In his piece Zen in the Art of Writing, the U.S. novelist Ray Bradbury wrote that you have to be drunk on writing so that reality doesn’t destroy you. He was of course thinking about the fiction’s artwork of writing, and here we have the polar opposite suggestion for you in terms of the art of UX writing: verify the actuality of every word you write. In other words, you have to stick to user behavior so that your imagination doesn’t ruin your efforts. Is there a more plain explanation for this? What exactly do UX writers write about? Should UX designers also be UX writers? Isn’t writing something the author should think about?
Yes, we understand what you mean. The ideal is that everyone does what they are trained to do: design should be done by designers and writers should write. As a result, preferably, a professional writer should be engaged – a UX writer – who’s involved in the whole UX process: from concept to research, development, and creating. Nevertheless, there are many less-than-ideal circumstances where UX designers practice writing in real life.
Let’s explain in more detail what UX writing is and how important writing about the user experience is for web design.
What’s UX Writing
The primary goal of UX writing is to produce an exciting and consistent narrative by combining words and visuals, functions, and other digital elements.
UX writers are in high demand all across the world. UX writer Gordon Macrae’s newsletter (yes, even a UX design of a newsletter will help engage your users, get their attention, and have a good relationship with them – platforms like VerticalResponse can help you with this) UX Writing Jobs uncovered an intriguing tendency. During the first few months of last year, conglomerate companies such as LinkedIn, Amazon, Spotify, Dropbox, Slack, and a slew of other companies were seeking UX writers, i.e. content designers, content writers, UI writers, etc. And what exactly is their job?
UX writers are responsible for a variety of tasks, including:
- Creating (and tracking) company style guides.
- Developing and implementing a short- and long-term content plan.
- Microcopying for CTA buttons, pop-ups, vital messages, and other such items.
- Creating longer pieces of writing
- Writing for videos, graphics, surveys, and forms among other things.
- Collaboration with a variety of departments (financial, legal, C-level management, R&D, etc.) to align the copy with the company’s goals.
- Understanding the data on production metrics and their harmonization with the content strategy.
As you can see, a UX writer is a kind of content writer, but there’s a difference. A UX writer has a much more specific position than a content writer.
Microcopy writing is another very important task in UX writing. Actually, it’s one of the leading UI/UX design trends that dominated in 2021 and continued to dominate this year. Microcopying is a term that applies to a solitary word or phrase that’s intended to grab the eye of consumers and provide them with more relevant information as they guide them through a website.
Why UX Writing Matters
When using a website, app, or program, every user requires some assistance. UX writing connects the dots between a product’s visual design and usability, as well as its users. Sometimes a written description or guide isn’t included, but in the vast majority of cases, words are part of the process on the website, step by step. And all those words fall into UX writing. If you’re interested in learning more about UX writing, there are many UX writing courses available online.
Therefore, strategic thinking and a critical attitude are necessary for quality product development. As content strategist Patrick Stafford wrote for his blog, design teams now fully understand that words make design ethics as much as the frame.
Why is it important to have writers on the team?
- Writers employ more natural speech, making the product easier to understand for users.
- Writers can add sentiments to words and elicit an emotional response from consumers.
- Writers are aware of how to preserve company image while adhering to a company’s style, manner of speech, and other guidelines.
- Writers are detail-oriented and rarely miss misspelled words, commas, or improper phrases in the text, resulting in increased trust in the product.
How to Excel in UX Writing
1. Imagine the User Persona and Put Yourself in Their Shoes
According to designer and creative director Lorinda Mamo, each outstanding project involving design started with an even larger story. Storytelling is unquestionably one of the most effective methods for developing a narrative that will strengthen your brand or digital service/product.
Storytelling is also one of the great ways to create a great user experience. How is that? So if you want to design for users, then you need to think like users. So, you should imagine a so-called user persona that will represent the average user of your products or services.
You can delve into the design thought processes for UX and use empathy maps to find out what your persona says, does, thinks, and feels. You can then use the route mapping method to visually present each step your person will take while handling your digital product – website, web application, SaaS, e-commerce, mobile application…
Once you imagine and contextualize your user, you can start telling their story and see where it’ll take you. This will make it much easier for you to spot sore spots and flaws in product design. But you have to be careful. When you imagine the average person, you can fall into the trap of stereotyping, inferring assumptions, and spending too much time thinking about unnecessary details. So, try not to think about the person’s dilemmas such as “cat person or dog person”, “does this person need one or two cars”, “vegetarian or vegan”, etc. If these questions aren’t crucial to your research, forget them. Don’t go too deep into the story.
2. Ask the Right Questions and the Answers Will Come
Albert Einstein famously stated that if he had an hour to resolve issues, he would devote the first 55 minutes to thinking of the right questions because when you know the right question you can solve the problem in less than 5 minutes.
You can also apply this formula to the UX design process. You should spend a lot of time defining specific user problems and asking the right questions because when you have a problem in the right framework, you’ll come to a solution fairly quickly.
3. Be Curious and Analytical
UX writers perform research, grasp UX best practices, and build comprehensive user experiences from start to finish, according to Patrick Stafford in the article we specified earlier in the text.
UX writers must establish an analytical approach to each project, collect findings from tracking data, analyze enormous volumes of data, and act on their own understanding, in addition to writing talents. This necessitates active involvement in the project. As a result, it’s critical for authors to have the correct mindset and talents for such a role.
Conclusion
Companies around the world are becoming increasingly aware of the importance of original digital content. This has led to a certain increase in demand for UX writers in the business market. Design teams around the world understand the importance of the right words chosen in the process of making frames and prototypes. Every word counts. And every phrase or word has a distinct effect on how people behave.
On many projects, web designers and developers collaborate closely. This works quite well for smaller products. However, to create a website for a large organization, or for an entire design system, there needs to be a complete team of professionals – managers, web designers, programmers, writers, SEO specialists, and others – working together on the project.
If you’re planning to create a new website for your business and would like to find experts in web design, you don’t have to look any further. Don’t worry if the team you want to work with isn’t close to you. You can always hire an experienced team wherever you are. The most important thing is to get a high-quality web design and to be satisfied with the final result.
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