Some (grammar) rules are made to be broken
How forgetting the rules helped make me a better UX writer
Learning the rules
We all have weird, interesting, and unexpected paths to how we ended up being UX writers/content designers and I love us for that. For me, it was an accidental and somehow perfect background in writing and linguistics that landed me here, along with being Extremely Online from a young age.
I grew up writing. As a teen, I was usually found in the library scribbling in my notebook, jotting rhymes for cringey poetry. To the dismay of my guidance counselor, I took every English class my high school offered. In college, I studied creative writing, writing stories of all kinds and workshopping the work of my peers. I read Milton and Tristram Shandy and even took a class about comics while learning the yes’ and nos of how to write and what was considered “good English” (barf). It wasn’t until grad school when I started studying Systemic Functional Linguistics that I realized the language rules I’d been following my entire life maybe weren’t the shiny, golden principles I was told they were.
SFL is a linguistic theory that believes language is a social semiotic system, which is a big way of saying that the rules are created by us, the users, and they are always changing. If something exists in language, it was created and shaped by us. It’s actually a really powerful thought.
One of the most important things SFL taught me was the difference between prescriptive and descriptive language. Prescriptive is the idea that language exists as a set of rules and if we stray from those rules, we’re incorrectly using language — rules are prescribed. There is a good way to write and a bad way to write. Descriptive is viewing how language is being used and using that to interpret what the rules are at the time — describing the language. The rules are more fluid and open to interpretation. Basically, if you say or write something and the meaning you intended is the meaning that is perceived, what you said/wrote is correct.
What descriptivism taught me, along with many other rules of the most ✨blessed✨ linguistic theory of all time, was that we don’t need to be so rigid in how we write to be correct. We just need to make sure the person who’s reading or listening is understanding us. And isn’t that, at the core, one of the most fundamental rules of UX writing?
Let’s get unruly
- Stop waging war on passive voice
Yes, we want to use active voice most of the time, but using passive voice doesn’t make your user experiences weaker because language can’t be “weak.” If passive voice makes the most sense or brings the most clarity in that moment, you should absolutely be using it.
Passive voice, in case you’ve forgotten or haven’t thought about it since grade school, is when you put the person/thing receiving the action before the one doing the action.
A lot of the time when passive voice is used, it’s because the actor is unknown or the person is trying to distance themselves from the action. Here’s an example from Amazon’s app:
Your refund (receiver) will be processed (action) when we (actor) receive your item.
vs.
We (actor) will process (action) your refund (receiver) when we receive your item.
Maybe the use of passive voice here is important because Amazon isn’t the one fulfilling the refund and it’s instead a third-party seller. Maybe they’re using it to make the refund the main focus of the sentence, instead of themselves, because they know that’s what people want info about. Whatever the reason, I think it works. Live your passive truth, refund sentence.
This article by Aaron Raizen goes more in depth into why passive voice can and should be used.
2. Start sentences with But or And or Because
Using these types of words at the beginning of sentences can sometimes help the copy sound better and/or flow easier. One of the things you should be doing with your draft copy is reading it out loud, which can help you figure out if it flows. If not, pop one of these puppies in there (if applicable, of course, and if it fits your tone/voice/style guide).
I’m not at all saying force these into your sentences. But if one happens to slip in there and makes sense where it is, leave it.
3. End sentences in prepositions
This is the oldest, silliest rule. It comes from Latin and has been hanging onto the English language like Frodo grasping the cliff in Mount Doom (spoiler alert).
If you’re adamant about not ending your sentences with prepositions, you maybe would thrive in London in 1790, but in 2021 it doesn’t make sense to keep following this rule.
4. Forget the period sometimes (which I haven’t used yet in these numbered headings — did you even notice or did you just notice my jovial, inviting tone?)
At Amex, I’m a mobile UX writer. Since I’ve been focused solely on mobile writing for almost two years, I’ve become aware of how the tone of mobile copy can be affected more intensely by certain things that don’t affect web copy as much.
One of these things is periods at the end of sentences. I know you know what I’m talking about. It’s the difference between sounding angry or annoyed vs. sounding cool as a cucumber.
How do you feel when you see a message like this:
versus when you see a message like this:
My mom loves sending messages just like this. Getting texts like these makes it a struggle to message her; I feel like she’s completely uninterested in what I’m saying or annoyed at the fact that I’m texting her, even though I know it’s probably just a generational thing.
I’m not saying periods shouldn’t ever be used in mobile apps, not at all, I’m just saying be aware of the context and the tone they could be giving off.
5. You don’t have to know all the grammar rules
This isn’t a rule, but I thought it was important to say. Like I said earlier, I’ve spent my life writing and and learning how to write. I am a writer by profession. And still, I can’t tell you most of the parts of a sentence or what a past participle is. I just don’t have brain space to keep them in there and these days we don’t have to; we have The Internet™️.
I’d like to give a huge shoutout to TitleCase.com, which I use at least twice weekly, in my professional writing job.
I’m saying this because I don’t feel like anyone should feel ashamed by their lack of knowledge of the rules. And I definitely don’t think that it should be any sort of barrier into anyone getting into this field.
6. Ok but you should definitely use an oxford comma tho
It’s just silly not to.
What does this mean?
Language, like gender, is fluid. Sometimes grammar rules need to be waived in favor of increased understanding and readability. We shouldn’t always be prescribing rules onto the copy and should instead be aware of how our copy looks, sounds, and feels in different situations. Also, we’re internet writers, we should be somewhat aware of what’s going on on the internet, at least in terms of new language conventions. I know change can be scary, but that’s just how it is, baby.
If there are any rules that you’ve found you can break for a better user experience, please respond to this article, I’d love to know!
Disclaimer: This article is very American English focused, so these might not apply to you and how you write UX copy, but maybe it’ll at least make you want to be more of a rule breaker 🤘
This article also doesn’t get into the argument about how the idea of “correct English” is racist, classist, ablesist, etc., but it very much is.
