What are the best practices for writing UX copy for an international audience?

1 Know your users

The first step of any UX writing project is to understand who you are writing for. You need to do some UX research to identify your target audience, their goals, needs, pain points, and expectations. You also need to learn about their cultural background, values, norms, and preferences. This will help you avoid assumptions, stereotypes, and biases that might offend or confuse your users.

2 Choose your words carefully

The next step is to craft your UX copy using simple, concise, and familiar words. You want to avoid jargon, slang, idioms, metaphors, and humor that might not translate well or make sense to your users. You also want to avoid words that have multiple meanings, ambiguous terms, or technical terms that might not be understood by your users. You should use plain language that is easy to read and understand for your users.

3 Use a consistent tone and voice

Another important aspect of UX copy is the tone and voice. The tone is how you express your attitude or emotion, while the voice is your personality or style. You need to use a consistent tone and voice throughout your UX copy to create a coherent and trustworthy experience for your users. You also need to adapt your tone and voice to suit the context, purpose, and mood of your UX copy. For example, you might use a friendly and casual tone for a welcome message, but a serious and formal tone for an error message.

4 Follow international standards and conventions

When writing UX copy for an international audience, you also need to follow some international standards and conventions that might affect how your users perceive and interact with your UX copy. For example, you need to be aware of the differences in date and time formats, number and currency formats, units of measurement, punctuation, spelling, and grammar. You also need to respect the directionality, spacing, and alignment of different languages, especially if you are writing in a language that is not left-to-right.

5 Test and iterate your UX copy

The final step of writing UX copy for an international audience is to test and iterate your UX copy based on feedback and data. You need to involve your users in the testing process, either by conducting usability tests, surveys, interviews, or analytics. You need to observe how your users react and respond to your UX copy, and identify any issues or areas of improvement. You also need to iterate your UX copy based on the insights and findings from your testing, and make sure that your UX copy meets the needs and expectations of your users.

6 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?