UX Writing Challenge 2: Write Mobile Notifications

Scenario

A single parent is subscribed to an after-school sitter service that sends a caregiver to pick up her child from school, drive the child home and care for the child until the parent arrives home.

Assumptions

• The parent has already completed a user profile

• Uber Sitter is for parents with children aged 3 to 15

• An iOS or Android app is required to use Uber Sitter

• Only the parent receives notifications or SMS messages

• Uber Sitters don’t communicate with children via the app for safety reasons as well as the likelihood that many children won’t own a mobile device

Guiding Principles

• Write notifications for the parent

• Write notifications with a safety-first mindset

• Write notifications with empathy

• Titles must be glanceable

• Descriptions must be short, but provide enough detail

• Names need to be written to accommodate multiple genders, spellings and pronouns

Task 1

Write a mobile notification that informs the parent that a caregiver is stuck in traffic and will be late to pick up her child.

Draft 1

Draft 2

Draft 3

Final

Task 2

Inform the parent that the caregiver has picked up her child from school and is now on the way home.

Draft 1

Draft 2

Draft 3

Final

Task 3

Inform the parent that her child has arrived home.

Draft 1

Final

Final Thoughts

I found Task 1 to be the hardest notification to write because parents would be worried and upset if the notification said their child's Uber Sitter was stuck in traffic. When I remembered how pilots tell passengers they're “experiencing turbulence," (not stuck in turbulence), I knew "experiencing" was the right word to empathetically communicate the situation.