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In an effort to improve my UX writing skills, I’ve always wanted to try the daily UX writing challenge again because my knowledge of UX writing has improved since my first attempt, but I kept on procrastinating. Thankfully, the UX Writers Africa Community decided to challenge us with the daily UX writing prompt this month. Over the course of the next 30 days, I will take part in the UX Writers Africa Community’s 30 Days UX Writing Challenge and create UX microcopy for different scenarios.
Scenario: A traveler is in an airport waiting for the last leg of a flight home when their flight gets abruptly canceled due to bad weather.
Challenge: Write a message from the airline app notifying them of the cancellation and what they need to do next.
Constraints:
Headline: 45 characters
Body: 175 characters max
Button(s): 25 characters max
Before I started writing the microcopy, I made sure I made an effort to understand the problem at hand. I also had to put myself in the user’s shoes (I tried to imagine I was the user), imagine what the airline’s capabilities will be like, and decide which scenario would be most appropriate given the circumstances.
The Problem:
The unexpected flight cancellation
The Solution:
To schedule a new departure time for the user and/or give the user some form of compensation, such as a hotel reservation discount, until their subsequent flight.
My choice of voice and tone was:
We are simple, modern, and human.
My Goal:
- Provide information to the user in a way that will prevent them from panicking.
- Think of creative ways to reduce the user’s dissatisfaction and work to maintain the user-product relationship.
UX Copy 1
Headline: Sorry Your Flight Has Been Canceled
Body: Due to bad weather, your flight has been canceled and rescheduled. We are providing a 10% discount on our hotel tonight as a token of our apology.
Button:
Contact Us
Book Hotel
In this copy, I had to notify the users of the cancellation of their flight and explain why. I also included a contact us button since I thought users might be concerned about the new flight date and would benefit from speaking with customer support to receive an answer. The airline also offered waiting passengers a 10% hotel discount as a kind of compensation.
UX Copy 2
Headline: Sorry Flight F50502 Has Been Canceled
Body: Due to bad weather, the F50502/Abuja—Enugu flight will now take off at 7 a.m. tomorrow. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Contact us for further inquiries.
Button: Contact Us
Because I think most customers may have used the app to book more than one flight, I had to be more precise about the flight that was canceled in the heading. By alerting the users to the new date and time, I helped relieve them of the stress of worrying. I tried to show concern for the users by apologizing for the inconvenience the cancellation must have caused them. I also wrote this copy from the perspective that the airline didn’t offer the users any compensation since the result of the weather is not their fault,
The Problem I Faced While Writing the Microcopy
The character limit was one issue I had to deal with while writing the copy. If there hadn’t been a character limit, I could have written more effectively.
Thank you for reading; your opinions on it are welcome, and I’m open to discussion in the comments.
Read the full article here
