What is UX Writing? Best Practices & Examples for Crypto Apps

September 27, 2022

Introduction:
UX Copies and Crypto User Experience

The internet is evolving, and the cryptocurrency market is booming. IMARC Group, a market research company, expects the global cryptocurrency market to reach US$ 32,420 billion by 2027. As millions of investors worldwide get into crypto, there will be an upsurge in demand for cryptocurrency mobile apps or website trading platforms.Although cryptocurrencies have been around for more than ten years, many novice users still find no manageable ways to access them seamlessly. One fundamental barrier is that many people still don't know how to install a wallet, or even fewer people have ideas on how to trade and pay with cryptocurrencies securely.Good UX design with communicative UX copies is critical in making cryptocurrency apps user-friendly. This article will discuss and explain the best practice of UX writing in designing and creating a crypto product loved by your users.

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What is UX Writing?

UX writing is the written or verbal part of the user interface that has the functionality to guide users to take different actions. In a crypto app or any digital product, UX writing can mean the creation of the texts of titles, descriptions, buttons, tooltips, user guides, notifications, error messages, warnings, risk assessment questionnaires, FAQs and all other forms of words that users can see. UX writing appears in every step and section of an app and is equally important to other product design elements in product success. It is extraordinarily important for crypto and Web3 products as it is still an area where mass users have less familiarity with the product features.

The Best Practices of UX Writing for Crypto Apps and Websites

UX writing for crypto apps can be a challenging task. The target audience is a very diverse group of people, such as tech enthusiasts, investors, digital art creators, gamers, consumers or anyone who downloads a crypto wallet out of curiosity.Crypto apps need to communicate with users on multiple topics, such as trading, payment, asset security, blockchain storage, and investment market knowledge. These subjects and concepts can be very technical, but they must be super easy to read and understand in your UX copies. So how do UX writers meet the needs of both the newbies to the crypto world and those with high technical proficiency? Here’re some best practices to help you write better UX texts for crypto apps.

Conduct an In-Depth UX Research and Test the UX Copies

UX research helps a crypto product team make the best decisions by figuring out your team's vision and discovering the user pain points, needs and knowledge gaps you must address.In many cases, UX writers in crypto product teams participate in conducting user research, competitor research and run usability tests to improve the UX copies. Through the research and prototyping phase, UX writers should work closely with the product lead, UX researchers and designers to develop the best UX communication that matches your brand image.Ensure you have researched your target audience and their needs enough to develop something relevant.Here're some questions UX writers should bear in mind when examining the target audience:

  • What are the personas of your potential audience? How will you craft the best UX copies to communicate with them after identifying their primary persona? 
  • Are the duration of users on the app screens indicating that they read the UX copies? Do user activities show that the UX copies contain readability issues? 
  • Can users see the value propositions of your crypto app through the UX copies? 
  • Are the users engaging with your crypto products as your team has expected?  
  • How many users complete the tasks related to your product KPIs (e.g. register a crypto wallet account, top up using fiat/credit card/cryptocurrency, trade for the first time)? How to improve the understandability and clarity of your UX copies to ensure a higher success rate? 

Looking at competitors' apps and websites or conducting a competitive analysis of crypto walletsto see what other crypto platforms have done well and what they haven't done well is an excellent way to avoid making avoidable mistakes while writing your UX texts.

Create UX Copies that Efficiently Communicate with Crypto Users

Every crypto brand has its own business goal, target audience and brand style. Therefore, no single writing style works for all crypto apps. However, rule #1 for good UX copywriting is clearly communicating and managing users' expectations. Users always have the desire to understand what exactly the outcome is after clicking on the button or accomplishing an action. Satisfying the users' expectations with precise UI copywriting is the determinant factor of your conversion rate. Therefore, the product team should keep enhancing and polishing the UX copies as your product grows and collect more user data.Always remember that UX writing and design is an evolving journey without a destination, especially when creating a blockchain product to conquer the fast-changing crypto market. Still, you can follow some general principles when working on the UX copies for your crypto products.These are some examples of UX writing principles that UX designers and writers should pay attention to:

  • Use simple language: The majority of crypto users are not tech experts. And even crypto experts will not expect to read long UI texts but only want to finish their tasks when using a crypto app. Writing with brevity and avoiding jargon is always rule number one in crafting the best UX copies. 
  • Simplify complex concepts: Make sure all the messages across all crypto platforms are clear and concise. For instance, some users may feel confused about the difference between ETH and SOL blockchains, and good UX copies should contain educational content to explain blockchain knowledge clearly.
  • Explain errors clearly: The user will get frustrated if an app pop-up error messages without providing actionable solutions. For a crypto wallet, an exploratory error message with solutions gives users a sense of security to stay on the platform. 
  • Keep users engaged with graphics: The investment world is always complicated. Visualizing some messages and data will help crypto traders find market information effectively. Whenever UX writers find some concept or data challenging to explain in a few texts, working with designers to convert them into graphics can be a good solution. 
  • Be careful with the tone: Using consistent writing style is a fundamental principle in UX writing. While a human-centred and humorous voice is welcomed by most people, for a crypto app, you should consider whether the UX copies are severe enough for the user to understand all the potential risks they are facing in the crypto market. 
  • Avoid passive voice or double negative sentences: Most users scan and skim the titles and descriptions when using a mobile crypto app. Writing with complex sentences will increase users' reading time and risk them clicking the wrong buttons. It is even more crucial when you are trying to ask whether a user wants to confirm or cancel an order. 
UX Writing Example: Which cancellation confirmation message looks more straightforward to you?
Binance uses short and descriptive messages to highlight the value proposition of its auto investing feature, encouraging and boosting user engagement.
UX Writing Example: Binance uses short and descriptive messages to highlight the value proposition of its auto investing feature, encouraging and boosting user engagement.

Create Tooltips / Popup Tips to Guide and Address User's Needs

In the above sections, we have covered how to write good UX copies to communicate efficiently with the users. Generally speaking, the UI copywriting of a crypto app should address all important questions related to user experience and the features of the products, such as onboarding, trading, asset security, cash in and out and the potential market risks users may encounter.Crypto apps inevitably involve some technical explanations on questions, for example, "what is a seed phrase" and "how trading on Ethereum blockchain works". Remember, most of the users do not come from a FinTech background. Users may somehow encounter issues in the different phases of the user journey. Therefore, UX writers should ensure clear and explanatory communication to help the users and your customer success team save time.To ensure a peace-of-mind trading experience, product designers should not expect or require the users to read a long manual before using your app. Instead, it would be best to use a carefully and considerately designed user journey to ensure users can understand all the information thoroughly by just navigating your app. Adding tooltips or popup tips in the relevant section of the user interface will help serve this goal. The advantage of using a tooltip or popup tip in the UI components to explain the jargon or technical concepts related to the trading journey of your crypto products is that it can keep users inside the flow instead of reading the guide or FAQ on a standalone page.The UX writing of tooltips of a crypto app must contain quick answers to potential problems the user may face when using your applications, from an introduction to blockchain concepts to security tips. It ensures even newbies without prior experience can learn how to trade confidentially without leaving your app to look for answers.You can consider adding relevant tooltips in different parts of the user journey to streamline the user journey. Here’re some examples:

  • Onboarding: remind what a user needs to know when using a crypto app for the first time, e.g. a quick guidelines for a strong password, explaining the jargons, etc. 
  • Trade & Transfer: Let users quickly understand the difference types of orders they can use to buy, sell, and transfer cryptocurrency from their account.
  • Cash in and out: Make sure users can easily check the transaction fee for trading between fiat currency and cryptocurrency.
  • Security tips: Provide short tips to advise how users should protect their crypto assets.
  • Risk: Inform the users their potential risk when investing in the crypto market.
Binance-tooltips
UX Writing Example: Binance uses a popup tip section on its trading page to explain how each type of order works.

While tooltips effectively guide users to complete the tasks, an external guide or FAQs section is still necessary to explain the major features (such as how users can earn from crypto staking, margin trading, etc.) of your crypto app comprehensively.UX designers must logically organize and categorize the content so that all critical information is searchable and users can easily find the appropriate solutions. And don't forget to update the content of all tooltips and guides according to the feature changes of your app.

Conclusion: Make the Crypto World Simpler with Good UX Writing

"Less is more" is always a buzz phrase in UX design. Good UX writing uses the simplest words to make the user stay informed in the complex and fast-moving crypto world and take care of their emotions in the user journey. Good UX writing also helps ensure that every single word in your product is purposeful and serves both the users’ needs and your business goals.

FAQ About UX Writing for Crypto Products

What is UX Writing?UX writing is the written or verbal part of the user interface that has the functionality to guide users to take different actions. UX writing can mean the creation of the texts of titles, descriptions, buttons, user guides, notifications, error messages, warnings, risk assessment questionnaires, FAQs and all other forms of words that users can see.What are the best practices of UX Writing for Crypto Apps?UX writers can conduct UX Research and test the UX copies to verify whether it works for the crypto users. It would be best to use simple language to explain complex concepts, make the tone consistent throughout the app, and keep users engaged with graphics. Learn more about the best practice of UX writing for crypto apps in our article.

Learn More UX Writing Tips from Our Video: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrLFE8i3akk

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About the Author

Manson Yau

Manson is an SEO and content specialist from Hong Kong. He has rich experience working with brands across industries such as FinTech, cryptocurrency, banking and finance, eCommerce, and professional services worldwide.