Dear Ux Writer: Make your words the hero of your design
With empathy other UX writer
In words of Picasso (the artist), he used to talk about what his mother said all the time: If you are a soldier, you will become a general. If you are a monk, you will become the Pope so he decided to be a painter and became Picasso.
Following this, in my case, I am working writing to discover new worlds to become in me. To me, writing helped me to become a better designer of words, leader, and mostly…A better thinker. I genuinely believe in the power to change destinies with stories. I want to create new worlds for my people and myself to have better futures.
So…Oh, I forgot this is not the only way to achieve the goal, there exist many methods to do it. Here you will see learnings that I applied and still apply to support the creator of content in UX.
1. Before doing UX writing, be a UX thinker
The more the think, the easier the ink.
With a clear thought, you can create a clear copy. With a confusing thought, you have a confusing “copy”, as obvious as it sounds. Though most of the time we usually create content design without “the thinking” about the story we want to tell the user. We forget the approach, the strategy, the objective, the intention, the KPI. From my perspective when you have clarity and depth of thought, you will have clarity in your texts.
2. Ask more and better questions
I’m a Mexican marketer with more than 9 years creating content strategies, being a creative copywriter and, the last 5 years, I have been writing and creating ux content for digital brands.
I realised through my coach that the main thing in this discipline is to ask questions before doing anything.
It’s time to stop saying yes to all. Ask first the “what” but also the “why and for who”. Include in your vision the human psychology, behaviour, context, the identity of your customer and their journey. We need to practice good habits and try to be the owner of our decisions based on the information that you receive in the process.
3.- Learn the basics and principles of design /usability (of course content for default)
We are UX writers but, also, we are thinkers first in order to design with words remarkable experiences. You need to know the language and applications of design. I know, I know, it is a lot of information, but you can start with baby steps. For example, names of components, layout, wireframes, flows. Just make sure, to start with the basics to build with solid knowledge and, if you want, sit beside a UX designer. You don’t have any idea how much you could learn from working with a person of experience.
In content, remember this. If you have clear what you say, why you say it and how you say it; when you have the voice, tone or style and clearly you know how to speak with your user, you can encourage and empower them, to keep to calm, etc. All depends on the moment. The challenge is UX writing with a brand voice.
4.- Write, Test, and Rewrite
We are the GPS in the interface (app, web, form, etc) to the user. So, write clear, meaningful, useful and with short words but with maxim impact and never forget to do the content test with the user. This is only 50% of our work because re-writing to refine the story has a lot of possibilities to achieve a scope and positive or non-positive conversion. Try to leave the words for a few minutes and come back to read, sometimes will you return with fresh eyes and edit the details to improve the storytelling.
5.- Be strategic.
This is the big one. Imagine, just imagine when you are the one and only UX writer (because this is not real :P ) for many products or projects. In my case, I had to create frameworks, matrices and wireframes with the same language that the designers, product owners and even developers, who’ve facilitated the creation of UX content with the rules and instructions easy to follow. I need to create many matrices with structure, rules and basic accessibility, all depending of the case. So, you need to see the big picture and create content tools to facilitate networking with stakeholders.
