What I learned about UX copy through genre fiction
By: Melanie Morris
Tags: Product Design, Ux Writing, UX, Writing, Content Design

Back in the day, genre fiction — a nebulous umbrella term for any type of fictional prose that doesn’t fall under “literary” fiction — was derided and sneered at in any and all institutions of higher learning. It was derivative, or never any good, or those who wrote it did so because that’s where the money is and the teeming masses simply don’t appreciate good art. Thankfully, that opinion would probably get side-eyed if spoken aloud now in a lot of circles, and the state of genre fiction in higher education has changed for the better ever since I graduated. There are even programs that specifically teach for genre, like Emerson. However, while I primarily write genre fiction myself, there is a little something to be said about why so many schools were wary about accepting anyone who had dragons in their application portfolio, and it’s for those same reasons I feel a lot of UX designers and writers are scoffing at certain trends in that field.

So what is genre fiction anyway?

That’s a little difficult to say. An easy definition is that genre fiction (also called speculative or popular fiction) is anything with a fantastical, unreal setting, like sci-fi, fantasy, and horror; or something with a predictable, established plot arc, like romances and mysteries. But we’re already running into issues with this definition when one considers authors like Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jane Austen. Both are considered champions of literary fiction, taught in high schools and universities worldwide, yet the former unequivocally writes novels filled with magical realism, and the latter is famous for writing romances. Other definitions say that it has to do with plot-driven vs. character-driven narratives, or that one is about the human condition and writes about change while the other is about escapism and entertainment. Those also aren’t perfect, because plenty of genre fiction has made social and political and commentary, plenty of literary fiction is entertaining, and character-driven vs. plot-driven works are always evaluated on a case-by-case basis.

There are so many exceptions to the rules, some believe the differentiation is nothing but a marketing tool or categories for awards. Or, in a more positive light, a label for people to quickly know that this book is from a family of similar books the reader already enjoys. For simplicity’s sake, the takeaway is that genre fiction is a foggy umbrella term encompassing books that are considered fantastical and/or tropey.

If it’s just another type of fiction, why was genre fiction shunned in academia for so long?

Despite genre fiction being art worthy of being taught, lauded, and critiqued on its own merits, the same as literary fiction, it admittedly has a pitfall writers need to be careful about side-stepping. Tropes, by themselves, aren’t horrible things to be avoided at all costs. Nobody should be angry about something billing itself as a space opera if it has weird aliens and huge ships for interplanetary travel, for example. However, simply sticking a staple of the genre into one’s work only because that’s what they all do is a problem. Copying for the sake of copying means there’s no knowledge on the part of the writer or the work itself as to why that trope is a part of the genre, and what it’s used for. There’s a reason why a lot of romances have that first charged meeting, as it establishes very quickly who the two central leads are, what their relationship is to each other, and how they feel about one another. Tropes are scaffolding: they’re important, integral support to any story — even in literary fiction! — but they’re neither the whole building nor one-size-fits-all. If one lacks that understanding, the result is flawed. Or, it disappears into a sea of everyone else doing the same thing, like a huge swathe of YA fantasy novels being named “[Place/Thing] of X and Y”.

I’m Song of Dimensions and Strife, by the way.

This is probably a reason why some critics and those in academia are wary of genre fiction. If done poorly, it’s like a direct-to-video sequel of a blockbuster animated movie, where it feels as though the studio forgot everything everyone loved about the original in their rush to shill for tie-in merchandise. The solution to this is, of course, not to deride an entire sub-set of novels, but to instead speak about and teach what makes good genre fiction. Thankfully, things are moving in that direction, and hopefully, in the near future, all critics will start to paint all genre fiction with a more nuanced brush, and understand it to be filled with a spectrum of quality, same as any medium.

But what does any of this have to do with UX copy?

In the earlier days of brand engagement on social media, I was witness to some true horror shows. See, at that point in time, companies knew that interacting with current or potential customers on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram would get more eyes on their social media accounts, and was a good source of word-of-mouth. However, they hadn’t quite figured out the right way to interact with ye average user out in the wild yet, and as a result, a lot of the interactions were regurgitated memes with an obvious ignorance to the context or how those memes were actually used. “Cringe” hadn’t made it into the popular lexicon at the time, but that’s what it was. Vulture wrote up a whole history of the mishaps of Twitter, specifically, but the point to be made here is that when anyone’s overeager to capitalize on an upward trend, mistakes are inevitably going to be made.

Which brings up this: UX writing and design has existed since the conception of modern OS and apps, but it’s still in its toddler years as a hireable role within companies. While there’s a lot of transferrable skills in other disciplines, many universities lack an outright UX degree program or even specialization. It’s a little like genre fiction in undergraduate or M.F.A programs, but the reason for UX’s lack of inclusion is because of its fledgling existence as something people believe can and should be learned, rather than an afterthought for engineers to throw in because it’s necessary. Since everyone’s trying to find their footing, much like the early days in the wild west of brands on social media, there’s going to be a lot of clinging to the coattails of UX decisions that are trendy or have some type of impact for better or worse.

An example of this I keep finding and wincing over in the wild is the overly maudlin unsubscribe or uninstall pages where the copy begs users to reconsider, asking “just where did it all go wrong?” with a near-palpable tremble in the text’s tone. I’m not the only one with this opinion, either. Other people have talked about it at length, and it frankly doesn’t seem to be a popular or successful way of doing offboarding UX. (As an aside, I’m not talking about dark patterns here. While the two can overlap sometimes, I’m specifically addressing the annoying but comparatively harmless UX copy meant to invoke an emotional response.) So why does it seem to constantly pop up? The same reason there’s a pitfall in genre fiction: people see a popular trope (or trend), decide to emulate it without understanding the reasoning behind it, and the result is something hollow or unrefined. More accurately in the case of UX, the bad design choice shows up all over the place, and it’s nearly impossible to stamp out entirely even when the trends inevitably change, as there will always be pockets that haven’t gotten the memo.

Tunnelbear is a rather (in)famous instance that made this kind of overwrought copy during offboarding popular

What’s the solution?

The same as the solution to the so-called problem with genre fiction, which is to always keep in mind the root of what you’re implementing, and the reasoning behind it. I believe the kind of UX copy exemplified above didn’t get popular only because it seems like emotional leverage to retain users, but also because it was novel. Acting like the company, product, or service was so distraught to see a user leave was likely considered a kind of brand voice, but one that really didn’t take the context of offboarding into consideration. As the tired notion goes, UX is not about forcing or manipulating people into what you want them to do, but knowing how people behave and making it easier for them to find a solution with your product or service.

It’s tempting to try to go to extremes to make yourself stand out in the endless sea of SaaS and apps, or to capitalize on the irreverent cool guy style of the latest disruptor of the week, but much like sparkling vampires, attempting to break the mold or copy success without understanding why you’re doing it or how it fits into the bigger picture of what you’re making will only lead to bad design, bad copy, and unhappy users. On that note, some of the most cherished and popular media is that of tongue-in-cheek renditions of popular tropes. Movies like The Princess Bride or Terry Pratchett novels constantly make meta-commentary on their respective genres, but do so with clear understanding and affection. Perhaps the same thing can be done with UX to a degree, turning those bear tears into something more like, “Saying goodbye is never easy — but don’t let that stop you.”