Words, User Experience and Coffee: Fresh Ground Truthiness

Another thought on words and user experience ahead of the September 22 IxDA Chicago event, "From Crafting Headlines to Designing Experiences: A Discussion of the Writer's Role in UX."

I'm lucky enough to work for a company that provides free coffee. That coffee is served via a machine from Flavia, which uses little pouches instead of little cups. After entering a pouch into the machine to begin the "brewing" (not quite, but we'll let it slide) process, the screen shows this message: "Brewing Your Fresh Ground Coffee..."

I like free coffee and the French Roast isn't bad, from a pouched coffee perspective. However, my UX brain is insulted, every time I get a cup of coffee, because Flavia wants to me think that the coffee they ground months ago, sealed in a plastic pouch and packed away in a box to be shipped at a later date, is somehow "fresh ground."

Look, I grind my own coffee* at home every morning, so I know what "fresh ground" should smell and taste like. But, my consternation is not about the relative freshness of the Flavia grind -- I freely and gratefully drink Flavia's not-freshly ground coffee every day because it's free (Thank you Crain Communications, Inc) and doesn't taste like Dunkin' Donuts** coffee -- my issue concerns the implications of their fresh messaging.

Someone at Flavia decided that their machine should explain to me what's happening as they flush hot water through the pouch. I completely support explaining to users, especially new users, what's happening each step of the way through a multi-step experience. But, by telling the user something that's not true, the user (well, me, at least) walks away mumbling about the lie, sullying the experience of a warm cup of joe, even if only a little.

But, this is an easy fix. Had Flavia employed a writer on their user experience team, that writer might have told them that transposing two words would both express the same "fresh" idea they wanted to convey in their messaging and be truthful about the product. Instead of "Brewing Your Fresh Ground Coffee...," the message could have easily just said, "Brewing Fresh Your Ground Coffee..."

See how easy that was? A writer, and a writer with user experience skills, would have seen that possibility.

For more thoughts on writing and user experience, attend the IxDA Chicago event, "From Crafting Headlines to Designing Experiences: A Discussion of the Writer's Role in UX." It's this Thursday, 9/22, from 6 to 8:30pm CT at Imagination Publishing.

Opinions expressed in this article are solely mine, unless they're not.

?*Trader Joe's French Roast. It's tasty and, unlike the Seattle-founded brand that has a storefront on nearly every corner, doesn't require me to take out a second mortgage to afford it.

**Dunkin' Donuts' marketing says "American Runs on Dunkin'." Have you been to a Dunkin' Donuts? No one in there is running anywhere, especially after drinking that watered down coffee. :)