ux writing Archives

More often than not, product development starts with a UX designer making a wireframe or a UX writer working on the text.

The first step determines what happens after that. If your writers have wireframes full of lorem ipsum, they can try to create influential text for landing pages, blog posts, and other products. If your UX designers have text intended for the target audience, they need to find ways to incorporate those words into the overall product experience.

No matter which approach you take, product managers lose the opportunity for UX copy and UX design experts to collaborate to discover options that could dramatically improve functionality, usability, and accessibility.

The following strategies should help you break down the barriers between your writers and design team so they can develop better digital experiences that attract more users.

Recommended reading: 13 Ways to Make Your UI Writing Better

Make the product manager responsible for breaking down silos

Ultimately, the product manager needs to take responsibility for breaking down the silos that prevent UX copywriters and designers from collaborating. Management must take control of the process because creating a positive user experience depends on so many factors, including:

Microcopy that makes the user interface more intuitive.
User research that shows what types of messages and designs the target audience responds to.
Research from content strategists and marketers.
Designs and copy that lead users through the sales funnel.

Too many product managers seem to think that copy and design can exist independently of each other. In reality, you get better results when your text and designs work together to create a unique brand identity. For example, you don’t want edgy writing on a website with a boring design. The opposite is also true. A bold design deserves more than plain ux writing.

How to integrate UX writing into your design process

Of course, it isn’t fair to say make product managers in charge of bringing teams together without giving them tools for collaboration. You can’t count on expectations alone to break down silos. You need real tools and strategies that get results.

Bring all of your teams to brainstorming sessions

Brainstorming sessions shouldn’t happen behind closed doors that prevent team members from contributing ideas. While you don’t want the chaos of 25 people throwing out ideas at the same time, you do want the diverse ideas you get from inviting representatives from every department. If you hire freelancers, make sure you invite some of them, too. They can give you insight into how other companies handle the challenges you encounter.

Inviting members from every team means that you need input from:

Copywriters
Designers
Developers

Encourage people to collaborate with each other during the brainstorming sessions. These days, you might have some people working remotely, so make sure you choose video conferencing and collaboration apps that make it easier for them to contribute.

You can improve the effectiveness of your brainstorming session by:

Defining and communicating your goals a few days early so people can come prepared.
Keeping the time limit fairly short (between 20 and 30 minutes).
Encouraging everyone to explore their ideas without fear—while also interrupting bad ideas quickly so they don’t take up too much time.
Giving participants a way to submit ideas anonymously to help ensure that shy people contribute.
Recognizing that some brainstorming sessions don’t yield great results, so you may need to regroup later.

Encourage team members to learn about other jobs in product development

Do the members of your design team understand that excellent UX writing requires a keen understanding of behavioral and cognitive psychology? It’s not all about following grammatical rules and using fancy words. Often, good writers have to break the rules they know so they can reach their target audiences better. It’s a craft that requires a lot of practice and consideration.

Do your writers know that designers play an essential role in improving conversion rates? Their images, fonts, white spaces, and other design components have a significant influence over how people respond to everything from calls to action (CTAs) to informative blog posts. Designers even need to think about meeting the needs of people with disabilities. It’s a complex job that demands thoughtful experimentation.

Try pairing a writer and designer to work on a project. Even an hour or two working together could show the professionals how much they rely on each other to reach common goals.

Improve your digital products with UXPin and make UX writing easier!

Since a software update in 2018, UXPin has been able to import real data instead of forcing designers to rely on lorem ipsum. The term “data” doesn’t have to refer to numbers, though. UXPin can import fields from JSON, CSV, and Google Sheets. That includes chunks of text created by your UX copywriters.

Using data sheets that can store human-readable content gives you several advantages. Some of the benefits include:

Keeping all of your product’s copy in one location.
Building a content strategy that converts readers without straying from the brand voice.
Scheduling when you plan to release social media posts.
Letting designers easily move content into their work without the negative influence of human error.

UXPin even has a spell check tool that adds a level of quality assurance to your product creation. The more opportunities you take to review text for minor spelling and grammatical issues, the more opportunities you create to make your product look professional and reliable.

Go with UXPin to improve your collaboration

UXPin is a design tool that makes it easy for your writers and designers to collaborate in real-time and to get rid of going back and forth with inefficient email communication. See how it works with a 14-days UXPin trial – all for free!

That’s what Copywriters are for right? Content Strategists? Definitely! However, words are part of the user experience and at minimum, the first pass, belongs to UX Designers.

Not only do clients appreciate seeing the first look of their product with copy that isn’t in Latin, but users appreciate it too. I’ve walked out of many usability tests and realized that 4 out of 5 issues could be solved with copy edits, whether it’s misleading button text, a confusing headline or confusion during sign up. No matter the language or place, words and conversation are universal. They are our secret weapon and one of the most valuable tools in our toolbox.

Your leading H1 hero copy shouldn’t read like Shakespeare*

*exceptions may be made for a poetry based product

You can be direct, speak with human language, and still have sophistication and a brand voice.

When someone visits the hero of a landing page on a website or web app, we give them a first impression as to who we are as a company – through a combination of words, color, graphics, imagery. First impressions are extremely important, not just in social settings. They set the tone for the entire user experience. As an H1 writer, take lessons from journalism. The two clear goals when creating H1s are:

The user immediately knows what the product is and offers
The user engages by learning more or signing up

When you ‘Call To Action’ make the action crystal clear

CTA copy is arguably the most important copy on the page. It’s the engagement point where we ask users to buy, sign up, join a cause, etc. It takes wordsmithing and is not easy (how ironic). A CTA should have three important qualities:

Honest. For example, don’t use ‘complete’ or ‘submit’ and then ask for more information. Humans feel a sense of relief when they finish something. If they’re then told they aren’t actually finished, they’re unhappy.
Concise. This article is about words but the irony is that people scroll past words. They like things to be short and sweet. Use the minimal amount of words needed to help the user understand what the button beckons for.
Clear. No guessing as to what the button is for. Users are much more likely to click a button if they know where it goes.

Use Microcopy in these 3 places to increase your product engagement

Microcopy, or small bits of copy, throughout your site or product can make or break the user experience. These bits of copy should have these 5 important qualities:

Add value
Don’t overpower other words and visuals on the page
Flow with the brand tone and voice of the product
Short and sweet, never longer than necessary
Provide the user with answers and not raise more questions

1. Increase engagement by pairing icons with words

Using words with an icon is a better user experience and a more accessible design. It’s clear what the icon means and takes all of the confusion off the table. Many icons are used for multiple purposes, like the calendar icon.

Some icons, such as search, are commonly known. However, using words we can make the search functionality more clear. Some search queries only allow one word searches, and other more sophisticated queries (like Google) allow phrases, questions and ideas.

2. Take the frustration out of transactional flows

The best UX example for this is including the password rules before the user submits a password that doesn’t have a special character. However, there are more subtle ways to improve that aren’t just best practice UX. During transactional flows, users give up personal information such as emails, credit card numbers and addresses. Many people are skeptical. However, giving a simple nod to the fact that tech can be creepy can make users feel a lot more comfortable.

3. Leave no questions unanswered

Users have great expectations. Delight them by telling them what to expect next, so they don’t have to guess and get frustrated. I always joke that part of my job is mind-reading. We must guess how people will respond to the things we show them– this is how we can respond to some of those guesses.

Words are part of the process

I start every project with pen and paper – jotting down ideas. These ideas are always a combination of words and sketches dancing around each other. Just as we walk away from user testing and stakeholder reviews with a list of changes to visuals, also consider how words can elevate the design. When preparing to test, review and ultimately launch, always ask these questions:

Where might a user need extra help?
How can this be more clear?
What are all the points a user could become confused?
Where can we delight and elevate with copy?

Tag: ux writing

UX Writing and UX Design: How to Bring Them Together