About UX Writing

UX writing is a core part of the user experience. Text in digital products directly influences how users understand tasks, make decisions and feel while using a product. Good UX writing is concise, clear, action-oriented and helps users reach their goals quickly and reliably.

Tone of Voice

A key aspect of UX writing is the tone of voice. It should be tailored to the target audience and reflect the SBB brand. For more on how we write at SBB, visit the brand portal. There you will also find services offered by the language team, such as translation and proofreading.

Microcopy

In digital applications, even the smallest text elements and phrasing choices can be decisive for the user experience. “Microcopy” refers to these small (and often overlooked) text elements.

The goal of microcopy is to guide users optimally with as few words as possible, reduce uncertainty and facilitate decision-making.

General Recommendations:

  1. Be clear. The most important thing is that users understand what to do, what is happening or what will happen.
  2. Be as brief as possible, as long as necessary. Space is limited and more words increase cognitive load. Think early about translations into French or Italian, as these usually require more space than German or English.
  3. Be helpful. Provide reassurance and try to anticipate and address users' needs. Avoid irony and empty phrases - they can be counterproductive.
  4. Be consistent. Remain consistent in your use of words and terminology. Avoid mixing languages.
  5. Be context-aware. Pay attention to context. Provide context when it is missing.
  6. Be accessible. Think about the correct labelling of ARIA labels and link alt texts so that they can be read aloud by screen readers, for example.

Internal Terms and Abbreviations Only use internal terms and abbreviations if they are familiar to the target audience. The SBB glossary can also help with this. If you are unsure whether the terms or abbreviations will be understood, test them with your target audience.

Microcopy in Detail

There are additional recommendations for these elements:

Button and Link Texts
Notifications
Forms and Inputs
Progress Indicator

Digital word list

Many words mean the same thing. The digital word list provides you with the most commonly used terms.

Digital word list

Additional resources

SBB glossary
services offered by the language team
brand portal
Bausteine SBB Sprache (in german, only available with SBB Login)