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<\/a>Slack borrows from a defunct MMO<\/a> to evade error message insanity.<\/p><\/div>\n All the while, you\u2019ll have to justify your decisions to the voice, tone, and data deities. But never forget, young writer: You did this to yourself<\/em>.<\/p>\n In this quick story, I\u2019ll walk you through one of my recent microcopy conundrums.<\/p>\n Typically, I can cure most microcopy hiccups through a combination of brainstorming with my collaborators and remembering that people don\u2019t read interfaces<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n But the other day I bumped into an unfamiliar puzzle. I was writing about order cancellation usability issues and needed to sketch out a few interface examples. That\u2019s when I realized I had wandered into a trap:<\/p>\n My experience as a UX writer told me that the primary button should be the action that the button initiates. In this case, Cancel Order. So what\u2019s the secondary button, and how might it influence the primary?<\/p>\n How do you write button copy for a destructive task?<\/strong><\/p>\n I cobbled together some meager copy options while my brain began to fizzle.<\/p>\n The nuance here is that that primary action the user will take is destructive in nature. Because the order will be canceled, there should be absolutely no ambiguity between the primary and secondary actions.<\/strong> And it\u2019s this ambiguity that really matters (to me, anyways).<\/p>\n Notorious podcast spammer Squarespace keeps it simple. Too simple,\u00a0maybe.<\/p><\/div>\n <\/center><\/p>\n From my perspective, the choice between Cancel and Confirm in a Cancel Order <\/em>dialog is unmistakable. But I am not my users, and for a large percentage of folks who use e-commerce sites, the difference won\u2019t be so clear.<\/p>\n I took this question to one of my favorite discussion groups and and received two very helpful answers.<\/p>\n Andrew Schmidt<\/a>, who writes at Slack, had been there before:<\/p>\n \"Oh yeah. I backed myself into that exact same corner recently \u2014 having to write a confirmation dialog for an action called Cancel Invitation. That\u2019s no fun. I settled keeping Cancel invitation as the confirmation button, in red (because it\u2019s destructive), and using Never mind as the \u201cclose this dialog and go back\u201d button.\"<\/span><\/p>\nA new wrinkle: cancellation confirmation microcopy<\/h2>\n
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<\/a>1. Nevermind<\/h2>\n
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