The small bits of text throughout an interface that guide, explain, and reassure users — including button labels, input placeholders, helper text, tooltips, and confirmation messages. Good microcopy is concise, specific, and consistent with the product's voice.
Common contexts
- Rewriting a generic 'Submit' button label to 'Send my application' to reduce hesitation before a high-stakes form action
- Adding helper text to a password field that preemptively explains requirements instead of surfacing errors after submission
- Auditing all empty states in a product to replace 'No data found' with context-specific guidance and a next action
Use when
Prioritize microcopy rewrites for error states, confirmation dialogs, and high-anxiety form fields — these are the moments where users are most uncertain, and specific language directly reduces support volume.
Avoid when
Don't use microcopy to explain a confusing interaction — if users need text to understand how to use a control, the control itself needs to be redesigned, not annotated.
Every generic label like 'Click here' or 'Submit' is a missed opportunity to reinforce trust — the best microcopy sounds like a knowledgeable friend, not a system notification.
Real-world examples
- Mailchimp's campaign send button displays a sweating cartoon chimp and reads 'Send the campaign' — not 'Submit' — with a reassuring tooltip, measurably reducing pre-send anxiety in their research.
- Waze uses 'You rock!' and 'Be careful out there!' instead of generic confirmations, tone-matching their conversational brand in moments where users expect robotic system messages.
- Slack's empty #general channel reads 'This is the very beginning of the #general channel' — microcopy that frames emptiness as a starting point, not an error, reducing new-workspace abandon rate.