UX for Beginners

Chapter 79. Instructions, Labels and Buttons

As a UX Designer

It is your job to help users complete tasks properly, and that often means telling them what something is, and what they should do with it.

If it isn’t 100% obvious how users should do something—and even if it is—you might want to help them out.

Instructions should be short, literal, and direct. No lingo. No industry terms. No clever jokes or sarcasm or funny business. Don’t be too wordy or too soft. Tell the users exactly what to do. Use the simplest words and phrases you know. Write to everyone as if they were smart children or a non-native speaker of the language. Not stupid, just clear. Here are some examples:

• Bad: “Swing on down to the clicky spot when yer all set!”

• Also bad: “All input in this area is required data and must be successfully submitted to initiate the account creation process.”

• Stupid: “Look at you! You’re so good at forms! When you get everything typed in there like a good form filler-outer, then you should just go ahead and click that fancy yellow button below! You’re almost there, champ!”

• Good: “Answer every question. When you’re finished, click the yellow Done button at the bottom of this page.”

Labels

It can be very tempting to make labels clever or unique, but always resist that temptation. Use the most common, easiest, most basic version of the label that you can imagine. If your label can have more than one type of answer, it might not be clear enough yet. Take a look at these:

• Bad: “Where your heart ...