Writing isn’t just scribbles, it built modern civilization. The implications and power of writing, especially in the modern day as we understand more and more about how we think in tandem with how we act, we learn more and more how language and writing plays its part in influencing us, both for good and bad.

Yes, Yes, Yes

I was on holiday in Turkey not long ago by the beach, enjoying the hot weather and breeze, when a family behind us were approached by the infamous beach salesmen with their shoulders cloaked in Prada, LV and all the rest you can imagine (Of course, not from their original retailer). What I found interesting was how clearly disinterested the family were, I couldn’t have overheard a more clore ‘I don’t want it, go away’ if I tried, and yet, the salesman persisted with a ‘Yes, Yes, Yes’ to each objection. Strangely, this worked, very well too considering the size of the family and each member buying a bracelet!

The key to this part is positive reinforcement through language. Where one might usually say ‘No, you definitely don’t want to miss out on this!’, another with the knowledge of how powerful positive affirmations are would say ‘Yes! You definitely do want to have this bracelet’. Whilst this is an oversimplification and does best paired well with other behavioural nudges, its strength can’t be overlooked.

Catering for Laziness

UX Writing is NOT technical writing, whilst they go hand in hand, UX writing is thoroughly dipped into psychology.

Understanding this opens the gate to catering to the user, aka, catering for laziness. Nobody wants to spend effort on a product in an environment where effort and energy is decreasing further and further due to busy lives, and we know this as UXers because many of these principles are the foundation of our craft!

Such content outlines like Visibility, Feedback and Mapping are the basis of making things easy, but so many other effects come into play to assist us here with a slew of cognitive biases available for us to utilise, in order to create better and easier experiences.

Write for the Ego

At the front of every human’s mind (except a very slim few saintly beings!) is the self.

How can this benefit me? What does this do for me? As a creator I’m aware of this, as I aim to provide value to you, and as UX Designers, we aim to provide values to our users. So why not apply this to writing?

When we clearly highlight value through our writing, be it by making it quick and clear what a business can achieve for you (on top of effective content hierarchy utilisation), or by giving expansive assistance to help people take themselves to the next level, everything we write should instantly provide value to the user, in return creating an investment in our products.

In Summary

Understanding the psychology of writing and language on the subconscious is a long road, with many stops for us to gain from, hopefully with this article you’ve taken another step further into the world of UX and gained some valuable insight!

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