Handshake

This project allowed me to tackle a complete UX Writing challenge.

CONTEXT

What is Handshake?

Handshake is an app for freelancers and small business owners working together. They share the app: One uses it for billing and the other for paying.

Personas

The UX research team provided two personas – one for each user type.

Freelancers are sort of the primary users.

They report billable hours and request payment. Small Business Owners are the secondary users. After a freelancer invites them, they can approve hours and send payments to the freelancer.

Business Owners will recommend and use the app, even if they’re not paying any money to use it.

This is a powerful secondary audience that will be key to growing users, and key to the app’s success.

PROCESS

Voice

These personas were the basis for my understanding of Handshake’s users.

I then did a quick empathy exercise to grasp the emotions users might feel while they’re using the app. And boy, it looked like Kelly and Tom had a lot to stress about.

Now I had some rationale for the app’s voice: Its main goal should be to ease the anxiety.

Tone

With a rough idea of Handshake’s voice in our minds, how could we flex the tone throughout the user journey? I decided on two points: 

“Enthusiastic vs. matter-of-fact” is the main dimension to adjust. Enthusiastic for happy points, matter-of-fact for the rest.

Handshake should also use a different tone depending on whether the user is a freelancer or a business owner.

Kelly and Tom have different wants/needs, different demographics, and are coming from different socio-cultural backgrounds. E.g. we could be a bit more playful when speaking to freelancers (and more conventional and smart when speaking to business owners).

Vocabulary

I ran informal research focused on terminology. Which words are used when talking about doing business with freelancers? Which are common, and which are less so? What are the connotations coming with them?

Marketing content

Time to flex those copywriting muscles! I created a few taglines, content for a landing page, and some promotional email copy.

UI copy

That was definitely the most challenging part of the project. The existing copy had errors, was inconsistent and the tone of voice was out of tune.

Overall, I…

• Corrected punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors

• Adjusted tone and voice

• Created consistency (capitalization, forms & text fields, date & currency & time formats)

• Improved visual hierarchy 

• Added tooltips and microcopy to guide and inform the user 

• Suggested additional onboarding and dashboard screens

Let’s check out some examples (for a complete run-through please see the prototype):