Writing for User eXperience: A PUSH and PULL story.
Exploring UX text in non-digital situations.
Hi, I’m Izu, and I’m an advocate for ease. That’s because I’m human, and I assume so is everyone reading this, even though I don’t mind speaking to a few aliens or animals with my words.
Ease is a very important function of writing for user experience; ease of understanding of the user interface, ease of navigation, ease of communication. But let’s think outside of digital interfaces for now.
Let’s relate UX writing to our normal offline day-to-day activities. There’s a reason why sections in the library are labeled. There’s a reason why there’s a clear RESTROOM text or related sign on the restroom door. There’s a reason why there are clear labels of ENTRANCE at an entrance or EXIT at an exit. For ease! These labels make things much easier and help reduce the stress involved in searching for things or locations.
Another way that non-digital text can help make things easier is in instructions. Instructions like PUSH and PULL help tell the users exactly what to do, saving them the stress of thinking and remembering. Now, here’s my story…
I worked at a medical diagnostic center for a few weeks, as a locum Radiographer. I worked only on Sundays, meaning I went there just once every week. At the entrance, there’s a two-way glass door that can only move in one direction. But what direction? You’d have to figure that out yourself. This was a problem for me because I didn’t go there frequently enough to perfectly master which way the door should go. So every Sunday, while approaching the door, I try to think of what to do.
“Do I push it? Or do I pull it?”
I always end up having to go with trial and error, and sometimes it gets embarrassing because, while I couldn’t see the people on the other side of the door, they could see me,… struggling with the door.
But that can be avoided!
When I complained about my experience with the door, I got there the next Sunday, and from afar, I could see something pasted on the door. I was so happy! Finally, I was free from my weekly struggle with the door. I approached the door very comfortably, and with more confidence, but as I got closer, in eagerness to read a clear instruction on whether to push or pull the door handle, I was greeted by black text on white paper stating
MIND THE GLASS.
Imagine my sadness. It meant one last struggle, as that was my last day working there. I complained again though, and I hope they have made appropriate changes.
“What’s wrong with MIND THE GLASS?” you might ask. Here’s my take.
Mind the glass is a way to make people aware that there’s a glass, and it should be used in cases where people might think there is no glass, like where the glass is completely transparent and hard to notice. This would help people not to walk into the glass. It reduces injuries to people and damage to the glass. But in this situation, the glass was not completely transparent and was very conspicuous.
As much as I don’t mind keeping the MIND THE GLASS instruction, the PUSH and PULL instructions are more important in this case because they tell the user what to do to achieve the main goal of advancing beyond the door. So PUSH and PULL had to come before any other instruction.
Whether in digital interfaces or not, writing will always play a major role in improving user experience, and understanding the main goal at every step of the user journey is important to know the right things to write.
Thanks for getting this far, and I hope I have been able to show you how much of a life-saver a simple instructional text can be, from my experience. Try to find problems around you that can be solved with simple labels or instructions, and solve them. Trust me, you’d be making someone’s life easier.
Sources
Photo by Dana Tentis from Pexels
