We have already said elsewhere on this website that someone always reads your work. This is your audience, and many the decisions you make about your writing should be based upon what you think your audience requires. One of the biggest steps you can take in improving your writing (in any language, not just English) is to stop thinking about writing as trying to conform to some perfect example, and start thinking about communicating what your reader wants or needs to hear. This goes for both the content of your writing and the style.
On this page of the website we will look at an example of how writing can differ between formal and informal contexts.
Imagine that you get two messages on the same day. The first is an email from a company inviting you to apply for an internship as a user-experience (UX) designer. As part of the application, they ask you to list the 3 most important skills a UX designer needs. The second is a Kakao message from your younger brother, who is almost finished school, asking what skills a UX designer needs because he wants to follow in your footsteps. Basically, these messages are asking for the same thing, but it's likely the way you respond will be very different. Let's take a look.
In the application, you might write something like this:
User Experience (UX) design is a field that requires both artistic creativity and scientific precision to enhance how users interact with products. Effective UX design ensures that products are not only functional but also enjoyable and intuitive. To achieve these objectives, there are three critical skills that a UX designer must possess: user research, visual design, and prototyping.
User research is the scientific backbone of UX design. This skill involves gathering and analyzing data about users' behaviors, needs, and motivations through various methods such as surveys, interviews, and usability testing. The ability to conduct thorough user research enables designers to create data-driven designs that truly reflect the users' needs and improve their overall experience with the product. This scientific approach ensures that design decisions are grounded in real-world user feedback rather than assumptions.
Visual design is the artistic aspect of UX design. It focuses on the aesthetics of a product, including its layout, color palettes, typography, and imagery. This skill is crucial because it directly affects users' emotional responses and their first impressions of a product. A well-designed product is not only visually appealing but also enhances usability by making information accessible and easy to navigate. Strong visual design skills help in creating interfaces that users find both beautiful and functional.
Prototyping is an integrative skill that blends both artistic vision and scientific analysis. It involves creating preliminary versions of a product to test and refine concepts throughout the design process. Prototyping allows UX designers to experiment with different design solutions and iterate based on real user interactions and feedback. This process is vital for validating usability and functionality before the final development, ensuring that the end product is both effective and user-friendly.
In conclusion, the role of a UX designer is critical in bridging the gap between users and technology. The three essential skills required for this profession—user research, visual design, and prototyping—serve as the pillars that support effective user-centered design. By mastering these skills, UX designers ensure that the products they create not only meet the functional requirements but also provide a delightful user experience. As technology continues to evolve, these skills remain fundamental in shaping the way users interact with digital environments.
To your brother, you might write a series of messages like this.
👋 Hey! So you’re curious about the top skills needed for a UX designer? It’s really cool that you're interested in this! 😊
First up, User Research: This is all about understanding the people who will use the product. It involves talking to users, running surveys, and observing how they interact with apps or websites. This helps to make designs that truly fit what people need and want.
Next, Visual Design: This is the part where art comes in. It’s about making everything look good and work well on the screen. Things like choosing the right colors, fonts, and layout. It's super important because it affects how easy and fun it is to use the app or website.
Lastly, Prototyping: This is a bit like a mix of art and science. You make simple versions of your designs to test out ideas before making the real thing. It’s about trying stuff, seeing what works, and improving it. Super useful to avoid big mistakes and to make sure users will love the final product.
Each of these skills helps to create products that are not just useful but also enjoyable to use. They make sure that apps and websites are user-friendly, look great, and meet the needs of the people using them. Let me know if you want to dive deeper into any of these!
If you look at the examples above, you will notice many differences, but perhaps the most obvious difference is in the amount of words. The job application is at least twice as long as the messages. This is because of the audience and the purpose. In a job application, you are usually writing to experts in the field, and you want to demonstrate that you have some expertise too, so you need to include a lot of detail to show that you have researched and understand the field well. The same is true when you write for your professors at university. They will want to see that you have mastered the content, and details are the best way to show that.
On the other hand, in the messages you are writing to your brother, a non-expert who already thinks you understand the field well. He doesn't need a very detailed view yet, just a general guide, so it's fine not to focus too much on the details.
The length is also influenced by what we call the genre of writing. A job application is non-interactive, so you have to make sure you deliver all of the message in one, because the reader will not want to ask you questions. Conversely, in a messenger program, the reader can ask follow-up questions, so it's acceptable to provide less information and then let them ask about what they need. If fact, the messages end with an invitation to "dive deeper" if the reader wants.
The two examples above do basically the same thing, but they sound very different. This is because they are written in different styles (also called tones). Simply put, the job application is written in a formal style and the messages are written in an informal one.
It is important to note here that the styles are not two fixed points. It is more like a gradient from very formal to very informal. There will be differences in formal style between business and academic writing, and even between the academic writing in the sciences and the humanities, for example. The best way to develop the right style for what you want to do is read a lot in the are you need to write in.
Nevertheless, we can look at some of the major differences between a formal and informal style.
Difference 1: Vocabulary
In a formal style, the vocabulary used is more precise and clear than informal style. To do this, formal writing uses words that are less frequently used in English. For example, the application above uses "interviews", whereas in the messages the same concept is expressed as "talking to people". While they can both refer to the same thing, the meaning of "interview" is much more specific.
This example also highlights a second point about formal style: It uses as few words as possible, in this case one word, "interviews," instead of three words, "talking to people". This is because, when writing formally, we want to respect the reader's valuable time and not make them read unnecessary words.
Difference 2: Sentence structure
Formal style also uses longer, more complex sentence structures, whereas informal style tends to use shorter, simple sentences. Again, this helps you pack more information into less space and saves the reader time. Here is a complex sentence from the example: "This process is vital for validating usability and functionality before the final development, ensuring that the end product is both effective and user-friendly." With more informal sentence structure, it might be written as, "Before you finally develop your product, you need to prototype. Prototyping is important for making sure the product is usable and functional. This ensures that the end product is effective and that it is user friendly." The rewritten example has more words (and more pauses at the end of sentences) so it's not as quick to read.
Differences 1 and 2 both lead to formal style being much more dense than informal. Dense means that there are more content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.) than there are function words (prepositions, pronouns, auxiliary verbs etc.). Below, I have written the beginnings of each example and marked the content words in bold. You can probably see that the formal sentence has much less functional language, but if you want the math, the formal has 13 content words out of 21 (62%) whereas the informal has 9 content words out of 24 (38% [contractions counted as 2 words]).
Formal: User Experience design is a field that requires both artistic creativity and scientific precision to enhance how users interact with products.
Informal: So you’re curious about the top skills needed for a User Experience Designer? It’s really cool that you're interested in this!
Difference 3: No contractions
It might seem strange because we've just talked about not wasting the reader's time, but formal writing does not use contractions. An example of a contraction is "you're" and the full version is "you are". The reason contractions do not usually appear in formal writing is that we do not want to appear lazy.
Difference 4: No slang
Similarly to contractions, we don't want to use slang in informal writing because, if we are not lazy and take the time to think about it, there is probably a more precise word we can use.
Difference 5: Personalization
Usually, formal style is impersonal and formal style is personal. In other words, informal writing often sounds like a conversation where one person is talking to another. Informal writing, on the other hand often focuses on concepts and theories rather than people. This difference is most noticeable in the use of pronouns. Our messages example contains "you" and "me" frequently, whereas the application only has a few instances of "it" or "its". Formal style also makes more use of the passive voice to avoid pronouns or references to people. In our example, "This scientific approach ensures that design decisions are grounded in real-world user feedback" uses a passive construction instead of saying "...ensures that people ground their design decisions in..."
Difference 6: Emotion and Subjectivity
Formal style usually tries to remain objective and unemotional, but informal style does not. A sentence like "It’s really cool that you're interested in this!" would be very unusual in formal writing. In fact, exclamation marks rarely appear in it either. In addition, opinions tend to be presented as fact, so phrases such as "I think" and "In my opinion" are not necessary. For example, in formal style "In my opinion, the most important skills for a UX designer..." can simply be stated as "The most important skills for a UX designer..."
I hope that this guide has helped you feel more comfortable in doing your own formal and informal writing.