A glossary of definitions

A/B Testing

A quantitative method of testing two or more versions of a variable (e.g. a call-to-action, microcopy or font) by showing them to users, to find which one performs better. Sometimes also called ‘preference testing’.

Insider tip: Check out Google Optimise for a straightforward, mostly free A/B testing solution. Optimizely also worth checking out.

Accessibility

Accessibility is a measurement of a user’s ability to interact with products/services, in order to meet their goals. When we research and write with accessibility in mind, we enable a wider spectra of users to navigate, interact with and gain value from their digital experiences.

Users with divergent visual, auditory or physical requirements are at the centre of best practices in accessibility.

Insider tip: The A11Y Project is an open-source, volunteer-run and community-driven effort to make the web easier to use — for everyone.

Photo by Green Chameleon on Unsplash

Breadcrumb

A navigational element that helps make users aware of their current location within the hierarchical structure of a website. Breadcrumbs are most often a series of links showing the current page and its ‘ancestors’ (parent page, grandparent page, and so on), right back to the homepage.

Insider tip: Here’s a great article from Vitaly Friedman on breadcrumb best practices.

Chatbot

A chatbot is a program that replicates human conversation. Most chatbots perform customer support roles, replying to questions and taking instructions.

Some chatbots use a branch of AI called natural language processing (NLP) to assess context and provide a better user experience. They may also use decision trees to create a ‘conversation’.

They also combine text with buttons and other user interface elements to provide tappable, visual shortcuts to writing text.

Insider tip: Netomi is consistently rated as the most sophisticated AI chatbot on the market. Check it out.

Content Strategy

Kristina Halvorson provides a watertight definition of the world of content strategy: “Content strategy plans for the creation, publications, and governance of useful, usable content.”

As UX writers, we use content strategy to plan how to execute language in order to achieve product goals.

Content strategy in UX writing ensures that text is delivered to users at the right time, in the right place, and in the correct format and style.

Ideally, this will fulfil both user and business goals.

Insider tip: Check out this great talk by Jared Spool on content strategy in UX.

Photo by hannah grace on Unsplash

CTA (Call-to-action)

A short command for users to take a certain action, most often appearing on a button.

Insider tip: Check out this article by Nicole Rader on CTA best practices.

Empty State

Empty states are moments in a user’s experience with a product where there is nothing to display.

This is an opportunity for UX writers to provide guidance (in case they got lost!) and inject some brand personality.

Some examples of empty states:

• Search results on a web page that can’t find what you’re looking for
• Empty shopping basket
• Empty folders
• 404 errors
• No new messages on a messaging app
• Empty email inbox

Insider tip: Check out these empty state best practices.

A well-utilised empty state by Asana

Error Message

A message presented to a user when something goes wrong. The best error messages succinctly explain what’s gone wrong and how to get back on track or to fix the problem.

Insider tip: It’s tempting to write a little joke in your UX microcopy here. Before doing this first make sure the user understands why there was an error and how they can address the issue.

Error Prevention

A design principle from Jakob Nielsen’s famous 10 Usability Heuristics for User Interface Design. It seeks to proactively offer users the information and context required to avoid situations or decision-making that could lead to errors. As UX writers, we must strive to help users achieve their goals when interacting with products with as few errors as possible.

Insider tip: There are two types of errors, slips and mistakes. Learn more about the difference here.

Fidelity

The fidelity of a prototype refers to how closely it resembles the look and feel of the final system. Lo-fidelity prototypes are a quick and dirty way to translate concepts into basic functionalities and test them. Hi-fidelity prototypes are full dress rehearsals of the final product, they look and feel ‘live’ to users.

Insider tip: Choosing the correct level of design fidelity is about figuring out what is most suitable for the type of feedback you are seeking. Here’s an article by Arin Bhowmick that deep dives into this conundrum.

Form Field

The areas of a form where a user can input data, either by typing or selecting an option.

Examples of form fields:

• Text boxes
• Dropdown menus
• Checkboxes

Most form fields are labelled with a piece of text above or next to the field — a key task for UX writers is to ensure these are the 3 Cs — clear, concise and consistent.

Insider tip: Conversational form field labels can improve accessibility. By modelling form labels as questions or complete sentences, users feel like they are engaging in a human interaction and feel more at home. Here’s a great article by Kinneret Yifrah on the topic.

Information Architecture (IA)

A research-driven process that dictates the structure of content within a digital product. At the core of UX, information architecture ensures that information is arranged in a way that helps users navigate and achieve their goals with minimal difficulty.

Insider tip: Sitemaps are a key semantic framework within IA. Here’s a great article from Miro on the topic: How to create a sitemap.

Internationalisation (i18n)

The process of preparing, designing and engineering products so they can be easily localised into different places, cultures and languages.

Insider tip: Often internationalisation and localisation are confused. Here’s an article on how to distinguish them.

Localisation (l10n)

Localisation is the process of localising a translation to a particular culture, place or language. It goes beyond translation, also considering regionalisms, currencies and other lingustic characteristics.

Insider tip: Here’s an article I wrote that discusses localisation in more depth.

Metadata

Metadata are descriptions of data that help users find it more easily. Simply, metadata describes something, so it can be discovered, and used.

Examples:

• Hashtags
• Author
• Date modified

Insider tip: There are 4 different types of metadata. Learn about them here.

Mockup

A mockup is a visual representation of a final digital product or website, which includes layout, colour, typography, icons, and other UI elements. It also often refers to a wireframe within a ‘mock’ device to elevate realism.

While mockups are high-fidelity designs, they are static and have no functionality-like a screenshot.

Insider tip: You can find great UI mockups for free in Figma Community.

Microcopy

Microcopy is essentially any small piece of copy. Microcopy is traditionally considered to be present in UX writing for digital products (such as labels or tooltips). However, it can also appear in copywriting for marketing websites (such as CTAs, confirmation messages etc).

Insider tip: Read this book by Kinneret Yifrah.

Progressive Disclosure

The practice of progressive disclosure aims to simplify user interactions, by focusing users’ attention on what is most important first, revealing additional details afterwards. The overarching purpose is to avoid overburdening users with too much information, unless they seek it. It is a technique for empowering users.

Insider tip: Progressive disclosure improves 3 of usability’s 5 components: learnability, efficiency of use, and error rate.

Push Notification

A message sent to users as a reminder or call to action, using a mobile operating system’s notification system, as opposed to through the UI of the app itself.

Different mobile operating systems deliver push notifications in different ways.

Some examples:

• On lock screens
• In a drawer that drops down from the top of the screen

Effective push notifications are less than 25 characters long and ‘front load’ the most important information at the beginning.

Insider tip: Here’s a great article by Onyinyechi Nneji on push notifications.

Content Style Guide

A document that helps brands to maintain consistency across their published content. It can cover brand voice, vocabulary, idioms, spelling, syntax, grammar as well as small things like oxford commas and capitalisation in titles.

Insider tip: Here’s a great article on how to create an effective content style guide.

Usability

This term refers to how easy it is for a user to achieve the goals within a digital product.

When we are evaluating usability we ask ourselves this question:

Does the design and text of the application make it easy for the customer to discover, understand, and perform a given task?

Insider tip: Here are some more pointers on usability.

User Story

An essential UX writing tool that gives context to the copy you’re writing.

The most common user story format:

“As [a user persona], I want [to perform this action] so that [I can accomplish this goal].”

As well as providing helpful context to a particular user action/goal, user stories help to elevate empathy for users (very important!)

Insider tip: Here’s a deep dive worth reading on user stories.

Variable

A dynamic field in UX copy that takes information from a backend database. A common example is a number: “You have 3 items in your cart”. The number here is the variable and changes depending on how many things are added or removed.

Insider tip: Here’s a deep dive by Steven Baguley on variables.

Voice-user Interface (VUIs)

These allow users to interact with computer systems through voice or speech commands.

Well-known examples:

• Google Assistant
• Alexa

Insider tip: Here’s a well-written definitive guide to VUIs by Mert Aktas.

Widget

A mini-program, like a really simple app. Widgets present information dynamically and usually only perform one function.

Widget examples:

• Weather
• Exchange rates
• Chatbot

Insider tip: Apple’s iOS is full of widgets. You can read a guide about how to add and edit them here.

Wireframe

A wireframe is an outline of what an interface could look like and how it could function. Similar to a blueprint of a building, a wireframe shows the main parts of content at various degrees of fidelity, from abstract forms with little to no visual design (lo-fi) up to highly realistic replicas of a live product screen (hi-fi).

Insider tip: Check out this step-by-step guide on how to wireframe your website copy.