How to write good mobile product copy? Here is a very detailed specification guide

When we mention "design specifications", we usually think of UI specifications and interaction specifications. And what about the copywriting ?

In our common understanding, it should be the operation rather than the designer's ultimate responsibility, and there is no need to issue specifications. But my personal habit is that since the copywriting proposal appears in my design draft and is proposed by me, it must at least pass my own review first. No matter who is ultimately responsible for finalizing it, that is another matter. The copywriter is definitely not just making a random gesture on the interactive document and then writing a sentence "the final copy will be determined by the operation" and then passing the buck to the operation. Moreover, in many cases, the operation is better at checking business indicators and does not pay attention to (or is not as good as product and interaction designers at) checking from the dimension of user experience . Therefore, when it comes to the copy that appears in your design draft, you should take the initiative in your own hands to feel at ease.

At the same time, it seems to me that the necessity of copywriting design standards has been overlooked. The revision cycle of a product design draft from the first draft to the final draft may be very long, and there are many variables based on the review conclusions. The designer may produce a few pages today and modify a few pages tomorrow. Due to personal language habits and different ideas and moods when producing the draft, it is difficult for the copy to remain consistent and error-free from beginning to end.

Therefore, before the final draft is delivered to the developer, it is necessary to thoroughly review the copy again according to the unified copy design specifications. Just like the concept plan "One Stop" used as a case this time, after a detailed review according to the specifications, many details in the copy have been improved compared to the version shared a month ago.

As far as I know, there are very few summaries and sharing of copywriting standards. Only Ant Design has a relatively systematic summary of copywriting considerations in its component documentation, which is more valuable for learning in terms of systematic thinking and has been a great help to me in my previous copywriting self-examination at work. However, many of these conclusions are based on a web-based mid- and back-end product in the financial services industry. I personally feel that many of them may not be applicable to products outside of this scope.

Therefore, I have always hoped to use an article to sort out and summarize the copywriting design specifications for mobile products in a more widely applicable manner - what levels of content should a copywriting design specification include? What principles need to be stated in the specifications?

This article will take "Yizhan", a mood sharing platform based on a subway query tool , as an example. Some examples from other apps will also be interspersed in the article. It will try to introduce in as much detail as possible the types of common problems that may arise in copywriting design, as well as what constitutes a relatively complete copywriting design specification.

Article content: Three levels of copywriting design specifications

1. Consistency standards: consistent vocabulary, consistent sentence structure, consistency between action points and destination page titles , standard time expression, consistent numbers, and consistent punctuation.

2. Accuracy standards: accurate wording, no redundancy, no omissions, and no ambiguity.

3. Higher requirements - understand users: describe value from the user's perspective, use personal pronouns correctly, make users understand, and tell users why not.

1. Conformance Specification

1. Vocabulary Consistency

The consistency of vocabulary is the basis of copywriting consistency, but the profoundness of the Chinese language means that many words may be used to replace the same expression and still make sense. Therefore, vocabulary is the place where inconsistencies are most likely to occur during the design process and is also the focus of pre-delivery reviews.

When it comes to the choice of words and sentence structures, my choices may not be the best, but as I said, uniformity is a hundred times better than inconsistency. This article is not intended to examine in detail which expression is better, A or B, but only to explore the necessity and composition of unified standards.

quantifier

The measure word for stories is uniformly "篇" (pian), rather than "段" (duan) or "条" (tiao).

△ One stop · The quantifier of story is "篇"

✔️「22 stories」

❌ "22 stories", "22 stories"

The quantifier for search results is uniformly "条" instead of "个".

There are many more examples of quantifiers, which I will not list here. Among them, the consistency of some quantifiers needs to be considered in accordance with product scenarios and living habits, which may differ from the language perspective.

For example, the quantifier for stations is uniformly "个" instead of "座", because "座" is rarely used to describe subway stations in spoken language in daily life, and in the context of this product, there is no need to emphasize its concrete architectural meaning.

noun

The consistency of nouns is very important for the formation of a unified product mindset, especially the core concept definition of a product.

For example, the core content element of "One Stop" is the subway "stories" posted by users. This requires unified vocabulary, and words such as "articles", "comments", etc. cannot be mixed.

verb

Verb agreement does not necessarily have to be covered by one word, because usually two contexts (or tenses) need to be dealt with at the same time.

Taking content publishing as an example, is it an expression of the act of "issuing" or a statement of "content that has been published"?

The "issuing" behavior usually appears in the publishing form or in the Toast prompt after publishing. There are many synonyms for form publishing besides "publish", such as "confirm", "confirm", "submit", "save", "complete", and "publish". In the context of this product, the most reasonable option is "Release".

△ One-stop · Use "Publish" to indicate the action being issued

✔️ "Publish", "Publishing...", "Story published successfully", "Comment published successfully"

❌ "Completed", "Submitting...", "Story published successfully", "Comment submitted successfully"

It is certainly not wrong to use "published" to describe "content that has already been published." However, depending on the tone of the platform, there can be many options that are warmer than the cold "released". For example, the "written down" I chose in the specification is more in line with the "story" on the one hand, and can also be applied to multiple scenarios such as Timeline and user data display on the other hand.

△ Yizhan· Use "written down" to indicate the published content

✔️ "Wrote a story", "Wrote 2 stories"

❌ "Published a story", "Published 2 stories"

Other examples of vocabulary consistency

• "Commented on Qinsman's story", not "Replied to Qinsman's story" or "Commented on Qinsman's story"
• "Go to Changtan", not "Go to Changtan" or "Go to Changtan"
• “Like” instead of “like”
• "TA" instead of "he" or "she" (this is because the product scenario does not require users to strengthen their gender awareness, and it is necessary to consider the situation where users set gender confidentiality. On the contrary, if it is a product that focuses on social interaction between strangers of the opposite sex, then the meaning of informing users of their gender is much greater)
• "Station", not "subway station" or "station" (the exception is the "station list" page, because it is necessary to emphasize the individuality of each station in the list under the general term "station", so "station" is only used on this page)
• "Topic", not "topic" or "theme"
• "Story published successfully" instead of "Story published completed"
• "Pay attention to each other" instead of "pay attention to each other"

Here are some examples from other apps.

△ Left: Tik Tok Right: NetEase Cloud Music

In TikTok, two similar concepts, "Like" and "Like", are mixed up. When you click "♥️" on someone else's post, it will show "Like" on your homepage, while when someone else clicks "♥️" on your post, it will show "Like". In NetEase Cloud Music, there are two parallel tabs, "Post Updates" and "Publish Videos", one verb is "post" and the other is "publish".

I'm not sure whether there is really an essential difference behind the mixed use of these two groups of words, or whether it is just a difference in copywriting.

But from a user's perspective, such inconsistencies increase my cost of understanding. The two words are two different concepts for users, especially in many apps, "Like" and "Favourite" are two completely different functions. So when I used it for the first time, I would try to guess the difference between the two.

The following example is a bit more exaggerated. In the Telecom Business Hall APP, users are required to log in in all four first-level tabs, but the four tabs use four different prompt texts: "Please log in~", "Log in now", "Log in", and "Log in now".

△ Telecom business hall: various login prompts

2. Consistent sentence structure

There are relatively few syntactic standardization issues in the normal flow interface of a station, which mainly appear in the prompts of various intermediate states and abnormal flows.

Keep similar prompts consistent to avoid having completely different sentences written in each place, which will eventually lead to a variety of prompts expressing the same meaning throughout the product.

✔️ "You have entered the story content. Are you sure you want to give up and return?" and "You have entered the comment content. Are you sure you want to give up and return?" have the same sentence structure.

❌ "You have entered the story content. Are you sure you want to give up and return?" mixed with "Are you sure you want to give up the entered comment and return?"

Consistent word order: "Failed to upload picture" and "Failed to publish story" should maintain a consistent "noun + verb + adverb" structure, and avoid mixing other word orders such as "failed to upload picture" and "failed to publish story".

✔️ The sentence structure of "Image upload failed" and "Story publishing failed" is the same

❌ "Image upload failed" is confused with "Story post failed"

In other products, you also need to pay attention to the consistent word order in the normal flow interface. For example, don’t write “ traffic recharge” one moment and “recharge traffic” the next.

On the "All Investment and Financial Products" page of the CCB APP, almost all entry texts involving both verbs and nouns use "noun + verb", such as "fund investment", "bond investment", "gold accumulation", and "foreign exchange trading". Only "agent precious metals" is "verb + noun". It is better to make similar phrases consistent in sentence structure.

△ The entry copy of CCB's "All Investment and Wealth Management Products" page

3. The action point is consistent with the destination page title

This is relatively easy to understand, but in page design, it is easy for the copy of the entrance and jump pages to no longer match if changes are made frequently. The most common situation is missing or writing an extra prefix:

• 「Editor's Choice」 Jumped to 「Featured」
• "My Updates" has been redirected to "Updates"
• "About Yizhan" jumps to "About Us"
• "Settings" jumps to "System Settings"

When you click on "Douban Calendar" on Douban's homepage, the page you are redirected to is titled "Douban Market". It is not until you see the new product launch below that you realize that "Douban Calendar" is one of the new products on sale. However, Douban Market also sells many other products at the same time. The setting of this entrance name can easily confuse users.

△ The jump destination of Douban’s homepage “Douban Calendar” is “Douban Market”

Of course, there is an exception where the number of words in the entry is limited and therefore the word count has to be reduced, but this is an exception and must be accepted when there is no better way.

4. Time expression standards

When expressing the time of content release, it needs to be divided into two major categories for consideration, depending on whether the scenario itself has time attributes.

Solution A. Use absolute time for all

Applicable scenarios: ordinary content List, content terminal node.

In ordinary content lists, content is sorted by popularity, operational strategy or other logical decisions, and has no time-related attributes. In this case, it is neither necessary nor appropriate to express the release time using relative time such as "X hours ago". For example, this week’s hot topics on the home page, editor’s picks, story lists on the station details page, popular review areas, etc.

At the same time, at the end nodes of the content browsing link (such as the content details page and the speech bubble list), it is necessary to ensure that all information about the content is not missing, so it is necessary to specifically tell the user the absolute time when this content was published.

△ One stop · Left: General content list Right: Content details page

In both cases, absolute time expressions are more appropriate:

Solution B. Relative time + absolute time

Applicable scenarios: Timeline, message list, etc.

In lists such as Timeline and message lists that contain time logic (usually in reverse order by default), you can express time in relative time in the near future to convey a more intuitive concept of time to users and reduce the burden of thinking about time for users. Typical examples of a site include my favorites, my favorite feeds, my updates, the latest reviews section, etc.

As for what dividing line should be used to define "the near future", there is no absolute right or wrong. Standards can be formulated according to the actual needs of the product. Common dividing lines are yesterday, the day before yesterday, and a week ago.

△ One stop · Left: My updates Right: Messages

For the above types of time information, relative time is used in the near future, while absolute time is still used for earlier ones:

Note: When the month or day is a single digit, no leading 0 is added; when the hour or minute is a single digit, a leading 0 is added to make it 2 digits.

In addition, there is a special case. Taking the "Hottest/Latest" tabs of the station story as an example, although "Latest" theoretically conforms to the content flow based on station dimension aggregation and in reverse chronological order, plan B should be adopted. However, in order to ensure that the time presentation format is consistent in the two tabs under the same information structure, the format is still adopted together with the "hottest" solution A.

△ One Station·Two Tabs of Station Stories

5. Digital Conformance Specification

Arabic numerals are used for expressions involving numbers, which is generally not wrong in the design process. However, when the number is 1, it may be habitually written as "一", such as the subway line is expressed as "Line 1" instead of "Line 1"; the push copy of the new comment reminder is "Your story has received 1 new comment" instead of "Your story has received a new comment."

△ One stop·Using Arabic numerals

✔️ "Line 1", "Your story received 1 new comment"

❌ "Line 1", "Your story received a new comment"

However, there are some exceptions in Yishi. For example, the timestamps and topic volume numbers in my stories, which need to highlight the traces of time and the sense of history, are still expressed in Chinese characters. Therefore, the specification of digital formats should clarify special use cases based on the actual needs of the product.

△ One stop: When special circumstances require, Chinese characters are still used to express

In addition, when there are Chinese characters before and after the quantity information, spaces need to be added to make the distinction between the hard-coded text field and the variable field clearer. Please note that Arabic numerals that do not express quantity information, such as "Line 7", do not require spaces. In addition, the numbers in the system Push (such as "Your story received 3 new comments") do not need to be supplemented with spaces, because Push is just a string of text and does not need to consider clarity when presented as an interface element.

△ Yizhan· Add spaces when there are Chinese characters before and after the quantity

✔️ "Wrote 4 stories"

❌ "Wrote 4 stories"

6. Punctuation consistency standards

• When the city needs to be indicated before a subway line or subway station: it is separated by a period "·". Note that it is not a decimal point, and there is a space before and after. Examples: "Guangzhou Line 4", "Chongqing Yangjiaping".
• The line to which the transfer station belongs is expressed as follows: separated by "/", with no spaces before and after. Example: "Line 4/Line 7".
• Bracket standards: Use English half-angle brackets uniformly. When there are Chinese characters in front or behind, add a space to separate them. Example: "Stories (1292 articles)".
• Over-length truncation: Use half an ellipsis "..." (1 full-width character) instead of a full ellipsis "..." (2 full-width characters) or "..." (3 half-width English decimal points).
• Cases where punctuation marks such as periods are not used: main page titles and subtitles, input prompts, prompt text below or in input boxes, in toasts, options in pop-up windows or actionsheets, and in buttons. Commas and question marks are used only when necessary.

Here are two examples from our commonly used apps.

△ Left: Douban personal settings page Right: Baidu Map rating pop-up window

When editing the birthday settings on a personal homepage, Douban kindly tells users that the birthday settings will not be used for personalized recommendations, but there is no need to add a period to this type of explanation.

Let’s take a look at the rating pop-up window of Baidu Maps. Regardless of whether it is reasonable to pop up a pop-up window asking users to rate after only a few uses, the three huge exclamation marks are enough to make many users jump with fear.

2. Accuracy Standards

1. Use accurate words

This should be the basic requirement for copywriting. Inaccurate wording or words that do not conform to user habits can easily increase the user's understanding cost and leave an unprofessional impression on users.

To give a simple example, SMS verification login is now the standard way to log in on mobile devices. Users have already established a fairly solid mental concept of the "verification code", and 99% of products follow this conventional name. However, some apps use their own unique terminology, such as the "random code" on the login page of a telecommunications business hall (I won't talk about the inconsistency between "Get a random code" and "Please enter a random password" here).

△ Telecom Business Hall APP

Does this name make sense? Of course, the verification code is of course a random combination of numbers. But the fact that it makes sense does not mean that the wording is accurate. Whether it is accurate or not is determined by the habitual cognition of domestic users.

For example, when editing information in the Himalaya app, "Introduction" is an input item, and the prompt "Not filled in" is correct, while "Birthday" and "Region" are both selectors, and should not prompt "Not filled in" but "Not selected".

△ Himalaya · Editor's Profile Page

In addition, in toB enterprise management applications, financial payment-related applications, and applications with a strong industry background, more attention should be paid to the accurate use of some industry terms. I have felt this a lot in the B-side enterprise applications and project management platforms I have worked on before, but because the industry background is quite far from our daily life, I will not give too many examples here.

2. Not cumbersome

When reviewing the copy, pay attention to whether there is redundant text. Information that can be fully understood based on the page scene and context does not need to be repeated, which will only increase the user's information cognitive burden and understanding cost.

For example, on the story publishing page of "One Station", the selection prompt copy of the station and the corresponding topic no longer needs to emphasize its logical subordinate relationship with the story. There is no need to emphasize that the "Publish" button in the upper right corner is "Publish Story".

△ One-stop story publishing

✔️「Please select」

❌ "Please select the station that the story corresponds to", "Please select the topic that the story belongs to"

On the topic homepage, since the list contents are obviously all "stories", there is no need to emphasize the word "story" again in the three tabs.

△ One-stop · Special topic homepage

✔️「Latest」/「Hottest」/「Featured」

❌ "Hottest Stories" / "Latest Stories" / "Featured Stories"

Let’s take a look at these two pages that are very stressful to read.

△ Left: Dongqiudi Right: Flush

In the scan interface of Dongqiudi, two lines of text are written above the scan code box: "Open the web version of Dongqiudi login page and scan the QR code to log in" and "Scan the Dongqiuhao QR code and follow Dongqiuhao", introducing the two scenarios of scanning codes in Dongqiudi.

In fact, the reason why users open the scan function on Dongqiudi is that in most cases they are already in one of these two scenarios. The vast majority of users who enter to scan are not doing so out of idleness. They enter and see “Oh, it turns out these two places can be used”, and then go find the code to scan. Instead, there must be a QR code scanning scene before the QR code scanning function can be entered.

So why is it necessary to tell users "You must be from these two places" in the scan interface? It can only increase the user's reading load. Interested friends can take a look at the QR code scanning page of other APPs. The prompt copy is usually only the sentence below "Put the QR code in the box to scan automatically". This is the copy that users who are not familiar with the operation may need to see in this interface.

The registration page for Tonghuashun's simulated stock trading competition is even more exaggerated. The five words "Please enter your number" are repeated in the placeholder prompt of each input box, which suddenly makes the whole page full of oppression. At the same time, the main action button copy is also a bit redundant. The two words "register" are enough to explain the matter, but the eight big words "Submit information to register for the competition" are used.

3. No missing

For action point copywriting, it is necessary to accurately and directly let users know the key information behind the action point.

For example, the placeholder hint in the search bar clearly tells users what type of data they can search for.

△ One-stop search prompt copy

✔️「Search for station story users, etc.」

❌ "Search", "Click to search", "Click to start searching"

When an abnormal flow error is reported, the user should be informed of feasible solutions or what rescue measures the product has taken for the user.

For example, user A posted a story. After his friend user B saw it, he spent a few minutes writing a comment, but user A deleted the story before clicking to publish. Then the specific reason why user B's comment failed to be published should be told in Toast.

Toast:

✔️ "Comment failed to post, the story has been deleted by the publisher, and the content has been saved to the system clipboard"

❌ "Comment posting failed"

In the empty state, it is also necessary to tell the user what actions they can take next, rather than simply telling the user that this is empty. This is not actually a copywriting problem, but a product and interaction problem.

Products that handle empty states well can easily make users feel good about the platform's "consideration". At the same time, they follow the guidance of the copy to perform operations that are beneficial to the product, achieving a win-win situation for business goals and experience. For example, the empty state of the follow list is very suitable for attracting new users .

△ One stop · People you follow (empty state)

✔️ "Follow people who may be interested" + "Or I want to invite my friends"

❌ "There's nothing here yet", "This is empty", "I haven't followed any users yet"

4. No blur

Avoiding the words "maybe", "probably", and "perhaps" will add a layer of "is it really true" judgment for users, unless it is technically impossible to determine the problem in some abnormal flows.

3. Higher requirements - understanding users

1. Describe value from the user’s perspective

In the copy related to the action point, describe the purpose that "you" can achieve through this operation from the user's perspective, create appropriate motivation for users, help them eliminate concerns and solve obstacles, which can better motivate users to execute, rather than forcing users to accept a certain setting from the perspective of "us" (the product team).

Take the description of the mailbox binding and message push switch in "Settings" as an example:

• Create motivation and eliminate worries: "Binding your email address allows you to quickly retrieve or reset your password, and Yizhan will not send you any advertising or marketing emails."
• To solve the problem: "To turn push notifications on or off, you need to go to the "Notification" setting in the iPhone system settings."

An app that does a great job in this regard is Keep . Every step of the experience path allows you to feel the care that the product puts into its copywriting. Here is just an example of the registration process. After completing the registration, Keep will want users to complete some basic information, which is helpful for the product to formulate personalized user stratification strategies and also serves as a very valuable data accumulation. In this process, Keep fully conveys to users the value of improving their information through copywriting (finding suitable training, achieving fitness goals, designing training content based on height, etc.), and eliminates users' concerns about privacy data (don't worry, Keep will not leak your information).

△ Keep

A counterexample is Airbnb, which also wants users to complete their information. The text below the information completion progress bar on the "My" page reads: "We require every Airbnb user to provide some specific information before traveling or renting out. Let's complete this step now."

△ Airbnb · "My"

I don't understand why such a sentence appears in a product known for its excellent user experience. Maybe it's a problem caused by literal translation.

If you change it to "Providing some specific information before traveling or renting can help you get better service and experience on Airbnb", doesn't it mean the same thing and sound much more comfortable?

2. Use personal pronouns correctly

The personal pronoun standard of Yizhan: "you" is used by default. At the same time, "I" is used instead of "you" as much as possible when the context is reasonable and the grammar is smooth.
The personal pronouns commonly used in copywriting are the first person "I" and the second person "you" and "you". The second person is more versatile and can fit most contexts and sentence structures. However, under reasonable circumstances, you can try to describe it in the first person "I" as much as possible. Compared with the second person, this can make users feel their dominant position in the product experience process.

As for whether to use "you" or "you" in the second person, there is no absolute right or wrong. For social, e-commerce , and entertainment apps that are mainly for young people, "you" is more appropriate and more user-friendly, giving users a sense of freedom and equality. "You" instead makes users feel an inexplicable distance from the product. Conversely, in banking and financial service products, the "feel at home" attitude of offline scenarios also needs to be reflected online. In this case, it is more appropriate to use "you", and the same applies to B-side products for corporate users.

There is no absolute distinction between the first and second person pronouns, and there is no absolute right or wrong between "you" and "you", but they need to be unified at least at the APP level, which does not mean that they can be mixed at will. Let’s look at two examples from the Mobile Business Hall APP:

△ Mobile business hall

The picture on the left is the service page. In the subtitles of the service items, "Change your broadband password" and "Manage my invoice header" appear on the same screen. If mixing two of them is still common, then look at how chaotic it is when all three are mixed together - the mobile health checkup page on the right has a total of 3 texts involving personal pronouns: "Pay attention to every bit of your rights", "I'll tell you if the package is suitable for you", and "Do I have 4G today?"

Am I "I" or "you" or "you"? Sometimes "you" and sometimes "you", do you respect me or not?

3. Make it understandable to users

Depending on the user group, try to use words that they can understand in the copy. For example, in applications with a wide user base such as social networking, entertainment, e-commerce, and travel, the language should be as simple and straightforward as possible. Avoid using words that are clear to designers or product teams but are confusing to users.

Let’s take the simplest example. When buying tickets through 12306, is there anyone who can understand the term “assignee” and the following heartwarming tongue twister without knowing what “assignee” means in advance?

△ National-level APP——12306

In addition, if the users have strong industry attributes, it is necessary to understand their language habits.

For example, in an engineering project management application, "professional leader" is a technical term that users in the engineering industry are very familiar with. It represents the person in charge of various professions such as HVAC, electrical, water supply and drainage, etc. At this time, using terms such as "supervisor" in the Internet industry would be laughable.

Similarly, in a professional financial product, some financial terms should be used directly when necessary. If they are written in too colloquial language, it will affect the professionalism.

4. Tell users why not

It is very important to allow users to always have the right to choose and feel control over the experience. Taking system settings as an example, try to ensure that the options that appear in the settings are those that users are allowed to choose. If it is necessary not to allow users to make a choice, the reasons behind it should be told to users.

For example, Zhihu does not allow users to turn off push notifications for topics they are following, and Airbnb does not allow users to turn off email push notifications. In comparison, Airbnb explains it much more clearly than Zhihu.

△ Tell users why not when they cannot choose Left: Airbnb Right: Zhihu

Conclusion

Among the three levels of copywriting design specifications, consistency is the cornerstone of copywriting quality, accuracy is the key to improving quality, and understanding users is a higher requirement.

Some of the counterexamples cited here may seem to be excellent products overall, such as Airbnb and NetEase Cloud Music. Some friends may think that this is too picky. It seems that these problems in the example do not affect the experience and do not affect the overall evaluation and reputation of the product.

To be honest, if you are a general user, you may not really need to pay attention to these details, and they probably won’t have a particularly big impact on the core experience.

But as a product designer with professional sensitivity, I think it is still necessary to pursue details. Put yourself in their shoes and think about it. Why do you have to use the excuse of "no harm" when problems in your own products can be avoided through regulations and inspections?

From the perspective of project responsibility, copywriting design is something that designers and operations should jointly review from the perspectives of user experience and business indicators. From the perspective of a designer's personal growth, the more attention a designer pays to the details of the copy, the easier it will be to come up with high-quality copy when working on similar plans in the future. This will also be of great benefit to cultivating more standardized and rigorous design habits in the project.

This article was compiled and published by the author @西市漫頭铺子 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

Product promotion services: APP promotion services Advertising platform Longyou Century