Transcripts
1. Introduction: My name is Jack Zerby and welcome to my class on microscopy. So a little bit about my background. I started out as a designer at Pentagram Design, then went on to be a designer at RG a Frog Design, and I was the former director of design. At video. After video, I started three companies flavors dot me Good Z in the Workshop School of Action. Ive obsessed with the details, but mostly I'm obsessed with one thing that 99% of most products and services are missing. I see this all the time. So what is that one thing? It's micro copy. So what the heck is microscopy? Microscopy is any piece of text that helps guide the user or the customer through the experience of using your product or service. Here's how this class will work. First will learn what micro copy is, but we'll do it through looking at examples online and offline examples. And once you realize that micro copy is everywhere and you see it through examples, you think Oh my gosh, It was there the entire time. I just didn't see it. Next I'm gonna show you why Micro copy iss So important what hangs in the balance of you doing this correctly? Because if you can do it correctly, your results will drastically improve. Step three, we're going to take one element, one specific page, one specific item in your product or your service, and I'm gonna show you and walk you through how to do a complete micro copy audit. I'm gonna show you how to implement that, and I guarantee you it's going to drastically improve the results of that particular page or that particular item. Now, don't worry. If you don't have a product or service, you can use someone else's as an example. Now, what makes the perfect student a perfect student for this class is someone who is willing to focus on the details. Someone who's willing to say, You know what? I really want to dive into the details of this experience. I care about the customer. And so anyone from product managers to design managers, two designers, toe marketers to copywriters anyone who cares about the details and is willing to put in the work seem micro. Copy is easy to do, and it's easy not to dio. So let's get to work like
2. Project Overview: So let's go over the project. Overview. Now there There is a 1,000,000 different ways you can implement micro copy across your blog's your app, your website that it's very easy todo to want to do everything right. And so there are things that you can do right now. And then there's things that you can do eventually. Longer term projects. Right? So picked that one thing. I talk about a lot about this throughout this classes to find that one page, that one element, that one piece of your app, whatever that is. Pick one thing, and that's what we're going to improve. And because it's easy to get overwhelmed, right, I smile toe how to hide, how completely overwhelmed I am right, cause it's once you start to see it, you realize it's everywhere. So then the next thing is like where I could I could improve everything right? So here's some examples. Some common things that I see over and over again that ah, the inside of these things are so much. There's so many opportunities to improve the micro copy. It's ridiculous. So the first thing if you have a Web application or a mobile application sign up forms. There are a Thanh of things that you can do inside. Just a simple sign up for Aton of Things, and there's a lot of friction that goes into it. There's a lot of friction that can happen in a sign up form, and there's a lot of drop off that can happen. And number two, this is even more important cause this is where people actually pull out their credit cards . And if you mess this up, they're gonna take their credit cards back out, put him back out on the wall, and you're not gonna get paid right. So there's things, especially with check out pages. There's all kinds of trust issues that if they get confused, they don't enter something, and there's all kinds of errors. They're gonna walk away, and that has a major effect on the bottom line. Now number three. If you don't have an application removal after whatever, you just have a blogged. If when you have opt in things right where you're asking for just a name and an email, there is a lot that just goes into asking for a name in an email because a lot of times. This is these air cold prospect or cold traffic, and there's still a lot of trust indicators that have to go into here when error messages and doing things right, invalidating their emails and all kinds of things that go into just a simple newsletter. Sign up and then the last one is for people who already are using your app right or, you know, or using your Web application that you don't want to frustrate that maybe they forgot through user name or forgot their password or their enter their email. Wrong are all these different things that you don't want to frustrate your existing users or customers. Next up. How long will these projects take right this project? It should not be a 234 week process. A lot of these things if you are a developer, some of these things should take like five minutes, 15 minutes. If you're not a developer, then you can hand it off and they should taken our. There's no reason why these things have to be big giant projects. That's the beauty of them. You can get so much leverage out of these tiny small changes. That's the beauty of Micro Copy now some tips. And I think Will Ferrell says it best. He says, I don't know how to put this, but I'm kind of a big deal now. The reason why I say this is there gonna be a lot of times we're going to say you need to go talk to your customers. You need to go talk to your users. So I'm going to say, pick up the phone, walk out the door and take action. A lot of you will say, Oh, yeah, Jackie, you don't do that. You're gonna go talk to my users. Or even worse, they'll say, Oh, yeah, you already know what my users wine already know what my customers want. I knew where they're frustrated. I know this, I know that. And they think they're a big deal and they think they know all these things. And you can't fake it that if you really care about your users, you really care about your customers and this micro copies. What's gonna guide? Like I said in the beginning, guide them through this experience. Then you can't fake this part, take the action and pick up the phone. So now When you go to post things in the skill share project area, the best way to post it is to post a before and an after shot. So here's an example of posting just a simple sign up for him. You can say, Here's what I had before and here's what I did after Now it helps. If you give an explanation, you say Okay, before this is what I had after. This is what I added and what's even would be even better is if you said this is the results. So after implemented these things, this is what happened. And so the key to this whole project is toe learn, right? So implement a lot of these things immediately test them, figure out what works, what doesn't work, get feedback from your users and then keep going back and improving and improving. It's all about getting out there, putting something out there, getting the feedback and improving. So get out there, get your projects up and running. Pick that one thing and let's go
3. What Is Microcopy?: what is micro copy and where can you find it? See, the thing about micro copy is that it is everywhere. It's just most of us just don't notice it. And the funniest thing is that the most of peace, the most important piece of micro copy that we see every day. For those of us who used Facebook all 1,000,000,000 of us, this little piece of text that says What's on your mind. So what's the number one goal of Facebook? They want you to share things. So this little piece of text this is what gets you to share things. This is what they've tested. This little piece of text is what is asking you to share things on Facebook. This is what drives the entire engine. So think about how many different variations of this little piece of taxes little piece of micro copy that they have tested. So this gives you an idea of just how important micro copyist. So now, with Twitter, the whole the whole premise of Twitter's to share what's happening in the world around you . So these two words, what's happening again? This is the whole experience of Twitter. The Twitter would only be is Onley alive because of the people that post things on Twitter that the people that share things on Twitter and this little piece of text is what does it so you can start to see you are start to understand where this micro copy is and how important it is to the overall experience and to the the success of a lot of these platforms. And so when even when you look at the when you start to use these platforms, so when you take you take Twitter and it's not just encouraging you to use it, but it's also wow, you're using it. So these little tiny little tiny things that help you and guide you through the experience . So notice how when you start to go past 140 character limit that it turns your text read. But then, right below the negative 105 That is a piece of micro copy. Yeah, and you made you think, Well, that's obvious. But they didn't have to enter. That they could have just highlighted in red with that little piece of copy is what gives you an indication as to how many characters you are over the limit, right? And so even when you look at Gmail, you may not even notice this. But this also helps you with security or helps you with just little cues that you can see that certain things you may not have noticed. Look at last account activity two minutes ago, this would give you a pretty good idea if somebody was hacking into your account. You'll be like, Well, I didn't use my account, you know, five minutes ago. Now, for those who check your email every two minutes, this would this would never change. But then, even on the left hand side, you know, 11 11.9 gigs of 15 gigabytes use these air little indicators of the experience, you know now, hopefully, I mean, man, I'm almost up to my gig about uses and Gmail never thought that would happen. But even even when you look at click here to reply, reply toe all or forward, that's also Micro Cabi. And so here's another. Here's a really cool example on Instagram. Now here's something that helps you with the experience. Now someone who uploads a video that has no sound and someone here Josh is trying to. Whoever's using it is trying to adjust the volume and you can see the ringer's going up. And it tells them through a piece of micro copy that the video has no sound so that we, the person that's using it, isn't going. What in the heck, where's this sound from this really cool jet video that Josh posted so you can see how important it is during the experience of how microscopy can help that experience. And so here's something from Dropbox that you can have fun with it, even as you're giving specific specific pieces of data so you can see here downloading 13,400 files. You know, it says a long time left. Grab a stickers, grab a Snickers. You may not even have noticed that, but it gives you just even Mawr indication of how long this is actually going to take. Grab a Snickers. It gives some personality into the experience. It doesn't feel so dry. We're gonna talk a lot more in later in later modules about adding personality into the copy. So even in boring things like account settings where this could be a really fresh really frustrating experience as you're typing things in and not understanding how to do it or why to do it all these kind of things. And so you look here like make sure you do not add any unusual capitalisation, punctuation characters or random words. There's things in here that this helps guide the user through this. If they didn't have that here, someone could, you know, put an exclamation point in their name. I'm sure people do it. I can. I can only imagine the things that people type into these fields. But you can see that that it feels obvious, but most who don't add these things. And then the users get frustrated and you even you see what the button label review change . It doesn't say submit. It just says review change. That has a lot of importance there that when you cook that you know what's gonna happen. We're gonna talk about that also, even with tweet location, you can say way down the bottom. This may take up the 30 minutes. This gives you an idea of what's gonna happen next after you, you know, delete all the silk ocean information. What's gonna happen after you do it, you man. Understand? After you delete Well, what happened, right? And so the one of the most obvious ones with with an iPhone this slide to unlock. Why does it say slide to unlock? Why don't they just have an arrow there? And you think they've probably tested this? Because Apple likes to just take things down to its most minimal. I wonder why they're still using text that says slide to unlock its micro copy. So here are the sixth things that were going to go through with six types of micro copy. What it means what to dio. Why to do it. What will happen if you did it wrong if you did it right? These are the six types of micro. Copy that. I'm gonna teach you how to implement. So for your project for this section, take inventory. Go through your entire site, go through your entire blawg, go through your entire application, your mobile application and just start circling the page. Just start circling the pages, the pieces, all these different things where you start to see these These these pieces of micro copy back from the examples and you'll get more ideas as we go along with. Just start to take inventory as you go through. Start to understand where these things appear and you can see here just with one of my products with flavors. You know, I'm circling the email address. That's abuse of micro copy down here, where there's a check box that says Flavors. Imam, I'm circling that just to start gathering inventory to understand, Where is all the micro copy on my product or service?
4. Why Is Microcopy Important?: Why is micro copies so important? And there's no better way to show this than toe look a offline examples. And I think the best one is. Look at presidential voting ballots and look at any voting. So we all know what happened with the Al Gore and George Bush thing. I mean, it was a freaking disaster, right? Because of micro copy and design. It was a whole host of problems, but there was There was a lot of micro Cobby issues explaining things and look at the bottom. Please note the order in which candidates name appear in the ballot is determined by a random drawing of the 26 letters of the alphabet. Additionally, can't you're already lost me? I have no idea. Random drawing of the 26. It's like already confusing. It's not helpful. It's not guiding me through the experience and think of what, like I said before, think of what hangs in the balance of them not getting this micro copy right? We're talking about the future of the country because somebody doesn't live in isn't how to write micro copy, right? And so and then look at on a personal level. Look at Micro Copy on a on a prescription label, right? Eso beyond just the instructions, right? Look, keep out of reach of Children. The expiration dates Ah, follow the printed instructions you have been given with this medicine. There's all kind of little tiny things that that that go into the experience of using this medication, and it has to be crystal clear. I mean, pharmacists. This is what they go to school for, to make absolutely sure that the person they're giving this medicine, too, can follow the instructions. So there's no better example of someone guiding through the experience and than medicine. And so, even with tax forms something as boring as tax forms, it's really important that you are guided through what report on these tax forms. And so you know, things like caution do not sign this form unless all applicable lines have been completed. It's a little bit vague and tight. No title if line one a above his corporation partnership, a state of trust. There's a lot of confusing things on tax returns that, if one good example, there's a lot of great micro copy on TurboTax dot com. I encourage you to go sign up and just walk through it. They've made the experience of all this tax, you know, form nonsense. And they turned it into a really usable experience. They've taken all that, and it actually done a really great job taking all the terrible micro crop here and actually making it really fun to use and actually and actually interesting and easy to use . And so the other thing is, think, if you think of you're a single mom, you're single dad or whatever, and you're filling out an application. Your teenager, whoever you are, you're filling out an application for Starbucks, right? Or And this, this job is everything to you and you have to get this job. I mean, your Children's lives are on the line if you can't put food on the table if you don't get this job, and so this application, if it's not crystal clear what you're supposed to do. And there's a chance that you don't get this job because somebody who designed this didn't do their job and didn't make it clear that think of what hangs in the balance of that. Think of what effect it could have on a person's life because it wasn't clear on how to use it. They didn't guide the customer. The user, the whoever is filling this form out through the experience of filling out this form. So I hope this is starting to make sense about why this is so important. And so here's some examples of just some hilariously bad copy and so do not enter. Enter only noticed. Thank you for noticing this new noticing you're noticing it has been noticed. Lift phone for use these air. Terrible instruction. Terrible copied caution. Do not drink water fish crap in it. That's some of my favorite Migra copyright there, but even online, right? So this is an application I had to fill out for my kid for school. And so it's the parent phone number of the child phone number. I'm not getting my kid a phone yet. He's only five. But like these are things that are really important. There's an emergency. I need to make sure that I enter this phone number in right so you can see. Even in an online concept, Even in online context, it's really important. Now you can look at something like Campaign modern on a lighter note. When someone's having a customer's having issue described, Problem you're having and so you can see there. Resending a campaign they filled it out they've giving you, and they're giving you an idea of what a potential problem could be and giving you an example of how to type that in. And so another little tiny thing. Look at this shopping cart where it says only 14 left in stock, and then it says Mawr on the way. That little piece there mawr on the way is very, very important because it means that it's not just there's not 14 left in the world, there's more coming, so that has a very big business impact to That's like, Wow, if I want to order these for my entire company that it's not like, Oh, wow, I may not order these because I think there is only 14. There's not enough for my company. I'm not gonna order them so that that little piece there is really important, and even things like this where it's, you know, you can look here down where your store name is. Don't worry. You can change this store name later. This is this has huge implications because this is where the sign up friction comes in. Are you thinking Oh, well, if I don't know my store name now, what if I picked the wrong name? I'm just gonna close it right. I'm just gonna leave. And now that affects the sign. Operate for Shopify. So here's the project thing. So pick one thing. I've told you this over and over and over again. But this is it's one of the best way to do it is to pick the thing that's gonna make or break the experience, pick that thing that that, like I said before about what makes micro copies so important, what's that really important thing? What's that thing that's really gonna affect the experience and dive into that? And so for me, I'm just going to go through ah, basic sign up for him. So I'm gonna walk you through this entire class. I'm just going to take a basic sign up for him. I'm gonna pick just a fake project, and you're gonna watch me add these all these principles and we're just gonna build a sign up, form together so you can watch me implement thes things right in front of you.
5. What They Say: the key to writing Great Micro Kaabi is toe understand the audience. Understanding who? You're writing it, too. Who's the customer? Who's the user understanding the conversations that are going on inside of their head on a daily basis? Now I'm gonna break this up into two different sections what they say in how they say it. So let's start with the 1st 1 language What they say now the only way you're gonna find out what they say is to go ask questions now. I talked about this earlier. A lot he will say, Well, you already know what they say. You know, I did a survey back in 1984. I did. You know, whatever you'll have a lot of Ah, lot of people will say, Well, I want to do through email or I want to do through service or whatever. Here's the thing that I would encourage you to dio pick up the phone and do it in person. There's nothing that's gonna replace an actual conversation because there's so much that can go on in a conversation. And so here's the thing about these conversations. Ah, lot of times you go in there and you are ask questions that you won't get the right kind of data that you want. And those are usually the yes or no question. So you go in there and you say, Well, you use this feature yes or no? Do you like this feature? Yes or no? Do you like my sight? Yes, from now. And so you get that you get these Yes or no questions. You don't get the data that you want in the data that you want are the words right? The words are the raw materials to write that micro copy. And so the way that you get that raw material the way that you get those those that Rama Terry of words, ISS stories and narratives. Now, how do you get those stories and narratives? Here are some example questions that you can ask when you're sitting down in front of that user in front of that customers. So walk me through the last time you used the product. This this question is gold, right? So, using starting out, you can use for anything walk me through. The last time you sounded from a newsletter, walk me through the last time you read my blawg last me, You know, walk me through, walk me through a B and C will get you a lot of stories. Ah, lot of words. A lot of those raw materials. Everything was what was frustrating and what was awesome about the experience with, you know, whatever. It wasa a page, your piece of the app, whatever it waas That's another a great question. Describe what you see here, Get them to tell you what they see. That's also a great way to pull out some of those stories. What do you think this page is trying to help you help you do get them to tell you that. What's the main goal with using this with using this site or using this feature? What do you think is the main go with using this feature? Why do you use this app? Why do you use this new way? Why did you sign up for this newsletter asking why and keep asking. Why dig deeper and deeper and deeper? These questions are gonna are gonna help you pull out. Ah, lot mawr than if you just asked. You know, random survey, whatever. And it's gonna help you pull a lot more than just a yes or no answer. Now, when you get these words, you're going to start looking for patterns. Now. If you went out and interviewed 50 people, let's say and you started to see 10 or 20 different patterns of of same thing coming up over and over again. That's when you know you're on to something, and that's when you know you can actually go and implement. That's up. If you interviewed 100 100 people in one person, said one thing, that may not be enough to then go implement that thing. Does that make sense? So here's the other thing is that people want to be understood. You and I, we just want to be understood. Look at that. Look at this guy. People understand me so poorly that don't even understand. My complaint about them is not understanding me. If you can describe the problem better than they can, they will instantly trust you, right? So the fact that you can understand them and the only way to understand them is to ask these questions. And so there's nobody does a better job of this than male chump and so If you go to voice in tone dot com they have a whole bunch of these. I'm just gonna pull out some examples of this, but it talks about what I just said. It pulls out exactly what we talked about with their riel users and the questions that they asked and how they actually took that and put it into different micro copy. So if you look at their user, I need to get this campaign out A s, A p. Because my boss, my boss, is breathing down my back. They're feeling busy and stress, right? So mail chimp interprets that with a piece of micro copy that says, Send now this is your moment of glory. And so anybody who's use mail chimp right before you send out a campaign, this is what it says. So it's just, you know, just a little piece of micro copy that that has a reason. A very specific reason. It's not just randomly there. So the next one people seem toe like my campaign. Sweet, Right, So there. So the next one people seem toe like my campaign. Sweet, right? So the feelings of exhilaration, of confidence and so male chimp interpreted that and said, You're open rate was 76% higher than your industry average. Nice work. So they took that and they said So this is after someone sent their campaign and there's a little piece of copy that says you're open rate with 70 for 6% higher than industry average . Nice work. Now this is just a little piece of tax. But it goes a long way in creating creating that excitement in keeping that relationship with the end user that when they log in, they love logging into male chip right? They love using matching because they can see the results in their excited ascend campaigns . And that's the whole business of Mount him of is people sending campaigns and continuing to send campaigns the next one. What went wrong? I really need to get this campaign out. So this is a really important thing, right so that whoever is using this, they really need to get it out so they're confused. They're stressed. There was a lot of anger here, and mail chimp, you know, they need to put some sort of error page here, some sort of micro copy, wherever it is, is as we're experiencing a problem at one of our data centers very specific. Our engineers are on the case and what have things back to normal shortly. And I think they could have even taken a further and gone very specific and said, like where the data center is, even if even if the user doesn't even care where it is, it just helps them feel better than Okay. Wow. Okay, Somewhere in Palo Alto at 608 a. M. There was a problem in one of their data centers because you know what they can say. They can say to their boss, Hey, it wasn't my fault. It was male chimps fall. It's 608 That's why, right? So it's just these little pieces of copy that go a long way.
6. How They Say It: tone how they say it. So we all know that. How have? Certainly for those of us who were married, how you say something, it's just as important as what you say. So if you look at a bank, right, so this is a log in for a bank. How they say something. The tone of of this is Bank of America. The tone is very, very serious. If you do not recognize your personal so security image in caption than do not. And I love how they used all capital letters there. It's like, so mad and angry and serious now. Maybe this is why maybe they feel that they need to do the I would argue that they don't need to be, you know, totally serious, and I would say they don't need to be totally goofy. But I think there's a happy medium in between now with medicine. I think that there is no room for goofiness here, right? There's no room to make medicine fund. I think there's some room to make banking fun. There's people who are doing it, but I don't think there's any any reason to make medicine taking medicine that could kill you fun, right? So the language here has to be crystal clear there. There's no goofiness. It has to be very serious because it is a very serious context. So understand the context, understand the context of the situation that you're in. So what I think 37 signals in base camp. I think they do a great job of taking something in a project management which is not, you know, real goofy. It's not like a Superfund thing to Dio, but they've taken a very conversational town so you can take something that is serious. I mean, it's it's project management. It's not super exciting, and you don't have to be goofy with it. But you can be conversational as if you were in a conversation. So you can see here, you know, even with where they have the orange tax here, working with a client, invite them here. Clients can't see the post unless you say so. So it's not like Are you working with a client? You may invite them here. Clients will not see any, you know, in all caps like Bank of America did it just conversational. It's light. It's not goofy. It's conversational and so you can see down. You know where it says Project templates at the bottom. Find yourself creating the same project over and over, save time and use a project template instead. See, it's very light, but it's not goofy, right? So I think a lot of times people say, Well, you know, I have a serious clientele. I need to be serious where I don't think you need to be Sears I think it's just approach it very conversational. Now with someone like mail Chimp, I think it is fun. I think people do have fun using Mount him, and so you can see here as you get subscribers and says, Nice guess I like, you know, people like what you're saying. Um, the other thing is, when you get unsubscribed, it's very emotional thing. A lot of times we were yours using male temper, you know, our bloggers or have smaller list. So it's a very personal thing with someone other subscribes, at least for me. It is, and so you see, like curses, right? So these things happen for a number of reasons. You may want to check out male tips chips, tips for keeping a healthy list, right? So these are things that are helpful. It's it's it's it's backing up the the notification with some sort of like soft language that makes you not feel so bad. But then it also gives you some helpful tips on how you can help, not have that happen again. And so, if the other thing is with error messages, they also use this kind of goofy, too goofy tone that you find all over the place, which is another user with this user name exists. Maybe it's your evil twin. Spooky, so you can see all over the place. They have this tone, um, designed sign off. I love this one registered for a beta. You get a sneak peek, we get a guinea pig win win. So if you have this type of audience, have fun with it, like some of the projects that I work on. We do have this type of audience, and it is a blast right in this kind of copy because it doesn't need to be so serious now. If you don't have this kind of audience, then go with the 37 signals approach and go with the conversational top. The project task for this section is to just pick three people. You don't have to interview 10,000 people. I know that's overwhelming. Just pick three your best users, your best customers and book a time to talk to him on the phone or have coffee and just talk to three and just go through some of those questions and have conversations. You can record it if you want to, but just get those stories flowing and get those ideas flowing. So so this. This imaginary app that I'm creating, its for busy young professionals who want to have these cool recipes Texas to them while they're in the grocery stores so they can come home and cook a really great meal. Whatever right? So I talked to three of these young professionals, and here's what they said. So I have absolutely no time to cook When I get home, I'm drained from working all day, you know, the next one said, I just want some of the tell me exactly what to do, what ingredients to buy bubble block. No matter what I do, I can't get my meals to taste restaurant quality. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, this other person said. I tried to follow this amazing recipe on Pinterest. I I also did that, Um and then they just gave up and ordered pizza. And so, for here's the thing it uses. Just say sign up for this app and I changed the headline toe Let's eat because here's the thing it may seem like What would you just change? The headline that let's eat That seems obvious. But here's the thing. The the end goal for them. What I found as I talked him, as they just want to eat, they just want to get home and they want to eat right. They want to get home and they want to eat something restaurant quality and they don't want to spend a whole lot of time doing now. They don't have the money to go out and hire Chef, and they don't. They don't have the money to buy things, you know, to go out to dinner every night. So, yes, they're gonna have to cook it so they just want to get home, have the exact right ingredients, put it together, and they just want to eat. So just make the headline, Let's eat
7. What It Means: Here's where we get to the good stuff, right? So we've talked about what micro copy is. We've talked about why it's important. Here's how you actually put it into action. So let's review the six types of micro copy what it means. What to dio. Why to do it. What will happen if you did it wrong if you did it right, so the 1st 1 what it means. So this is where is if there's anything that might be unclear that you can describe in further detail this maybe some help tax or a link that says something like, What does X mean? This is best used in places where there may be some ambiguity around what you're saying and offer a further way to explain it. So slack. If you haven't used slack yet, just go sign up for it and look at the examples of micro copy. It's one of the best examples across the board of them, guiding you through the experience in almost every piece of the sign up process. It has just fantastic examples of micro copy. Now, when you go, this is a perfect example of what it means when you goto enter your team name in there. Well, you think about team names that mean my company name is like, What is that? What does that mean? And so this is That's what the users probably thinking, and this is where they use micro copy. This will show up in menus and heading, so they're telling you where it's going to show up, and then they'll say this. It will usually be or include the name of your company. It doesn't need to be formal, so this clears up the ambiguity around, and it's right underneath the foreign field. Here's an example on Shopify and so you can look and say at a custom domain to get started . Your stores Domain is currently Jack Serbia Chop. If i dot com and then they use an illustration to show what a custom domain actually is. So it's not even really micro copy. It's actually an illustration to back up what it means. So what is accustomed domain? They really didn't even need to use words here. They just use an illustration to say, OK, I get it that my current domain is dot Shopify dot com, but my my custom domain is going to be? Jack Zerby dot com I get that. So the most popular examples of this and you've probably seen this on almost every credit card form some of them don't have this is the cvv code. And, believe it or not, some people still don't know what this means. And in running Good Z and I had to deal with that. We deal with this all the time. We deal with a lot of customers. We do with a lot of e commerce stores, and we have to deal with this all the time or people who don't know what CVV is. And so here's an example of a question mark and this is this is found in many different check out usability studies where you should put what this means. You know, you hover over and says, a three digit security code he usually found in the back of your cards. Bubba, Bubba, Bubba, Bubba. But here's the thing. It shows what it means. It further explains that there's any ambiguity if it's someone who you know is the first time they've ever used a credit card. Now they understand it. And so here's another example. I think this is on Fiverr. And so if you look over where says choose photo when you upload the when you upload the photo, you're like profile photo. What does that actually mean and says, This photo is your identity on fiber and appears on your profile and gigs, right? So it tells you where this photo will appear. So there may be some ambiguity around where this photo is actually going to appear now Snapchat picking a user name Now most of you are familiar with user names, but years are named toe log in. Is it a years or name that's gonna show up in my Snapchat like user names can sometimes, you know, be used in multiple different ways. And so, with Snapchat, they say, your user name is your unique identity on Snapchat. So if further explains what a user name is, and it cuts down on those questions that your users maybe might be asking themselves or what exactly is a user name? I have some idea, but I'm not quite sure this is where microscopy comes to the rescue and further explains it . Let's go back to my sign up form. So I added a little tiny bit of copy underneath the email address form because there's that confusion between. Was this my user name Toe log in? Is this My? A lot of times we think Do I log in with my email address, or do I have a separate user name or things like that? There's confusion as to what it means. So I just put This will be used as you're logging user name, right, right underneath email address. And so I also added email address to that right, just to make it more specific. I know it feels obvious, but just I added at address after email and even with cell instead of just putting cell, I put cell phone just to make it even more specific. You can never be too specific.
8. What To Do (Part One): number two What to do? Here is the thing. Nobody likes to be told what to do when set. When someone tells you what to dio, we have that, like five year old reaction of nobody can tell me what to dio, right? So when you tell your users what to do all the time especially ones who have never heard of you and you just say, you know, sign up for this and do this and do that they have that five year old reaction if you can't tell me what to do, right? So the key to this is to use their voice. And so one of the most egregious examples of this is the almighty submit button and you see this all over the web. Now, the word submit actually comes from the HTML form. This is the default, the fault label. If you put no label on a button in HTML, it just says submit. And so you don't want your users to submit to you And and in fact, the users don't want to submit to you, right. So don't ask them to. I won't even get into that. But the first thing if you get nothing out of this class other than to go through your app , your websites, anything you've ever built in your entire life. And get rid of the submit button. I will have done my job. Now the other thing that we see all the time are these directives, right? Join. I literally did a Google search for join my newsletter. And I got to 228,000 results for join my newsletter. So you're telling them what to do? You join my newsletter, you do what I tell you to do. And so the other thing is, join our email list. You join it. I'm telling you what to do. And you have that kind of subconscious five year old reaction of nothing. I want to join your your stupid email. That's not gonna do in your list. Now, if you want to know how the masters do it, you look way back into direct mail. Direct response, male. And if you really want to get good at micro copy, go out and study direct response. Copyrighting. I won't even get into that. I have a copy writing class. You can learn all about that. But If you look at direct response copyrighting every single time there, using the users or the customers voice notice how in the first example please send me 10 copies of your report. They're using the customers voice and it says, Joe, he I love this one, Joe. You may be full of beans, but what are you got to lose? Send me the lazy man's way to riches. But don't deposit my check or money order for 31 days. Please send airmail. I'm enclosing extra dollar, the using their voice. And so if you look at the coupon over here says Yes, I want to order authentic Haley's comments. Silver Eagle. Commander Boba. When you look at those infomercials and you say, What says Yes, I'd like to order this. Yes, I'd like the order than you think. Oh, that's cheesy. That's because it works because you're not telling them what to do. If you say go here and order that you cook here and you could send this and, you know, do this and do that, there's a reason why. I mean, they sold millions upon millions of dollars of products using their voice, using the voice of the customer. And so, if you look at, I'd looked at some of the other forms here. And just some of these air just pdf forms I found online. Yes. Send me my free get acquainted information packet. Right? So there's an example of something online that I saw. Yes, I'd like to join instead of join, you know, our center for the arts newsletter. It's yes, I'd like to join its using their voice. And so here's an example online, where the call to action is. Click here to create my free account now. So it's my free accounts. Or could to create my account, right? Not click your free account or sign up for to, you know, buy our click funnels and all that kind of stuff. No, it's it's using their voice. Here's the other. Here's another example. Create my account now using their voice. This is a great example. TurboTax another just like slack going through TurboTax. There is so much good copy on TurboTax. Pick up where I left off. There is the voice of the customer pick up where I left off. Brilliant. So how can they use the voice of my customer in my example. Well, I changed the button from Submit and got rid of that ugly word. Cement, too. Find me a chef. Right? So I used their voice, and I want to find them a personalized chef. It's gonna text them recipes, and I just change the button to find me a chef. That's what they want to do, not submit. Just find me a chef. Easy.
9. What To Do (Part Two): so using the voice of the customer technique is very, very important. But use it very sparingly. Don't make your entire app in the voice of the customer. That would say that would be a little bit ridiculous. And so use it on buttons where there is a decision to be made usually on it, but not a sign up form. Or if there's a purchase decision or some sort of big decision that needs to be made, but only use it in those those contacts everywhere else. You're going to have to tell them what to do, and that's okay. And so what you want to keep in mind is, when you're telling them want to do is to be specific. Don't be vague, Be specific. And so Gary Halbert. So when I talked about the direct Wisconsin direct response, copywriters there so much to learn from how they did things. And so in his newsletter, he said something. He said. One thing that I want to stress is that you must be very clear, very specific about what you want him to dio lead him by the hand and tell him exactly where you want him to go. tell him where the order coupon ISS tell him to fill it out. Tell him how to enclose the in payment. Tahoma Much to send. Tell him the envelope. It doesn't need to be a stamp. Tell him the envelope that put in the mail telling do all of this. He was very, very specific. So here's an example of one of his at two of his ads. So if you look at the left hand side, here's how to order. So he was telling them what to do, how to order. All you have to do is write your name and address and the words maximum money on a piece of paper and send it with your check or money order. Post dated 30 days ahead in the amount of 1995 plus $3 postage and handling a total of $22.95 to Bubba Bubba Bubba Bubba. Right, So it's very, very specific on what the wants them to do it on the on the other side. This is all you have to do is answer the five questions at the bottom of this page. Print your name and address on the shipping label include $3 in the system is yours. When I received your question, our clip off a shipping label and take it to the PATH package, you can see how ridiculously cesspit sick specific. Here's the thing it worked. He sold millions and millions and millions of dollars of product because he was very specific about what he wanted them to dio. So an online example taking this same principle that you learn from from Gary Halbert as a copywriter and applying it to an online concept of telling them exactly what to dio and being specific. So if you look down here was, says your site link dot ver dot com. Now they could have just left it here and just that would've been it, right? So you just try a bunch of combinations if you get an air that's fine or whatever and just be frustrating and someone may leave. But they said very specifically, this will be your website address. It must be 3 to 55 characters, long Onley letters and numbers once signed up, you can add your own domain any time, and you can keep this one forever. It's your call so very specific between three and 55 characters longer telling me exactly how to do it. Here's another thing. Choosing your name. You are else or whatever it is dot ning dot com A minimum of six characters. You can change it to your own domain later, but they're telling them like Don't make it 12 characters, right? So here's the thing. Don't actually minimum six characters, so don't make it one character. And so they're very specific about what they want. What are the constraints of the of the Ning euro? Here's the other thing. I pointed to this this before, but it's very specific of its very specifically because it's very important. It's Do not include dashes, do not include spaces or any other separating characters. So they're very, very specific because there's a lot. There's a lot like I said before, there's a lot that hangs in the balance. If someone screws this up and apparently can't get a hold of a kid, you know, so they don't have to worry about any being being mad that they're telling him what to do. It's for everyone's best interest that they're very specifically telling them what to do there. Now Imagine if they didn't have that. And they just put parent phone number and someone put it in some kind of weird area code and it got messed up. And the parent it did, didn't get notified. What would happen? Right, So you can start to see. Now, look at this. So this is in TurboTax and so business code if you don't know your code. So if you don't want if you look up your business Coney, you don't know it or you don't know the tax code. Just enter 9999 for miscellaneous. It's it's very specific. Just enter those how many nines? Air six nines, and that's it. And you just enter, and that tells you exactly what to dio. Another thing is, when you go into add multiple coupons if you have more than one code, that's okay. Please note. Some codes can be used with others. Just be sure to enter one at a time. So it's just a little piece of micro copy that tells you what to do when you're entering coupon codes into this little tiny coupon field. Now, how am I gonna implement it This into my little app right here. So I can see in the password field. I'm just going to use this standard, you know, talking through how we want to structure our passwords. I think a lot of you will miss this. They just you know what happens is they don't tell you how they want to structure structure passwords, so end up typing like 15 different combinations you like Nowhere must include a letter and a number and a capital letter. But you don't find that out until you actually put it in there. So if you do it proactively and you say, please use at least four characters without spaces, then you cut down on the amount of errors and everybody's happy and nobody gets mad. Right? And so even with cell phone, I put 55-555-555 You know, just to say, the structure of the phone number in which I want you two to enter it. So there's no kind of there's no vagueness around it. What I want you to do. This is how I want you to enter in the phone number
10. Why To Do It: why? To do it. So you're asking your user to do something and they're asking why should I do this? So usually involves some sort of objection, some some sort of trust issue. So whenever you're writing micro copy that answers Why think about establishing trust, Think about establishing some sort of objection that they may have for what you're asking him to do. They may be asking their head. Why do they want me to do this? Why did they need the information that they're asking me to give? And so if you look at this in a mobile app, when you're when you're asking for a phone number and it says, please verify your phone number. So we so we know you're a really person. So it's not that you're just asking for their phone number so they can spam you. They want to verify your phone number so they know you're a real person so that you know, and they say, even if it was, this is for Snapchat. And they say even below that, we will not display your phone number to other snap chatters. So that goes a long way with establishing trust that just because you're giving that your phone number. But don't worry, we're knocking it. We're not going to show it to two other snap chatters We're just doing to verify it. Answers the objection. It doesn't just say, Hey, give us your phone number than you're like Well, I don't know why there's a trust and then they may leave so you can see how that Micro Micro Copy goes a long way there. So the next thing this is back to that voice and tone website, the user says, Oh, not another form, because I can send my campaign. Why do they even need my mailing address? And so they're annoyed. Ryan's a male chimp says this will help us automatically build your email footers to comply with the Can Spam Act, an international spam law. So when you ask, when you go to sign up for, um for a male chimp account and you and they ask you for an address because I went through the same thing to him like, Why do you need my address? So mail Chimp answers this by saying, Look, if you put an address, you have to have an address in the emails that you send out so that you don't get Marcus spam. And so you're complying with spam laws, right? So there's a very specific why they're not just asking you for an address because a lot of us don't like the type in our physical home address because we don't want junk mail. But mail Chimp explains it and says, This is why So there's the objection and they answer it with a little piece of micro copy. Next. Snapchat. So another example from Snapchat. So why so? Location is kind of a weird thing, right? There's a lot of trust about why am I giving you my phone's location, that sort of thing? And it said, Let's Snapchat use your location and I love how it's like a ah question. It's not a demand. And so they said, we temporarily use your location, determine eligibility for smart filters and our story and our story. Snapchat will not store your location, and it says not now or okay. And so it's basically telling them. And instead of just saying like Snapchat wants to use your location okay or no right, saying why? It's just look, there just want to see if you're eligible to use these smart filters. If not, no big deal were not going to store your location. So that objection is now answered with some micro copy. And everything's fine. Next. This is another TurboTax example. So you need to a confirm your account information will send you a confirmation code so we can verify your identity. And there's a link to Why are you asking? So this is another example of you. If you don't have enough room to explain why, If there's a long, lengthy explanation of why you need to do that, especially with something like turbo Tax, then just do a link that opens up to a help article or a pop up or a motor or something that gives them to, ah, longer explanation. But if you ask it in the form of a question, they go and they can explore further, and they can understand why you're asking that it goes a long way to like I said before establishing that trust. So here's another thing, especially with so security numbers. People get really weird with that. So right underneath it, it's we require so security number to verify your identity we? We do not perform a credit check, especially with credit checks, because you don't. They're asking you for your Social Security number. You don't want them to hit your credit because that can affect your credit scores. And so the next one with Facebook. So why do I need to provide my birthday? And so Facebook? When you I think when you click on this or mass over, I forget which one. But it says providing your birthday helps. Make sure you get helmet helps make sure you get the right Facebook experience for your age . If you want to change, who sees this? Go to their about section of your profile for more details. Please visit our data policy and so you can hit. Okay, since then, it's another example of clicking a link and getting more information. Now they didn't take you to another page because they're on the sign up form so they don't want to interrupt that process. So this is a great example of just clicking and getting a nice little pop up that then can go away and hit. OK, so it doesn't like Goto a new page or Notre Thing and just keeps you in the process. You can do it through a click, and you do it for through a mouse over. You can do it through a drop down. Any one of these approaches that won't inhibit the experience, especially on something as important as a sign up form, can go a long way next up. Deleting your account. Now this is a really important thing, especially if it's, you know, deleting a bank account or something like this. And so in this example, it's a little light hearted. But it said, in order, delete your account. We need to conform your password. Why are you asking for my password if I want to delete it? And this is so some random person doesn't do it when you're far away from your computer. PS were sorry to see Ugo, so it's really interesting. I've never actually seen someone is an app, actually explain why they're re asking for my password and makes sense that I wouldn't want someone if I forgot the log out that someone could just go in and delete my account. So this little piece of micro copy goes a long way to explaining why they're asking for my password again. If I have an objection to me entering my password again, here's another thing down the bottom. This is pretty funny. They're asking you for the date of birth at the bottom, and it says to tell us you'll get a birthday treat if you do so. This is actually ah, built an incentive here. It's like, why you're asking for my birthday? But no, I'm going to get a birthday treat. So yeah, I'm definitely gonna There's no objections. Hey, if I'm gonna get a birthday tree, I'm totally going to give you my birthday. Now here's the other thing that's interesting. It's not always about explaining the functionality. I mean, sometimes it's just pure trust, right, especially in things like banking, especially in things where there's a lot of personal data going back and forth. It's just micro copy that's there. That really doesn't have any function, but really just is there to establish trust. And so you look, it's chase here says many users have secured. Actually, this is for connecting chase to a meant ah mint application. It says Mint users have securely connected over 100 and 98 million accounts now, if that doesn't go a long way into telling you why you should feel comfortable adding your chase account to meant that I don't know what what does, right? They've done it almost 200 million times. I think you can. You can trust men in doing this. Here's another example with get response. Thanks for choosing. Get response. And this is over on the right side. Here's why you're in the right place. Over 300,000 customers worldwide. We deliver 10 billion emails a year with 99% deliver ability, deliver ability and I can't pronounce that right. Excellent. I I s p relations five star custom reserves. I don't really know what five star customer service means, but it goes a long way in establishing that credibility in that trust. And it tells you why you're in the right place now. Does it have any tied to a specific function? No, But does it establish trust? Yes, it does. And so even look at the bottom of men in the footer you can see here. Ah, 128 bit SSL encryption most. We don't even know what that means, but it just feels good cause there's a lock icon, physically secure servers. What does that mean? That there's like a gorilla like guarding the servers. Third party security audits. Who knows what that means? But it goes a long way. Even those little lock icons go a long way into establishing trust and why they should trust you. Okay, so in my project, the first thing I added was at the very top. Last night. 4321. Young professionals eight and amazing dinner because of you, Dina, you dine is the name of the fake app that I made, but so there's no real function behind. It is. It's not describing a function of the app. It's just there as a trust indicator. It's a very small piece of micro copy that says why you should be using why you should trust us. Why you should be using you. Dine, right? So last night 4000 at 321. So there's a lot of trust saying that while a lot of other people use this and specifically young professionals, not just everyone, young professionals, meaning that they you understand who they are, remember going back to understanding who they are. So there was a reason why I used the word. The two words Young, professional, eight and amazing dinner. So it's the goal that they want to do, right? It's it's what they want. They want to eat an amazing dinner, And that's because of using You dined the app, right? And so the second thing, if you look down below cellphone right where says 555555 So this is again reiterating. Why are we asking you for your cell phone number? A lot of people Sometimes we're thinking, Are you gonna spam me? That that sort of thing? So it's again. It's a trust indicator of this is so your chef context you your ingredients ingredients, explaining why or asking for your cell phone number.
11. What Will Happen: What will happen next. One of the best ways to use micro copy is to reduce anxiety that comes along with when you ask a customer or a user to take an action right toe. Enter something in a form to click a button, especially when it comes to entering payment information. They're nervous about what's gonna happen when they do that. What's gonna happen when they hit that button? So let's go back for a minute to the direct response copulating example. So look to the right example down a couple sentences where it says When I received your questionnaire, I'll clip off the shipping label and tape it to the package that the system comes in. By the way, the system is 24 pages long. It will come to you in a white unmarked six by nine envelope. Look six inches by nine inches. Envelope. Look how specific that is. It could have just said when I received a questionnaire. You'll get your package right? No, but it's very specific, and there's a reason why they do that because they want to reduce any sort of buyer anxiety that if I'm going to give you my hard earned money. I want to know what is going to happen when I do that and so you can take the same principles and put them online, online and offline. So I'm gonna give you a couple online examples, but I'm going to go through a flow that I've found on Angie's list. They did a couple things right, but I think there's a couple things that you can do to improve the angel ist flow. So through these examples, I think we can learn some stuff. So one of the worst one of the worst mistakes that I see is with with what will happen next with micro copy is found on buttons. The word continue the word. Next the word go back like all of these things are very generic, right? Continue. I don't know what's going to happen next, right? So when it says any your zip code and your email address and your password and insist says continue, well, yeah, I don't know what's gonna happen next. Now they're not asking for payment information here, but still a little bit goes a long way in this context to say OK, walking me through step by step by step. So on your buttons to take, even if a button like continue and you change it to pick a plan that works for you. So now they're pre framed going into the next step to say Okay, when I click this button, I know what's going to happen so that when they go to the next step, they understand what's happening on the next steps. So they're not surprised. So you have them in the right mindset. So you can say, here you're minutes away from great service and now they Now they're in the right mindset of Okay, Now, men, the plan page and you can see here they already are in the crate account at the top. Create account, choose plan, finish up. They could see that now some people may skip right over right over that. So I think the reason why I want to focus on these buttons because that's usually where people focus, right? So again they go through here, they select their membership rights of member favorite 99 then it says next. Now next, what? Right, So and finish up Step three. I don't even know what finish up means that mean I pay you? What does that mean, Right? So even that I think, could be more specific. But let's focus on the button instead of next. If it said enter payment information now they know I'm selecting a plan. I'm gonna hit this button. The next thing I'm going to do, what's going to happen next is I'm going to enter my payment information. Now I get to hear great. You chose the one year basic plant. I love the copy on this right, and there's all sorts of trust indicators 110% guaranteed money back they do. They do a lot of a lot of great things here with money with micro copy. But if you look towards the bottom, what did they dio? They committed the mortal mic Micro copies sin and said just says, Submit right, submit. We all know we got to get rid of our submit buns. So taking that button and just making a simple change to it and say purchase one year basic plan membership. So just saying, Look, when I click this button, I am going to purchase the one year basic plan membership. Now, if you look at the copy above it. Above the check box thing. It says your credit card. Another payment method will automatically be build when it's time to renew your membership . You may cancel your membership at any time via the contact that pager calling 1 800 I think that should go below the button because it's it's your reading that it's it's it's in. I think it's Maurin view underneath the button that when you're clicking it, you can see Okay, I can cancel at any time my my payment method would build. I think it's also important to say what I will rebuild. I think that right underneath the but misses you are going to be build nine dollars in 99 cents Right now, as soon as you cook this button, you're going to get a confirmation email in that confirmation email, you're going to get A B and C. I think of little little pieces of text like that. Go a long way because that little button right there there's gonna be a lot of hesitancy. I think there's a lot of times where people could lose people by. They want to click that button and then they don't click the button because there's not those little pieces of micro copy that are guiding them through that experience. So let's move on sticker meal. There's that dreaded continue button again, but underneath it they do a thing. Next, upload artwork. So they did some things right here. Now I think they probably should just ditch the next upload or work and put that in the button. Why have two things there, right? So just move the next and upload our work right into the button. And then they did it. Great here on the check out page, continue to delivery dates or now they know after they've entered their info that they continue on to delivery day. I think that did this a great job right here. Here is another check out page next city. Good downward says in the green. Next step, Choose your shipping speed shipping speed. This doesn't look like a button, but it is clickable. It's a little bit strange. I think this should have been a button. It's a kind of like a button header combo, but again, it's saying, next step, choose a shipping speed, so it's telling you exactly what's gonna happen next where you're going to choose a shipping speed. So they're telling you very specifically what's gonna happen next. Here's the other thing just in just in mobile app. So there's not, you know, it's not like a purchase decision or anything, just in little context. Uh, you know, in this mobile app or you're choosing different categories of things, and then they give you recommendations on, you know, places to go or whatever. I have selected adventures, and then the button says, Show me where at my recommendations instead of just continue, it's show me recommendations. So you know when they hit that button, they're going to get their recommendations. It's just little tiny details that go a long way into the experience. This one by Slack, is brilliant. When you do an at notification just like you do in Twitter, when you want to talk to someone directly on Twitter, you do an at you know, Jackson every or whatever you could do an act group. When will this notifies everybody on your team? And some of those people can be in different time zones, So if you do a notification someone, it's two o'clock in the morning in Australia and something like that, that when you hit that group medication, it's going to say, Are you sure you want to notify 12 people in three different time zones? Right? That's what's gonna happen if you do that. And then the button doesn't just say continue. It says Send it now, which is brilliant. So this is another example that says what you're about to do. Here's what's about to happen next. Brilliant example by slack. Now here's an example of when things were being processed. When when things are being processed and things are being uploaded, there's a chance to, um, to give the users some information about what's happening right, So they're not confused as to, you know, I'm just going to sit here and wait, but you can walk them through. So what's going on here? I mean, that's a great question. Ask. We need to ask instagram a lot of information so as to be able to provide all the amazing metrics you'll soon discover here. Once this is done, your stats will be automatically updated daily, all fresh and ready for you when you visit, so it's telling you what's happening Right now you're stats are being calculated. And what's what's gonna happen after your stats are done being calculated. So when you have those pre loading screens, when you have those processing screens, tell them what's happening now and what's going to happen after it's done being processed. Here's another example from TurboTax. This is telling them what to expect. Right, So you're about to do something right. So there's a lot of steps in TurboTax. There's a lot of information toe to enter, and this goes into pre framing you into saying, Okay, Jack, here's what to expect. We're going to do this. We're going to do this and we're going to do this so I go in. There's no surprises. I know that I'm going to enter this this in this, and it goes a long way into again. What's the purpose of Micro Copy? It's to guide them through the experience. So how am I going to implement this into my project? So if you look below the button after clicking this button, we will immediately match you up with a personal chef who will immediately send you your first recipe. So I didn't go into detail on this, you know, could be much better. But here's the thing. It's it's pretty simple. It's just telling you as soon as you cook the button, I like to put a lot of this stuff within the button range because that's where they're taking the action. It's within their periphery, and it's just telling them after they cooked this button, this is what will happen. So any time you're implementing this in any year projects, just look for the button and underneath the button, tell them what will happen after they click the button Very simple.
12. If You Did It Wrong: if you did it wrong. So this is where Micro Copy comes into play when the user of the customer entered something wrong. Now, this is where they're very vulnerable. No one likes to make mistakes, right? So when they this is where they can get very frustrated. And I think this is where a lot of people miss it. When? When? When someone makes a mistake. And this goes back to that five year old mentality when you made a mistake in schooling in the urine. Idiot! You're wrong. You're stupid. Get out of here. Right. So if you're if that's the way you're approaching Micro Copy one. When a user makes a mistake, then you're just gonna frustrate them, even mawr and they're gonna leave. So this is something you need to take very seriously and dive into the details and understand How can you make their experience more enjoyable? How can you make their experience not so frustrating that then when they make a mistake, it's not so. But it's not so bad. It's not the end of the world. So here are four things to keep in mind. Four things make it specific. Make it contextual make it polite and make it helpful. So if you keep those four things among doesn't mean you have to use all four. But when you're creating these things, these micro copy things around error states or what they did wrong, ask yourself, Is it specific, contextual, polite or helpful? And use one of these things. And if you just take one or two of these things and and mix it in there, it's gonna make these air states much more effective. So if you look at this, here's an example of something that's not specific. There's no context to it. It's not polite, and it's not helpful at all. Right, so an error occurred while displaying the previous air. These air like these air like classic Windows 98 errors. Now even look at this one, this one from deviant art is, is very, very specific, right? So if you look at one, it's very specific. It tells you every single thing there. Eight errors that the passwords do not match. It's an invalid email address. It's all of these things that are very specific context. There is no context here because it's way at the top, and there's only a little bit of so you need to go back and forth so your eyes have to move back and for its OK, And my password is down here. OK, I have to look back up to see Okay, my passwords do not match. So I have to go back up. And so I I just have to keep going back up and up. So there's nothing in line in the password field that matches what the errors were up there specifically. So when I'm talking about context, I mean in the context of where the error occurred, Yes, you can still have things at the top, but also in where they occurred so that it's in context. And so is it polite? No, it's not polite. It's you. The passwords you type do not match police, type them again and ensure that they match. Is it helpful? Okay, yeah, I would say that it's helpful, but in fact that it breaks so many of the other rules that I would say it's not helpful. It's in fact, it's very frustrating. And so, even on Twitter, so forgot your password any your email or phone number. So you enter your email your any your phone and it just says email or phone is invalid now . Is that specific? No, It doesn't even tell you the format that you're supposed to enter your email or your phone . So is there supposed to be dashes that's supposed to be area code first, all of these things. And this goes back to some of the other micro copy examples that it could be accomplished, which is going back to some of the micro copy things of what to do, right? So a little hint underneath that that says, you know 555-555-5555 right to tell them what format entered in isn't in context. Yes, it's right there. Email or phone is invalid. It's right next to the form field. Is it polite? No, it's invalid, right? It could have said like Whoops. Hey, I'm sorry. It looks like you entered your phone number right here. Here's some way to, you know, do it. Is it helpful? Not really, cause it's not even telling me how to do it. So there's a lot of ways they can improve this by saying here you know, Here's exactly how to enter your phone, your email address or into your phone. Ah, the structure of it. And so Twitter is not doing a very good job here. So you look at dribble. Is it specific? Yes, it's very specific. So it looks like you've uploaded an image and it's the wrong file extension. Now. If they would have just said invalid file extension would have been specific. But it said only J. Peg Gift or PNG are supported, so they must have uploaded some, you know, illustrator fire or something like that. And it's not supported. So they said it's specific, right? So they gave a very specific file name as to what they did wrong. And they gave suggestions on what file types are supportive. So, yes, it's very specific. Is it in context? Yes, it's right near the upload form. Is it polite? No invalid file extension. It's like invalid. You are invalid, right? It's not very. It's not very, you know it's not. It's not polite, right? And so helpful. Yeah, it is. It is helpful now, above. I see it does say clank. Okay, It's got a little bit of humor in there. But I think is it helpful? I would say it's how for right? Doesn't violate to many of the other things. So, yeah, I would say it matches and just a little bit of politeness. I think you go just improve it just a little bit. Um So here's a turbo tax example. So I've typed in my eso security number wrong and it said, invalid. So security number must be, And then it gives me the format that it should be in. So is it specific? Yes. It tells me exactly the format that it should be in. I love that. Is it in context? Yes, it points to it. It's exactly where it needs to be. It gets out of the way and allows me to type. Is it polite? No. I think they could have just said instead of saying invalid as the Senate could have just said, Hey, you know, whips, you know, or something that just a little bit more casual, a little bit more conversational and is it helpful? Absolutely. Is very helpful. And it's very easy for me now to just go type in my security source security number of the right way. Now this one's great. So I type in my password. Ah, and it said your password could be cracked in just 12 hours. So I think this is around. So this this is a definitely a developer Focus site. And I love this because to my this would scare the crap out of my mom. But to a developer, this is just fantastic. So it's not just your password is strong. It is very specific. Your password can be cracked in just 12 hours. Right? So very, very specific context. Yes, it is right near the form field. Polite, I think. I think polite. It's okay to break the politeness here because it's just it's just so hilarious how they did this helpful. It is very helpful because right after that, it's his view, our tips on creating strong passwords for suggestions, so it gives you tips on how to create strong passwords. It doesn't just tell you owe your passwords going to be cracked in 12 hours. Sorry, we don't know how to help you, it says. Here are tips on creating strong passwords, so I think this is a brilliant example of saying it's very specific. It's right in context. It's not polite, but that's why I love it. And it's very helpful on how to create a strong password. This one, I think, meets all of them. I love it. It's very specific, it says, a fan of punctuation. So it looks like you put, Ah, you've put periods in your user name. Alas, years, Hernanes user names cannot have consecutive periods now. I can't even imagine all the different air states they have in here, So they've really taken the time to dive into the details of their air states. So ah, fan of punctuation. So it's It's very specific. It's in contact right in the foot. It's got it in red. It's got it highlighted. It's polite. I love how it's a fan of punctuation. So it's got a lot of humor, has got a lot of personality, and it's very helpful. It says User names can't have consecutive periods, so I see now it's very, However, I can't use that. So if I have a user name that has consecutive periods, I'm gonna have to change my user name so it meets all four of those. It has personality. I think it does a fantastic job. Now here's another one I've entered in my daily spend budget, right? So it looks like it's a budget app. So you're nude. Budget is much larger than your previous one, so it's very specific. So it's actually even keeping track from my previous my previous entry. So it's very specific in keeping track of my other form fields and letting me know that in context, yes, it's right below the thing. Is it? Is it polite? Yes, it's very, it's It's very conversational. It's not angry. It's not mean. It's just Hey, if you're sure, click save again, right? So it's a very conversation. It's got that kind of 37 signals Base camp kind of tone. Um, and it's and it's very helpful because it says here on your your new budget is much larger than your previous one. So it's it's really informative. It's it's it's it's looking into your previous activity and saying, Hey, look, you may wanna be aware of this. If you're sure, then just click save. So this this meets all four of them. I love this verb when you go here to leave this page, if you accidentally hit the home button. This is air. You sure you want to leave this page? If so, your changes will be lost. Click OK to leave this page or cancel to stay on this page. Now we Ah, lot of times we see these pages. Um, but we don't look at the copy. It's very specific. Are you sure you want to leave these page this page? It's in context. It's right within the page. It's it's polite it asking you questions. A very conversational tone. It's very helpful. It's saying, Look, if you're changes will be lost, its cook. Okay, toe, leave this page or cancel to stay on. This page is asking you a question. This is very helpful. A lot of people overlook these little dialogues because if you you know, they put a lot of work into this page. And if you click home by accident and you lose all your work, that is going to really frustrate your users. So you want to make sure in these instances you put a lot of time into making crystal clear . If they make an air, if they accidentally hit something, what will happen making it in making its specific and making it helpful. This is the Zappos 404 page, So 404 pages when they go to a page, when they go to a page that does not exist. So this one is by far the most specific error page that I've ever seen on any website, Right? So it says we've can't seem to find the page you're looking for. It hasn't dog on it. It says. Here are a few reasons why this may have happened. We have a bad link out there. You may have type the page address incorrectly, or a Web service or Web server is acting up, so they give you specific reasons why. And so then it goes into Dash has a few suggestions to help. The dash is the dog, so it's try a search. They can call or they can email. So it's obviously it's very specific. It's in context. It's right on the page. It's very polite because it's got a lot of personality to bring in the freakin dog into it . I love it and it's very, very helpful, gives you multiple ways to get in contact with you. Nobody has taken that I've never seen anybody take the time to look at an error page in this way. I imagine they get all kinds of calls from this and they Most people who go to these error pages there just got an air page and they may leave. Zappos may keep all kinds of customers that otherwise may have left because they were very , very, very. They had a lot of intent around these error pages to say, Look, if someone made a mistake, we're going to do everything we can to help them through the experience. We're gonna be helpful. We're gonna be polite on. We're gonna be very, very specific. Now, how am I going to implement this into into mine and very bay? I took a very basic approach and just in the password, right. So I typed in going back. I told them what to dio. Please use at least four characters without spaces. Now, granted, somebody's always going to do the opposite of what you wanted to do. And so someone typed in three three characters into my password field. And so in context, I put the error. Looks like you only have three characters in your password. So I was very specific, saying, You only have three characters in your password. I put it in context right near the form field. I was. I was polite, saying, Hey, looks like you only have three characters in your password. Add one more and you're good to go right, Very conversational, not like error informed field right and very helpful. The helpful part of his add one more and you're good to go right should have said, Add one more except the space right and you're good to go. And so it meets all for the things and it's it's it's really easy to implement, and it will cut down on tons of user air just by adding these four things.
13. If You Did It Right: if you did it right now, here's you can follow the same four things on the opposite of If you do it wrong. Is it specific? Is it in context? Is it polite and is it helpful? So let's look at some examples. So if you look at Twitter, you see in the full name field name looks great. So is a specific. Yes, a specific name looks great now. It could be a little bit more specific, but it really doesn't need to be that specific in this case, Is it in context? Yes, it's right next to the field. Visit Pearl Ice. Is it polite? Yeah, the language is great here. And is it helpful? Yes, it it shows you a check mark, and it tells you your name is is formatted correctly. Email address. This is another example of it is helpful because it's telling you what it will do with that . So you have entered your email successfully, and it will tell you what will happen next. Door goes into the other micro copy concept of telling you what will happen next so they will use that email to send you a confirmation. So it's telling you that you did it right and telling you what it's going to do with that email. Create a password Looking at password. This is another example of when you type in strong and weak passwords it's giving you. If you notice that little indicator over there, I'm imagining that little green bar over there turns yellow and red based on the strength of your password, so there's a lot of great feedback. Their password is perfect at the check mark. Perfect is very helpful. Choose your user names. There's a couple of things going on here. One. The user name is available, so it's very specific is very helpful. It gives you caught it in context, right next to the right next to the user name field. It's also helpful in that you can change it later, and we saw that earlier, with the verb example showing you that you can change it later so you can choose your user name. It doesn't matter. It's not the end of the world if you want to change it and also what's helpful below that in context. Our suggestion. So you have em trader for Marcin, for Mars. So based on your name up top some some some helpful suggestions on that user name. So they giving you feedback on a successful years, the name, but even giving you some better examples of a even better user name that my even work better within their platform. And so So here's another example of Tumbler doing this kind of similar thing with user names is you successfully entered a user name in tumbler, but they're also giving you, um they're also giving you some suggestions. So even in the copy, how about one of these? You can always change it later. There again, you see that micro copy that says it's not the end of the world, and so you're starting to see a pattern that it sounds like I'll They've talked to a lot of their users that a lot of people think if I picked this name now, is this the end of the world? Am I gonna have to, you know, obviously this creates a lot of anxiety, so they address it over and over and over again in this copy. We've seen it in so many of these examples. So in Facebook, after your order has been placed now here's another example of using micro copy to say what is happening next, and we saw in some of the other examples earlier as well. But here's with with Facebook it's saying your order husband has been placed with this big green check mark. There's a lot of emotion when when someone completes something and they've done it right, they've completed the process. Here's here's a good chance to to to celebrate that success, right? So, through tiny bits of copy, tiny bits of color, you often see check marks. You often see green green appears almost all the time in these screens. You'll receive a notification once your ads are reviewed. Now pay attention to the create similar ad. Now this is a very specific piece of functionality that I imagine Facebook had talked to their users and said after they've created a add successful that they want to create a similar ad. So they added a very tiny piece of micro copy with a button attached to it, it says create a similar ad, so it adds something to give them an extra bit of functionality to create a similar ad. And it's tied to at helping the user out to creating a new ads. And for Facebook, it's tied to a business case, because how does the ad platform survives? People creating more answer has a dual purpose. And so here's another thing with hub spot. You've congratulations. So they're using that kind of congratulatory theme and you'll see that a lot with the examples, tracking euro has been created. Now here's there. They're reinforcing you, reinforcing it with a bit of micro copy. Here. This is one's traffic to this u R L has generated You can see in the sources report under email marketing. Bubba, Bubba, they're telling you what's gonna happen next. So they're celebrating your the success of that and then further along that they're saying What now? Then just start telling you what to do next and what processes will happen next. So all this is really helpful. You're seeing a lot of these Thank you screens. It's just like Okay, great, you know, and a lot of times you just see, like, continue or go back and notice at the bottom where it says generate another. Now we saw that with the Facebook thing. So here's another. Here's another little bit bit of functionality. That hub spot has added just like Facebook, that through talking to the users, they've understood that when people create these tracking euros, they probably want to create another. So they've added this tiny bit of micro copy with a button that allows them to create another tracking your all instead of just a close button. So there's a lot of room to create these little pieces of functionality on confirmation screens on things that they've done right, whether it's suggestions, whether it's little pieces of functionality that allow them to do other things, maybe similar things that they've done. And so here's an example of Dropbox and Twitter giving you the whole way through the gamut of very weak to strong passwords so you can see how they do it through multiple, different design form. So they have, um, they divided the line into four different sections. You can see they have 1234 so they do it in in in dividing into four sections. They also do it through color, right, so they're doing it in in dividing it up into four blocks. Then they're adding color on top of that and then they're adding copy on top of that. So they have three different layers of telling you that you did something right? So So when you're looking at, um, the wrong things and the right things, you can layer a bunch of things on top of things. So using iconography, using copy, using color, using shapes, all of these things work together to make sure that they know whether they've done something successfully or they've done something incorrectly. Now, how am I going to implement this into my project? Now? I went a little bit overboard with this, but this is OK. It kind of works into the personality. Now, you, when you go to enter your email address, you don't have to validate their email address. But a lot of times people may miss, um may mess up an email address. They may, you know, type in, you know, a comma instead of a dot com. So when you're validating these email addresses on the fly, it cuts down on a lot of errors. So I've typed in my email address correctly. Instead of just saying like it's been validated, I can add some personality in here and say Gmail users are a favor, right? So it adds to that personality and the password. It's It's specific, right? So it's saying nine character passwords are very secure. Not just It's a strong password, but being specific and saying nine character passwords now that may not be, you know, whatever. It may not make that much difference, but it does have a bit of subconscious. It does have a bit of subconscious, uh, reasoning to say that. Okay, so nine character passwords a little bit stronger. So this is This is great. And so, using the word Gray adds a little bit of personality. It's conversational, and then cell phone, it's your phone number has been validated. So they entered it correctly, and and now it's great. So now they know that they've filled out all three fields correctly. So now when they hit that button, it's not a surprise that they now know that there's gonna be no errors. I mean, there's no airs in the process. If you ever been through any kind of crazy process, where that buying a house or submitting your taxes, you're always holding your breath going. Oh my gosh. I know something is going to go wrong. But if in these things if in these processes you can give them feedback as they go along and guide them through and say Yes. You did this right? Yes, you did this right? And when you when you asked them to do something when you finally ask him to submit something. When you finally asked him to click that button, they know now that nothing is going to be wrong. And so you you've taken that anxiety way and everything's going to be OK.
14. Project Steps: So the project task for this section is to implement one or two or three or all of the different types of micro copy. No, don't get overwhelming. Think you have to implement all six? Just pick one or two of them, right? So the 1st 1 what it means that's one of the easiest ones. Just pick something that may be vague that may need further explaining and just explain it with a little bit of micro copy that these thes things air really easy to implement. It shouldn't these projects. These things should not be 10 weeks to implement. So pick one of those six and implemented get feedback from the users and keep repeating.
15. Conclusion: so wrapping up The only way to create amazingly effective micro copy is toe Love your customer. Love your users care about their experience. I mean, that's the whole definition of micro copy, which is guiding them through this experience, making sure that their experience is amazing the whole way through that you get them to they're n go divide this experience up into three parts before, during and after before they've used your product or service before they signed up for your newsletter. Every little thing, every little piece of micro copy that make sure the anxiety that they have before they sign up. I don't know if I should enter my email address. I don't know if I should give you my name or my phone number. All these things, all that micro Cobby helps ease that anxiety. Ease that tension, then when once they do the during part of it, once they start to use it once they start to get the hang of it, once that you're asking them to doom, or things that using micro that using microscopy to guide them along and get them to to get what they need out of the software to get with the need out of the service and then after. So if it's an e commerce thing, if it's if it's a one time experience to make sure that after once they once they have succeeded in doing that, once they've completed their purchase, that your guiding them through what to do after that to make sure that after they've purchased that they'd made the right decision. So there's all kind of opportunities to toe to use micro copy to make sure that hey, look, you've made the right decision. And so if you get overwhelmed, if you're like Oh my gosh, I'm looking through my app, my software, my website I just I don't know what to do. Get out, Get off the computer. I always found that I just get off the computer and I ghost and I just grabbed my sketchbook and I just go sketch and I just lay it all out. Then I think, How can I guide my users through this experience? This sketchbook helps me just clear my mind. I'm not known checking email, not checking that. It just helps me clear my mind now. Once you get this and once you start implementing this stuff, share your project we want to see. Like I said, they began and I want to see your before and your after I want to see why you made these changes and then we want to see See what happened after you made these changes to see the results. Because that's the real that that that's the purpose of this class is to get you results. So share those results with the other students that we can all learn from that. Now, I've been doing this. Oh man building software for 20 years. I feel really old now. And so every month I have a four spots open for consulting where I do complete micro copy audits. All this stuff I do for four consulting clients per month. I only have four opening. That's all openings. That's all I can handle if you're interested. If you are serious, right, cause I only take on the clients that are serious about this. Email me at Jack at jack Zerby dot com with the subject line copy audit. From that, I will give you further instructions on how we do the client engagement, and we'll go from there and we'll do a complete copy audit of your product or service. Thank you so much for taking this class. I wish you all the best of luck in implementing all this micro copy. I know it's going to improve your product or service. I know it's gonna improve the experience for your customers and your users. Thank you so much and have a great day.
Jack Zerby, Design at Gumroad
