Power of Words
A field guide to product copy that earns trust.
By the end you walk away with a checklist, a vocabulary, and two exercises to run with your team on Monday. Short on time? Skim the headlines and the pull-outs.
How we read words
What is a word? A group of letters with a meaning. So why do we turn into detectives the second we read one?
I once asked my mom if I could go to a party. She said, “Do whatever you want.” So what did that mean? Can I actually go? Or is it more like, go, whatever, I give up? Or, stop asking me? Or is she mad?
Four words, and I still have to figure out what they mean. That is how language works on us. It does not hand you the meaning. It asks you to go find it.
Someone opening your product is doing the exact same thing. They read your copy with a question in their head, and your words answer it before the interface gets a chance. That is the whole idea behind this guide. Copy carries a temperature. The way you phrase one sentence sets the mood of the product. So we start with a small kit of patterns to watch for, and a few to skip.
Three language traps
Insider words that lock everyone else out. Circle back. Alignment. Bandwidth. Paradigm shift. Sounds fluent. Says nothing.
“Enable scalable simulation workflows via modular integration.”
Words that pack an emotional punch past what they literally mean. Freedom. Disruptive. Luxury. Bureaucrat. They steer you before they tell you anything.
“Tech giants are spying on your every move.”
Loaded language wearing a folk-wisdom costume. It is what it is. Agree to disagree. That is just how the world works. New ideas die on the spot.
“That is how we have always done it.”
Why we fall for them
Neither trap is really about the words. Both are about the room. Two real findings, two quick votes, two things you can test in your head right now.
Two people speak in a meeting
One talks for two minutes. The other talks for twenty. Who leaves the room sounding smart?
Cast your vote
Same person, same message, two rooms
One room is full of nine-year-olds. The other is full of stakeholders. Which room hears more jargon?
Cast your vote
Next time you reach for a big word, ask which room you are afraid of.
AI language models learned from the same jargon-soaked writing we did.
Words like synergize, streamline and mission-critical are the odds-on next word in any professional sentence. So if your copy reads like ChatGPT, it is because ChatGPT learned from the copy we have all been writing.
Some new terms to watch
Every era adds its own. These spread faster than anyone bothered to define them. Treat each one as a flag. If you reach for it, ask what it is actually doing in the sentence.
Spread faster than anyone defined it. Most teams just mean automation. Say what the system actually does.
A math problem in a human costume. The model is wrong. Call the failure by its real name.
An infrastructure word moonlighting in UX. If you mean rules, say rules. If you mean limits, say limits.
A promise products almost never keep. People always spot the seam. Describe the real experience instead.
Vague, and a little condescending. Swap in the specific thing the person can now do.
Borrowed from games and growth marketing. Rarely earned. Try opens, reveals, or lets you.
An expensive way to say use. If there is no actual lever, use the plain verb.
Sounds reassuring, tells you nothing. Name the thing it survives instead.
Hints at a before and after without showing either. Name the step you removed.
Before and after
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Two exercises
Reading only gets you so far. These two games are what make the lessons stick. The first tests your ear. The second finds the hook hiding under any CTA. Give them a try.
Trust the voice
Two founders. Two pitches. One of them earns your trust. Read both, cast your vote, then see who said what.
Who would you trust? Click a card.
Find your hook with five whys
Take any CTA. Ask why someone would click it. Then ask why, five times in a row. Each layer goes deeper. At the bottom is a feeling. Rewrite the copy from there.
Four ingredients
I once read a line on a restaurant menu that stopped me mid-bite. “God who dwells in the cherries, in the wind, in the sea, in the eyes of the dog, and in the reasoning of man.” Anna Maria Ortese. I could not stop thinking about it, and it got me wondering what makes writing sound beautiful.
So I took a course with Shani Raja and came out with a structure I now use to read everything. Good writing balances four ingredients. The recipe shifts with your intention and your audience.
Makes writing punchy. Short sentences. Plain words. Nothing anyone has to translate.
Makes writing easy to follow. One idea per sentence. The point shows up early, no warm-up lap.
Makes writing flow. Rhythm, sentences of different lengths, lines that read like you meant them.
Makes writing come alive. Concrete images, surprising pairings, words that earn a second read.
Obsessing over detail as a writer means clearing out every last bit of literary, typographical, and formatting ugliness from a text.
Once I started noticing it, I could not stop. I hear music in writing now, and the small ugliness when it goes missing.
Ten steps to write better
The four ingredients tell you what good writing tastes like. This is how you cook it. It is the structure from Shani Raja's course, and I wrote this whole guide by walking these ten steps in order.
- 01Write a draft
Get every thought out first. Do not edit as you go. Drafting and editing are two different jobs.
- 02Define the purpose
Purpose is intention plus audience. Know what you want the writing to do, and exactly who it is for.
- 03Separate the points
Break the draft into one idea per line. You cannot judge a point until it stands on its own.
- 04Pressure-test every point
For each line, ask: does it make sense, does it belong, is it fresh, is it true. Cut what fails.
- 05Make sections, add tags
Group related points and label each group with a short tag, like this one right here.
- 06List the tags together
Pull just the tags out and read them on their own. That is the skeleton of the piece.
- 07Reorder by flow
Put the tags in the order that reads best, before you touch a single sentence underneath.
- 08Place the rest of the content
Drop each point back under its tag, now in the right order. The structure carries the weight.
- 09Apply the four ingredients
Now rewrite for simple, clarity, elegance and evocativeness, in whatever balance the purpose calls for.
- 10Check grammar, formatting, typos
The final pass. Clear out every trace of literary, typographical and formatting ugliness.
Everything you just read was built with these ten steps.
“Words don't just explain design. They are design.”
After the workshop
Neha has been bringing their A game lately.
Neha just did a smashing shareout in the UX Hive. Really, really good. The content was solid, and the presentation style was fun and engaging. I'm really impressed, and the discussions afterwards were excellent.
“Kick-ass hosting Neha! Loved the news today.”
“Thank you Neha! I love your storytelling as always.”
“The overall narrative is very easy to follow. Your proactivity is one of your greatest assets, and as you can see it gets you good results.”