Marketers, here’s your value proposition. | Infographic via VitaminT
This post was written by Christine Del Castillo, community manager at Workable. Follow her, @chrissachrissa.
UX-y Is Sexy.
Or, Why You Need To Read This Right Now.
Perhaps you are a marketer working directly with a User Experience (UX) team. Or perhaps you heard that UX is the new hotness in digital marketing and want to know more. Either way, *fist bump!* Great UX leads to products that are easy — and even pleasurable — to use. UX is also backed by research that tells you how your product is being used and what you as a marketer can do to solve any pain points. Working with a UX team is a smart way to unveil hidden needs for truly valuable, problem-solving content.
If you are with a UX team now, you are probably responsible for narrative UX. In other words: copy. The language that guides users through interactions with your product is a criminally underrated place to showcase your distinctive brand voice. It also makes an impact on revenue. UX expert Jeff Gothelf attributed a nearly 30 percent increase in paid-signups to changing some words on a website.
Disorienting or delightful? | Rawnet’s 404 error page via zurb.com
Today you might be working on a blog post, but tomorrow you may be working on a microsite, mobile app or game. Use the UX jargon primer below to blend in with the natives. This is just a starting point. If you want to know more, go here.
7 Words to Start Speaking UX
Copy deck — Building a website from scratch? You need to make one of these. A copy deck is partly a style guide (a reference for copy format and tone guidelines), but also an encyclopedic collection of every bit of copy that will be on every page.
CTA — A CTA, or call-to-action, indicates that a user needs to take an action, such as “Shop Now," “Download," “Start Your Trial,” etc. It usually comes in the form of a button.
Discoverability — Discoverability is concerned with helping users find what they need to complete a task. As the resident wordsmith, this concerns you, too. Even if a feature is easy to find, if you confuse people with the language, they will give up before they take the next step.
Microcopy — Hooray, here is a word that sounds like what it actually is. Pro tip: You can supercharge your microcopy to make the most out of seemingly mundane interactions with your product. See the example below. If your branding is about making people smile at every turn, get a brilliant writer on the job and fine-tune your microcopy.
Image via webdesignledger.com
Persona — Personas mean the same thing in marketing land as they do in UX land: They are representations of your buyers/users/customers/audience based on a bunch of synthesized data. Use personas to create content that works for your entire audience, from your technophobe grandmother to your tech-savviest friend.
Image via fatguymedia.com
Responsive Design — Don’t you hate it when an email that looks great on your laptop looks terrible on your smartphone? Responsive design ensures that your product looks good on every screen size and orientation — appealing to the widest possible audience of users.
Usability — Usability is a UX goal. According to the guys at userjourneys.com, the usability spectrum looks something like this: pleasurable > usable > functional. Think of how well toddlers navigate iPad content. That is above and beyond being merely usable. Given a choice, users will always pick the product that is easier, more intuitive and more pleasurable to use.