This article is my response to the following user experience writing challenge:
| Scenario: The user is a casual music fan and (on occasion) goes to live concerts. They have a music player app on their phone. |
| Challenge: Tell the user that one of their favorite bands is playing live in their town. How would you compel them to want to go? |
| Headline: 30 characters max Body: 45 characters max Button: 25 characters |
To make this challenge easier on myself, I selected my favorite music artist and the closest musical venue. My next step involved drafting two versions of the text.
| DRAFTS | VERSION A | VERSION B |
| Headline | H.E.R. in Concord Today! | H.E.R. is Here Tonight! |
| Body | Go see H.E.R. at the Concord Pavilion | See H.E.R. in concert at the Concord Pavilion |
| Button | Buy Tickets, Skip | Tickets, Skip |
Headline Approach: I thought it would be efficient for the headline to announce both artist name and the location of the concert venue. In Version A, I used my local municipality to offer a more precise location for the user. Version B is more generic with the word ‘here’.
Body Approach: The headline is for announcing the event. I used the body copy to invoke the desired action. The action verbs ‘go’ and ‘see’ are simple and do not require a lot of characters.
Button Approach: Even with only 25 characters at my disposal, I decided to create two buttons. The first is for the user to buy tickets. The other is for exiting the notification. ‘Skip’ is a word associated with music player apps.
FINAL DRAFT: After considering the pros and cons of both drafts, I decided to incorporate elements from versions to produce the following:
| Headline | H.E.R. is in Concord, CA Today! |
| Body | See H.E.R. in concert at the Concord Pavilion |
| Button | Tickets, Skip |