Version Control: How a UX Writer Weighs One Word Against Another | Figma Blog (opens in new tab)

A UX writer explains how a seemingly simple menu label for Figma’s offline prototyping feature revealed deeper questions about user expectations and product behavior. The team tested technically accurate, goal-oriented, and action-focused wording, but each option created confusion about what would happen after clicking. The central lesson is that UX copy must connect users’ intentions with the system’s actual behavior.

The Challenge: Explaining Offline Prototyping

• Users wanted a way to present prototypes reliably without an internet connection.
• Engineers built an initial version that loaded prototype content in advance.
• The remaining challenge was finding a few words that accurately explained the feature without requiring technical knowledge.
• The writer argues that language exposes underlying product assumptions: choosing a verb forces the team to clarify what the system is really doing.

Version One: “Preload Prototype”

• “Preload prototype” accurately described the technical behavior:
  • Prototypes normally load screen by screen.
  • The feature gathers the necessary content upfront and retains it for later presentation.
• However, “preload” implies that loading happens before the prototype appears, like “preheating” an oven.
• Users had already loaded the prototype, so the prefix “pre-” did not match their experience.
• Alternatives such as:
  • “Load full prototype”
  • “Load all screens”
  • “Load all assets”
• These labels created a trust problem: users might reasonably assume that a prototype shown on screen was already fully loaded.
• The wording needed to communicate that the initial load was incomplete without making the product seem unreliable.

Version Two: Focusing on the User’s Goal

• The team shifted from describing the technical process to describing the intended outcome:
  • “Present prototype offline”
  • “Prepare to present offline”
• These phrases connected more directly to the user’s motivation: presenting without an internet connection.
• However, “Present prototype offline” suggested that clicking the option would immediately begin presenting, even though it only prepared the prototype.
• “Prepare to present offline” was more accurate but ambiguous:
  • Users would not know what preparation involved.
  • They would not know how far in advance to select it.
• Both options might have worked within a larger workflow with explicit preparation steps, but they felt too imposing and unclear for a simple toggle menu.

Language as an Interface to Computing

• UX writing treats menu labels as actions or intentions:
  • Imperatives tell the program what to do.
  • Phrases can also express what the user wants to accomplish.
• Terry Winograd’s principle that “people act through language” captures the problem: words connect a user’s mental model to a computer’s behavior.
• When the wording, user intention, and system result are out of alignment, the interaction becomes confusing.
• The article’s third iteration begins by examining what users can actually control, but the provided text ends before that approach is explained.