We wanted to make sure the language in the build was accurate as we got closer to the launch as a public beta service in January 2023.
We realised that the green button on tasks had not been given much thought since the very early iterations of the service.
Why "Continue" was no longer right
Continue works perfectly well as a call to action on a page that is part of a step-by-step process.
This is what we had designed very early on, when we had tasks set up as single questions on multiple pages.
The design changed a lot from that stage.
In December 2022, the build was formed of a task list, with individual tasks linked from that list. Each task had a series of check boxes on one page. Those check boxes were designed to be ticked as and when a user completed part of the task.
The green button at the bottom of each task saves any changes to those check boxes and takes the user back to the task list.
Continue is not an accurate way to describe what happens here.
Thinking of alternative language to use
Our content designer drafted some alternatives that might help to explain what the button does and where it takes users more clearly.
- Save progress
- Save task progress
- Save and continue
- Save and return to task list
- Save and return
- Save progress and return to task list
Collaborating across teams to find consensus
They then ran a content crit to discuss those ideas with other content designers from the other teams in the division.
As those teams are working on similar projects to our own, facing similar content decisions, it was a good opportunity to talk about what others had done and share ideas so we could make consistent decisions.
The consensus was that "Save and return" was the most useful option in this context.
"Save and return to task list" was more explicit and could perhaps be more easily understood. However, users may not recognise what a task list is.
What we'll do next
In the spirit of being agile, we decided to do the smallest, simplest thing first.
Our expectation is that users will get enough meaning from "Save and return" to understand what happens when they press the button.
If "Save and return" is not quite clear enough to users when they start interacting with the live service, we can and will iterate the language.