Week 5 (Cont’d): Writing with Empathy
Using the user journey map to create empathetic UX writing
Last week’s practice challenge was to work on your chosen UX writing project using a user journey template to create empathetic copy. How did it go?
Well, I attempted it too. Here’s how I did mine on Miro:
What does the customer do?
These are the steps taken by the users in using the product and it is often dependent on the product’s design. Are they required to create an account before using the app? Are they to type in a password twice? Every action the user takes towards achieving their goal is taken into consideration.
In determining the steps for your journey map, the variation of the journey map comes into focus. You can do a journey mapping for an entire user experience, journey mapping for micro interactions - it all depends on what you want to achieve.
For this example, I’ve chosen a single persona journey mapping that focuses on micro interactions in a small part of the user experience.
Disclaimer: Since these are screenshots of a real banking app, I edited the account names, bank names, and money. Everything else was left untouched.
Here, I have a mobile banking app and my focus is on the user experience in making a transfer payment — not the entire app experience.
So for the Actions row, I had these steps:
What is the customer thinking?
For me to answer this question a little bit better, I needed to create a user persona.
Having user personas come first before creating the journey map because we’re assessing the product through the users’ eyes. And only when we have a clear idea of who they are; the context in which they use the product; and the motivations for using it, would we be able to write copy that is truly empathetic.
In real life, this user persona would be built based on actual research to get a good understanding of your target users. But for this example, I’m working with assumptions.
Meet the user
With this user persona, I was able to get a clearer idea of who’s using the product, and could think up a context in which Peter may use the app.
Context: Peter is having a busy day at work when his phone alarm goes off, reminding him the debt repayment deadline is that evening. He’d completely forgotten again.
Realizing he can’t take time off to go to the bank, he sneaks in a quick toilet break to make the payment using the mobile banking app he hasn’t used in a long while.
With this established context, it was easier to put myself in Peter’s shoes to have an idea of what he’s thinking while using this app.
What is the customer feeling?
With a clearer understanding of who’s using the app, the context in which it’s being used, and what’s going through Peter’s mind while using it, I could then fix emotions into the journey map.
What copy is needed to solve the customer’s pain points?
Pain points are essentially things that stop users from accomplishing their goals.
Based on the current journey map, we can identify certain pain points that Peter is facing within the app. So is there a way UX copy can solve or minimize these pain points to a large extent?
With the pain point of forgetting his pin, a solution can be to provide an option for Pin recovery.
With the pain point of worrying he’ll get blocked for wrong PIN entry, a solution can be to provide a copy that removes this fear by clearly communicating if there is a limited number of PIN attempts.
The row for copy needed is to identify ways to address each pain point the user may face while using the product.
What tone of voice is needed to make the customer feel better?
You may find the right copy that solves users’ pain points, but if you don’t use the right tone you still run the risk of not showing empathy and not improving the experience.
“Voice and tone are two different concepts and it is important to make this distinction. The voice should always be the same, it’s a bit like the personality of your digital product or service. However, the tone is not always the same. Ideally the tone has to be adapted to the situation in which the user is.” — Mario Ferrer, UX Writer
Taking all the information gotten about our fictional user; Peter, I could then come up with the appropriate tones that’ll help improve the user experience.
Voilà!
This completed user journey map can then be used as a reference when writing the UX microcopy for the mobile banking app.
See you next week👋
Additional resources you should check out
How to define a user persona — CareerFoundry
Complete guide to user journey mapping — Appcues
A beginner’s guide to user journey mapping — UX Planet
(Skip this if you’ve already done the practice challenge)
Let’s Practice! 👩💻
Hi! Hope you enjoyed this week’s topic. Leave a clap if you did :)
At the end of every week, there are challenges for us to complete. You ready?
Week 5 Challenge
Based on your chosen UX writing project, create a user journey for it using the template below.
You can create this table via Miro or download a copy of this template in google spreadsheet.
2 other resources to help with the practice challenge
⭐️ Experience mapping for UX Writers — Amy Leak
⭐️ Using emotion map in UX writing — Karen Priyanka
Hey there! Do you want to contribute to UX Writers Learn by sharing your experience or insight on any area of UX writing? Feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn here. I’d love to hear from you.
