Week 9: User Journey and Information Architecture
Why should it concern UX Writers?
“A user journey is a timeline that displays the different reactions that the user has in the different phases of the product.” — Design Code
It considers not only the steps that a user takes but also their feelings and pain points at each touchpoint.
There are different ways to map our users’ journey, and they are all built on the user persona, the scope of the user journey, and the touchpoints.
Personally, I can’t do without mapping the user journey little matter if it’s only an edit. With the journey map, I can find my mental bearing and put myself in people’s shoes at that particular moment as accurately as is possible. That way I can anticipate what information they need to have, the problems they might encounter, and solve for them while adjusting the copy for tone.
(See how I map the user journey as a UX Writer)
Information Architecture sounds complex… but is it?
According to the Information architecture institute,
“Information architecture (IA) is about helping people understand their surroundings and find what they’re looking for, in the real world as well as online.”
Basically, it’s how we organize and present information to our users whether on websites or applications. The Information Architect is the key person responsible for this and they usually consider what users expect to see at each point in the flow, and what content the organization wishes to put out at each point as well.
So how does it concern UX writers?
As user experience writers not only are we our users’ advocates, we also work with content. And information architecture can be seen as a tool to help guide users through specific paths.
The information architecture of your site is one of the ways through which you express your content strategy. The choices you make about what content to highlight is just another way to emphasize mission-centric issues and messages...
…As such, the two are so interconnected that you cannot develop one first and the other afterward. The two have to be developed in unison and grow iteratively with your site. — digital.gov
With the UX writing role still overlapping with that of Content Design in some companies, it can be helpful to know a bit about information architecture and how it affects the way we write to create a better experience for users.
Using the psychology from IA in UX writing
In our not-so-little writing world, we can apply some of these key elements of cognitive psychology used by information architects to help structure the way we write
- Cognitive load
This is the amount of information that a person can process at any given time.
For UX writers, this translates to how concise our texts are. “Less is more” holds up here since the point of our copy is to provide users with exactly what they need to take the next step. If we give them too much information at any point in time, there’s a high risk of overwhelming them which may cause them to not notice some important info, or even worse, cause them to drop off. Every text should serve a purpose.
Another way to adjust for cognitive load as user experience writers is by following the infamous F-shaped reading pattern.
Humans have been observed to read in an F-shaped pattern so it’s no longer enough for our copy to be concise, they should also follow the reading pattern with the most important information users placed at points where they will be easily seen.
- Mental models
These are the assumptions people carry in their minds before interacting with a website or application.
For us, this translates to using familiar words for actions that are common to people. For instance, texts like “Read more,” “Forgot password?,” and “I’m not a robot,” are so widely used that users subconsciously expect to see them representing their respective actions.
Imagine you’re asked to fill a captcha with the phrase — Prove you’re a real human. Huh. You’d likely pause because it’s not what you’re used to, or even take offense because you were not expecting that phrase.
Our copy as UX Writers needs to guide users as smoothly as possible by following their mental models. Nonetheless, in a constantly evolving world like ours, we should try to improve on these familiar words; run copy tests, and update such phrases when backed with data that there are better performing copy options.
For example, “Learn more” is not enough: A case for descriptive CTAs
- Decision making
This is a cognitive process that allows people to make a choice or select an option. Information architects work with this to structure information in such a way that they only provide certain info at key moments which help people make decisions.
Sounds similar to what UX writers do right?
Taking the context of use, tone, users’ feelings, and pain points into consideration, we follow the psychology behind decision-making to place the right words at the right time all the way down to CTAs.
Our words subsequently prompt them to make the right decisions at each point.
Additional Tips
For better user experience, it’s commonly advised that copy should be adjusted according to these principles of how people read online:
- Users read in an F-shaped pattern, starting from the top left corner then diagonally across the page to the bottom right
- They pay attention to the menu
- They pay attention to headlines and lists
- They ignore huge blocks of text when scanning
- They prefer shorter paragraphs to longer ones
- They love numbers when written as figures
- They notice texts before graphics
See you next week!
Helpful articles you can check out
Understanding user journey vs user flow — XD Adobe
Complete beginner’s guide to Information Architecture — UX Booth
How UX writing can help create good design — Usability Geek
UX Design handbook : user journey — Design Code
Content Design (book) by Sarah Richards
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.
