UX writing —
Spectrum Enterprise
Working with the UX team…
Though I came into Spectrum Enterprise to handle their client communications, I was eventually pulled to help fill the UX writing needs for new products.
One of my first tasks was to handle the error flow for a new digital product launch. So I was given something that looked like this —
The feature is called Call Guard. The concept is for enterprise companies managing the caller ID settings for their registered telephone numbers. Clients will submit a “request” to turn on caller ID for some or all of the numbers in their trunk. The product team needed messaging to confirm that these requests were received, and explain if and what errors occurred.
Working on this feature, I encountered two big problems in the language. One, it was redundant. If you check some of the original messaging below, you’ll notice repetition of the words “change.” “request,” and “processing.” By eliminating these redundancies, I was able to craft more clear and concise messaging.
Two, some of the language was too vague. In particular, the phrase “brief delay” was used to describe the amount of time a user should wait. That didn’t help our users, so I tracked down the developer working on this new feature and asked them to narrow it down. They told me that 97% of the time, the change will take seconds. Two percent of the time, the change will take up to two minutes. One percent of the time, there will be an error and the change cannot process. With that, I updated the language to reflect a “few minutes.”
Check out the original messages below, and my changes beneath them (at my time of writing this, my edits were approved, but not entered into the new mockups).
Confirmation Message:
Enterprise Caller ID Change
This change will override the settings for every telephone number at each of the [143] service locations in this enterprise account. Your new settings should be visible in a few minutes.
Caller ID
[On or Off]
Cancel Save
Request Already Processing:
Enterprise Caller ID
Request cannot process at this time
There is already a request processing for some or all of the selected items. Please try again in a few minutes.
Close
Hard Stop Error Message:
Enterprise Caller ID
Some updates were not saved
We’ve encountered a problem and could not update your settings to all [143] Service Account Locations. Please try again to complete the changes. If you receive this message again, please reach out to our support team.
Close
Success Message and Confirmation:
Enterprise Caller ID
Caller ID is [On or Off]
We’ve received your request to enable Caller ID for [143] service account locations. Your changes are processing and should be visible in a few minutes.
Close
Request Processing Toast:
Request Processing
We’ve received your changes and are processing the request. They should be visible soon.
Error Toast:
Process Request Error
We were unable to process your recent request to change your Call Guard settings. More information about this requested change and error can be viewed in the event logs.
View Event Logs
Interested in seeing more? Here are some other products and screens I provided copy for:
Liked this? Check out some of my other work: