The disclosed technology generally relates to an application programming interface (API) and user interface (UI) that can translate user communication into an interactive message that is displayed on the UI. In at least one embodiment, a mobile application uses a sentence builder to translate data structures into an interactive message (e.g., an editable sentence). A UI can display the interactive message in a first portion (e.g., “upper portion”) of a UI, and display user selectable objects for adding information to the interactive message in a second portion (e.g., “lower portion”). For example, as a customer makes choices for a food order, ingredients as emojis can appear and disappear in sentence form from a UI based on customer preferences and inputs.