UX and grammar: risk takin’, rule breakin’
Reconnecting with grammar while learning UX writing.
There’s no shortage of literature or commentary on how to write for different scenarios and platforms. My writing style, much like my job title is constantly evolving. With every new brief or digital interface, I consider how best to adapt my toolkit and conduct basic due diligence in the form of research and professional guidance.
I’ve received guidance on how to write: academically, grammatically, professionally, conversationally, creatively, using: officialese, plain English, corporate buzz words, and emojis. Like most things, learning to write well, takes practice. A lot of practice. It’s a journey of logic, flow and grammar. A journey I often feel I’m at the beginning of, or at the very least revisiting a prior lesson.
After dabbling in Salesforce implementation and customisation, I decided to move laterally and diversify my skill set to include UX writing and microcopy. At the start of 2020, I signed up for a four-month UX writing course with the passionate and talented team at UX Writing Hub.
In addition to the design theory, content-first approach (hallelujah 🙌 ) practical exercises and industry insights I was beyond thrilled to discover the English Corner. A segment curated by Chief Editor and Linguist Enthusiast Aaron S. Raizen on the writing aspects of UX writing that explores the intersection between best practice grammar, style, and editing; and modern linguistics with the goal to create copy that is clear, concise and useful. A guiding principle of the course and UX writing in general.
The material in this section has been practical, thought-provoking, reassuring and nostalgic. I’ve learned and retained more practical information from the English Corner than any past scholastic attempt.
English grammar didn’t feature heavily in the New South Wales school curriculum circa 1994–2006. I vaguely recall learning the basics of English grammar in primary school. Lessons like what’s a noun, verb (doing word), adjective (describing word), adverb and pronoun and how to use them correctly in a sentence. I could, however, be confusing the origins of these lessons with my love of the Great Grammar Book. This book was my jam and Alan Adjective and Vera Verb provided hours, if not at least a good twenty minutes of entertainment, I mean education. I vividly recall lifting the flaps, tabs, pop-ups and spinning wheels to reveal the correct answer or matching pair, time and time again.
In contrast, high school English taught me how to rote learn essays and fear the word ‘journey’ (along with any student who sat the HSC from 2005–2018).
However, what I don’t recall is the classroom lesson on English verb conjugations and not splitting the infinitive. I only came across terms like ‘past participle’, ‘infinitive’ and “imperative” while learning a second language and studying with international students. They’d ask me about these terms in relation to the English language. I’d respond by seeking clarification on the context or sentence in which the terms were being used.
To my surprise, I discovered I often knew the answer without knowing the formal term or textbook rule. And when I didn’t I went with what sounded most natural to me. However, this approach didn’t always align with the rules being taught.
As a native English speaker, I was puzzled and embarrassed. There were official and unofficial language and grammar rules that I didn’t even realise I knew. And some rules I didn’t know altogether. Sacrebleu!
More importantly, does this matter?
How relevant or important are English grammar rules in today’s use of the language?
And how do you navigate these rules when writing for digital interfaces?
I’m not just talking about the grammatical difference between you’re and your, or some overlooked typo. Which, let’s face it can make or break the bonds of trust between any potential customer and the product in front of them. Or the importance of prepositions in UX writing as noted by Robert Heckert.
I’m talking about technical rules informed by Latin and prescribed by people trying to make a language work the way they think it should. Cue not ending a sentence with a preposition. Big thanks to John Dryden circa 17th century for this one.
The English Corner has shed some light on this and taught me not to take the rules too seriously (prescriptive grammarians take note). It’s reaffirmed the go with what sounds natural approach.
After all written language is an approximation of the spoken language, it’s just symbols on a page (or screen) that allow you to imagine the sounds someone makes to communicate.
First and foremost clarity is key. The goal is to make yourself understood. Your audience shouldn’t need to think too hard about the words guiding them through the interface and you don’t want to throw off a large portion of your audience by adhering to grammar rules that aren’t widely used in everyday communication.
The English Corner has provided invaluable guidance on how to write for digital interfaces through the narrative of prescriptive vs. descriptive grammar — featuring: Strunk & White, MS Word grammar check and Colombia Professor John McWhorter. (Honourable mention goes to Steven Pinker’s, The Sense of Style).
So far, it has equipped me with the following five lessons essential to good UX writing (and writing in general) and introduced linguistic terminology to my vocabulary (an added bonus).
1. How to write for a global audience — pick a spelling system (preferably American) and stick with it. Be consistent.
I don’t often write for a global audience and therefore generally stick to British or Australian English 😉. The advice to use American English when writing for a digital product with a global audience makes sense as the internet is written in American English. I’m used to seeing American spelling and don’t get tripped up when I see it. However, I’m not sure the same would apply to audiences solely accustomed to American English. I do however take pause when I come across a baseball reference or expression which comes down to content localisation.
2. The skilful art of hedging (softening) and boosting.
Knowing how and when to make a statement less direct (hedging) is a key to writing in a natural-sounding way. So is knowing when to make a statement more assertive or definite (boosting). While I hadn’t come across these terms before, I was aware of the concepts they define. Now I am much more attuned to them, especially when considering the emotional state of the user and how best to adapt my tone to suit different scenarios such as call to actions (CTAs), error messages, and pop-up notifications.
3. Use passive tense wisely, don’t discard it entirely. Consider what sounds most natural, especially when crafting update messages vs. CTAs.
Use the active voice is something is I see time and time again in content style guides and UX articles. It’s refreshing that the English Corner takes a more nuanced approach to the dreaded passive and examines historically how this viewpoint came to be and how it continues to be reinforced by modern grammar checkers and black and white thinking. The advice to use the passive tense when you want to emphasis a place, person or thing affected by the action, or simply when it sounds right aligns with how English speakers use it. If you strive to avoid it altogether you risk sounding unnatural.
For example, “Your account has been updated” sounds more natural than “We updated your account”.
The observation that perhaps what companies or authors of style guides mean to say is, use the imperative tense (and not just a blanket use the active voice) is another astute takeaway. The commonly used CTA “Shop Now” exemplifies this.
4. Clear, concise, and useful doesn’t mean make every sentence or phrase as short as possible.
Yes, every word should earn its place and if it didn't — cross it out. However, careful consideration should be given as to whether a word is needless or not. Omitting a word or words from a phrase can significantly affect the tone of and impact the message.
Extra characters can be worth it if they bring the copy to life and make it engaging for the user to connect on a deeper level. Consider this copy from Headspace “Mindfulness for your everyday life. Stress less. Move more. Sleep soundly.” It could be shortened to ‘Mindfulness for your everyday needs’ which isn’t very, anything really, and certainly not better.
Or this spot-on example from Whimsical, as noted by the English Corner. Sure you could rephrase this to “instant visual communication” but the phrase “Communicate visually at the speed of thought” is so much richer and meaningful.
Granted when crafting microcopy to fit character limitations and onscreen navigation prompts clarity trumps richness.
5. When to embrace ‘they’ as a singular pronoun and when to avoid it.
When ‘they’ is used as a singular pronoun it often refers back to something unspecified or hypothetical, an indefinite pronoun, such as “If everyone would take their seat, we can get started.” This usage is very common and has been for quite some time.
However “they” is now being used to refer to definite pronouns such as a known person. For example, “Blake has recently updated their location, wish them good luck.” The purpose of this is to have a gender-neutral third person, singular pronoun. However, consideration needs to be given as to whether your audience is familiar with this usage. In most applications, if the name is known the user will have most likely also specified their gender. In the case of a non-binary option, the English Corner advises writing around it using something like “ A friend (or rider) has recently updated their location..”
Language is fluid. Words are always on the move. Right now, people may not be, but with more and more communication taking place online and in the form of digital interfaces learning to communicate consistently and with clarity is the most important rule in my book. However, it doesn't hurt to revisit modern linguistics for guidance.
