actually during this stage that Product Owners, UX Writers, and UX Designers get a better feeling of users, their desires, and frustrations; and, gradually, begin to turn those desires and frustrations into their own. It is, therefore, a work that has in its core a connection between two apparently distinct elements. An encounter, as I like to name it.

Throughout my experience as a UX Writer, I’ve come to realize that the encounter mentioned in the previous paragraph is far from being the only one. In this article, I’ll delve into some of these moments of contact and how this connection can propel the best business solutions.

1st encounter — brand and user

In every UX Writing book, course or podcast, there is a keyword that repeats itself, like a grain of sand on the beach — user.

It is in the user that everything begins, and it is also with the user — through user tests — that products and campaigns are refined until we reach the best result possible. Until we deliver the brand promise in the most effective way.

If it’s true that the focus given to the user has been raising with the tech boom, this doesn’t mean that the importance of the brand decreased as a virtual form of compensation.

A strong brand — with a well-established value proposition, its own personality, and a tone of voice aligned with the target — is incredibly valuable. People find in these codes an entity they would like to relate to and are able to trust.

Reading tip: The Importance of Branding in Business

Between the brand and the user, there shouldn’t be battles but rather encounters in which both are invariably winners.

2nd encounter — words and visual

Writing is designing, so says the book cover written by Michael J. Metts and Andy Welfle.

And this same “writing” — that we are all familiar with — is seized by the eyes.

Sounds obvious, right? However, there are some aspects that are worth reflecting on. When we enter on a website or open a newsletter, we jump from reading to scanning. In web formats, most users, according to Jacob Nielsen’s research, do not read word by word (as tradition dictates); As users we read clusters of words, in a non-linear way, creating a summed-up narrative of the original message in our minds.

These patterns are mostly visual, as we can see here:

Once we understand the diverse visual patterns around us, it’s up to UX Writers to guide the user’s reading through words, ensuring that the fundamental message reaches the receptor. There are several practical ways to make your interfaces scannable.

Reading tip:
UX Design Practices: How to Make Web Interface Scannable
Text Scanning Patterns: Eyetracking Evidence

To conclude this encounter between words and visuals, it’s worth adding that each sentence is formed by words and each word (when written) is a visible entity, with its own shapes and curves. That’s why our brains recognize words when reading as images and not by their meaning. If you are interested in this topic, you should definitely explore what Scientific American MIND magazine has to say.

Reading tip: When We Read, We Recognize Words as Pictures and Hear Them Spoken Aloud

Though, as a UX Writer your design begins in a word document.
Value this. Make your intention visible.

You, as the designer itself, are responsible for the visual expression of the project. It’s from this sharing mindset — an encounter to say so — that the best projects arise.

3rd encounter — humanity and technology

From cinema to literature, there were several great thinkers who have already focused on the encounter between humanity and technology. For instance, in Westoworld we are challenged to enter into a find-the-differences game between who’s a human and who’s a robot to simply conclude that ultimately few differences would exist.

The same is true with digital interfaces. We respond to these as if they were human —if they are polite to us, we’ll respond politely as well. However, the opposite also applies. Still, there’s no person in loco actively responding. Actually, it’s here that words have a lot to say.

Speaking about it, it’s worth reading what Kinneret Yifrah — author of the book Microcopy the Complete Guide — has to add:

Before the digital age, the only entities that used language to communicate were humans. Thus, when someone addresses us using language, our brain immediately responds to the other party as a human. Language is therefore the main factor that makes interfaces more humanlike, it endears them to users and creates an emotional connection that motivates us to act. But for this to happen, the interface needs to conform to social conventions and feel natural and authentic.

It’s up to UX Writers to make the users forget (at least for a moment) that they’re just looking at a screen. To carry them to a humanized universe, establishing a parallelism with the real world.

4th encounter — written and spoken language

Since childhood, with the help of the ancient school’s essays, we had learned to refine the written word. Unlike speaking, where informality and a certain lightness take over, writing it’s all about an elegance furnished by years of teaching.

Some argue that this happens because, in the past, humanity used writing to communicate messages with a considerable time span (a letter, for example), which made it a more thoughtful and polished message; as opposed to oral language, that is a result of the moment and therefore with fewer filters.

However, the internet came to mess things up.

A WhatsApp message crosses half the world in a split of a second and an email, despite being symbolically identified with an envelope similar to a letter, reaches its receptor just in a “send” button. The digital ecosystem has been crafting its own communication style, which embraces elements of written language, with the friendly style and simplicity of oral communication. A perfect encounter that has already its own name. It’s called conversational writing.

Reading tip: How to Achieve a Conversational Tone in Your Writing

Encounters concluded it’s time for some brief final notes

It all starts with openness. In fact, there’s no encounter without this blissful state of mind. It’s through it that novelty comes in, creating room for reflection. So, the first step for any encounter is to accept that there is always something new to learn. Without accepting it, it’s just an empty conversation, making us leave it the same way we entered it: with our idea echoing alone in our head. And that’s a quite small place to be.