Writing for Mobile Devices: Toward a New Heuristic

By Stephanie Chacharon | Member

Mobile technology is clearly here to stay. As such, this disruptive technology introduces a new set of challenges for technical communicators. In recent years, we’ve been lectured endlessly on how to “write for the Web,” but—due largely to its relative infancy—very little guidance exists on how to write and edit content for consumption on mobile devices (a few notable exceptions are provided in the Suggested Reading section at the end of this article).

In my professional life, I’m surrounded by top talent in mobile engineering, user experience (UX), and design. These mobile innovators not only work alongside fellow experts, they have a wealth of industry guidance and best practices at their disposal. Unfortunately, when it comes to mobile, technical communicators don’t currently enjoy the same luxury.

The Case for Mobile

Mobile technology has changed the world—and continues to do so. If that sounds overly dramatic, consider its far-reaching effects: Analysts expect smartphones to be ubiquitous by 2015,¹ and U.S. adults now spend more time on their mobile phones than with print magazines and newspapers combined.² This past holiday season, nearly half of all kids in the United States wanted an iPad from Santa.³

Today, mobile is much, much more than those crazy teens and their texting. It’s increasingly obvious that businesses must embrace mobile as a key element of their operations in order to keep pace in today’s brick- and-mobile marketplace. It’s all ages, all the time. It’s for the consumer and the enterprise. More importantly, mobile has many exigencies and many purposes: It’s a way of life.

For businesses, the implications are weighty and complex, but they boil down to this: simply having a mobile presence—regardless of quality—is not enough. For technical communicators, mobile’s near-universality underscores the need to develop a vocabulary to discuss what works and what doesn’t on mobile devices. That shared language will contribute to the creation of informed, responsive, mobile-friendly content that delivers a high-quality user experience.

Device of a Different Color

As part of Mygazines’ Mobile Content Series, Ryan Matzner recently shared his take on optimizing marketing copy for mobile,⁴ including a look at the factors that make mobile unique from the traditional Web. Matzner boils the differences down to three, each representing important considerations for technical communicators:

• Pockets of use. Whether killing time on a smartphone before an appointment or checking email on a tablet while watching television, mobile users typically engage with their device as a secondary task. As such, single-servings of digestible content are essential.
• Perpetual and inherent distraction.The secondary nature of mobile device use means that distractions are constant and many. Mobile apps and websites—and their corresponding content—must be designed to compete with, or complement, that reality.
• Very, very small screens. Not only do mobile devices have tiny screens, they have inconsistently sized tiny screens. (Think: iPad vs. Kindle Fire vs. iPhone vs. a myriad of Android devices.) Developing content that provides a quality user experience for this range of screen sizes can be daunting.

Pair these with the explosive growth rate of mobile technology, and you have headache fodder for even the most seasoned writer or editor. Given the nuances, how can technical communicators create effective content for mobile devices?

Toward a Mobile Heuristic

What little has been written on creating copy for mobile focuses on brevity. Although concise content is important, it’s only a piece of the puzzle. Effective mobile content must meet the needs of the user and the use case, while rendering well on a mobile device.

In his soon-to-be-published book on usability, David Hailey of Utah State University introduces a new approach to content evaluation. Hailey’s framework—one he argues that we subconsciously already subscribe to—weighs exigency, urgency, purpose, audience, rhetorical stance, and textual structures (EUPARS). In other words, for a document to be effective, it must be grounded in the “why” (exigency) and the goal (purpose).

What does this mean for mobile? Most importantly, blindly repurposing desktop content for a mobile site or app is not effective.

Many in the mobile community advocate for a “mobile first” approach. For technical communicators, this translates to the creation of content that addresses mobile-specific considerations, such as usage pockets, inherent distractions, and small screens, while building from a foundation of exigency and purpose.

Existing Resources

The bulk of the existing literature falls into two general categories: one-off, high-level articles and robust engineering and UX-focused documents. Let’s take a look at three of the more well-known resources in the latter category.

MAC OS X Human Interface Guidelines (HIG)⁵

While the HIG is geared toward app developers, the document does recognize the importance of language. Amidst guidelines for UX and UI (user interface) design principles, the HIG touches on text style, highlighting the importance of clarity and consistency. The bulk of this section focuses on micro-level considerations, such as inserting spaces between sentences and proper use of the ellipsis and the colon. Relevant guidelines, such as titling menus and naming menu items, are buried in other sections.

Also available is the Apple Publications Style Guide⁶ (published in December 2009). This document, though comprehensive, focuses almost exclusively on style and usage across all Apple products.

Android Design⁷

Google recently made the Android Design portal publicly available for its app developers. Less robust than the HIG, Android Design echoes similar topics of creative vision, design principles, and UI overview, as well as brief section on writing style.

Android Design prescribes six high-level guidelines for app word choice, advising writers to be brief, simple, and friendly, while frontloading important, necessary content and avoiding repetition.

Cadence & Slang⁸

This “small book about interaction design” is the work of Nick Disaboto, a product designer, publisher, and usability buff. Disaboto takes a more holistic approach than the resources listed above, focusing less on comma placement and colon usage, and more on how language can enhance—or detract from—functional and usable design. Though written for aspiring designers, this piece contains many valuable nuggets for the technical communicator.

The second chapter of the document includes an insightful discussion of language, in the context of consistency and character. Tucked in with suggestions for adopting a kind, helpful tone and descriptive, consistent, non-technical copy, is this gem: “The words in an interface are part of the interface.” In other words, text is inherently linked to design.

Gaps in Current Guidance

We’re back to the two general categories of guidance: one-off articles and engineering and/or UX-focused documents. The former are rife with admonishments to “be concise!” and “don’t forget SEO,” focusing almost exclusively on copy without paying heed to how that copy integrates with usability and design. The latter often reference language as mere afterthought to design. Neither do justice to the importance of language or the potential benefits weighing text choices as heavily as design decisions.

Technical communicators and users alike will benefit from further exploration at the intersection of those categories. Until we widely acknowledge the inherent link between text and design, mobile websites and apps won’t provide a truly superior user experience.

General Mobile Wisdom for Text

So, what do we know? Yes, there are gaps, but we hold enough collective wisdom to establish some basic ground rules:

• Lead with the good stuff. Frontload the content that’s most important—bonus points if it’s brief.
• Consider the use case. Mobile users are typically on the go or engaging with their device as a secondary task (or both!), so create content that’s self-contained and easy to digest for those usage habits.
• Write for humans. Believe it or not, your users are humans. They’ll relate best to authentic, conversational communication.
• Create scannable (or chunked) text. Again, consider your users’ habits. Take advantage of formatting aids such as headings, lists, and emphasized words or phrases to enhance quick comprehension.
• Be consistent. The need for consistency—whether it’s parallel structure, tone, or depth of information—is heightened when writing for mobile.
• Be brief.

Moving Forward

We have our work cut out for us. We can address the gaps, but it first requires a critical look at the status quo, paired with an educated, actionable plan for improvement. Let’s get started:

• Become familiar with as many mobile devices as possible. It’s impossible to create effective copy for mobile if you don’t understand the various platforms. Take different devices for a stroll and explore their size, navigation, and prompts. Be mindful that tablets provide a radically different user experience than smartphones, so be sure to add them to your checklist as well.
• Introduce yourself to responsive Web design. Mobile-first, responsive design is the future of the Web. As communicators, we need to understand the basic principles behind responsive design in order to develop effective content across devices and use cases. As a starting point, take a look at A Book Apart’s⁹ short primers: Responsive Web Design and Mobile First.
• Compare mobile sites with their desktop counterparts. Explore what’s already being done to get a better sense of what works and what doesn’t. Is the content effectively modified for the exigency and purpose of the use case or is it sloppily repurposed?
• Review the existing guidance. Take a deep dive into Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines and Android Design Guidelines. Review Disabato’s text, or find your own go-to resource. Whatever you land on, take a holistic look at mobile development—it will help you better understand the existing guidance and identify gaping holes.
• Consider the interplay between text and design. It’s up to us to start exploring this convergence zone. How can the two work together? What, as a technical communicator, do you need to learn about user interface design? How can you help designers better understand your craft? The better text and design work toward a common goal, the better the user experience.

Mobile experience and insight are hot commodities in today’s mobile marketplace. Educating yourself on mobile will not only help your career, it’ll also provide you with the opportunity to interface and collaborate with talented engineers and UX designers. What’s more, armed with this new knowledge, you’ll be in position to evangelize the importance of effective copy.

A Disruptive Force

Mobile technology is disrupting the face of our profession. Mobile is hot, and mobile is now—to miss out is to do your career a disservice. Embrace the trend, and educate yourself and your peers.

Because mobile is still in its relative infancy, the lack of definitive guidance for communicators represents an exciting opportunity. We have the ability to affect the future course of mobile and to better shape the interplay between design and text. Your career will thank you, and, more importantly, so will your users.

Suggested Reading

Baron, Naomi. Always On: Language in an Online and Mobile World. Oxford University Press: 2003.

Disabato, Nick. Cadence & Slang. February 2011. http://cadence.cc/

Hailey, David. ReaderCentric Writing for Digital Media: Theory and Practice. Baywood Press, in publication.

Marcotte, Ethan. Responsive Web Design. 2011. www.abookapart.com/products/responsive-web-design.

Welinski, Joe. Developing User Assistance for Mobile Apps. Writers UA, 2011.

Wroblewski, Luke. Mobile First. 2011. www.abookapart.com/products/mobile-first.

Stephanie Chacharon (schacharon@ubermind.com) is the resident word nerd and brand-messaging guardian at Übermind. In addition to copywriting and editing, she contributes to the biz dev team’s proposal process. She has undergrad degrees in English and Environmental Studies, and recently finished a master’s program in English (with an emphasis in technical writing) from Utah State University. A Seattle native, Stephanie enjoys hiking, kayaking, skiing, eating, and adventuring with her husband and their crazy pup, Jasper.

Endnotes

1 www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS22871611

2 www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008728

3 http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/consumer/us-kids-looking-forward-to-iholiday-2011/

4 http://mashable.com/2011/06/14/optimize-mobile-marketing/

5 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/AppleHIGuidelines/Intro/Intro.html

6 http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/APStyleGuide/APSG_2009.pdf

7 http://developer.android.com/design/get-started/principles.html

8 http://cadence.cc/

9 www.abookapart.com/