Scenario: A traveler is in an airport waiting for the last leg of a flight home when their flight gets abruptly canceled due to bad weather.
Challenge: Write a message from the airline app notifying them of the cancellation and what they need to do next.
Headline: 45 characters
Body: 175 characters max
Button(s): 25 characters max
EZY78RV Manchester to London - CANCELLED
We apologise for any disruption this has caused.
Next steps: The next flight from Manchester to London leaves at 12:58pm.
You may also be able to switch flights or destinations below.
This is obviously going to be a stressful situation for the user. When something like this happens we immediately feel let down, and can slip into feeling isolated. Fending for ourselves. I wanted to give the user an empathetic headline that was personal to them, by first saying 'Your' flight. I didn't want it to sound robotic, blanket statement. After this, the specific flight number to show that it is definitely going to affect them personally.
In the body I wanted to make sure the user knew exactly what the situation was, and spelled it out for them as simply as possible. I used the start and end journeys to illustrate to the user that this is without question that it is their flight and they affected by this. 'Cancelled' is in red to further underline this point.
Standard 'disruption' line. I tried to come up with a new way to say it, but it is hard to best it. I wanted to apologise to the user for the event and come across as empathetic rather than sympathetic. It is the airlines problem to fix, and being too sympathetic could result in the user thinking 'stop apologising to me and just fix the damn thing.' I thought about 'inconvenience,' but it didn't feel strong enough. A cancelled flight is a panicked change of plans, while an inconvenience feels equivalent to grumbling that the air-con doesn't work.
I went for the 'Next Steps' section to try and demonstrate to the user we know what they're thinking they need to know. In my scenario they could just get the next flight, which would be the handiest.
'More Information' seemed like the best way to get the user to jump onto the app, which would be best place for them to figure out what to do next. Again, I wanted to strike the tone that the airline is sorry it happened, but that it's on it. I wanted to keep the message generic too, as users may want different outcomes. Some may want the next flight, not to bother at all, fly tomorrow, etc.