A Designer’s Superpower: UX Writing
Words are a crucial part of an experience and you’re just the person to craft the right language.
Design solves problems and writing is an essential part of that effort.
By using the right words in your product you can help your users be successful in achieving their goals. In an ideal world, the copy you need to use in your product would be ready before you begin your design process, but usually, there are time and budget constraints, which means you may not have access to a writer, or it could take some time before you get the copy. You’re well into the design process but the copy isn’t available. What do you do?
Do you default to using Lorem Ipsum as a placeholder and wait for content to be ready or do you take ownership and see this as an opportunity to craft the right experience for your users?
Designers are writers
Being the designer, you’re the closest one to the design since you’ve spent enough time with it to know what the user needs to know at each moment to be able to craft the right experience. Help your users achieve their goals by writing the right words. Use this opportunity to practice your UX writing skills.
Crafting the right words is a process which includes:
- deciding on voice and tone
- removing unnecessary words
- collaborating with stakeholders
- editing for clarity
- getting feedback
- testing with your audience
- rinse, lather, and repeat multiple times
Taking a jumble of words through this process and arriving at just the right language for your users takes a steady mindset, focus, and a will to do what is right for the user. This is a big responsibility and you’re the perfect person to do lead this effort.
But you don’t need to do it all alone.
Make use of whoever is available to help you as early as possible in the project to bring the right words together — collaborating with the business, brand, product, or marketing team to arrive at the best language for your users. Each group brings their own experience and viewpoint, which will provide you a holistic view of the context and help you make informed decisions in your writing.
“You don’t start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it’s good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it.
That’s why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.”
― Octavia E. Butler
Write early, write often
Just as you wouldn’t jump to hi-fidelity designs without sketching, prototyping, and testing, it’s never a good idea to run with the first pass at writing. Get feedback from your team to validate assumptions and run the words by your users in the context of the design to check for clarity, tone, and consistency.
In Writing is Designing, Michael J. Metts and Andy Welfle suggest to collaborate with your team to craft the writing as early as possible in the project to be able to shape it since the scope is new and malleable. If you wait to address the writing late in the project, you run the risk of running up against time constraints, which could lock you into content that isn’t validated.
So start as early in your design process as you can to give the copy enough time to evolve into the right language for your users.
Another benefit of writing copy early and incorporating it into the design is that you will help the stakeholders see the full experience just as the users would see it. By seeing the writing in the context of the design, you can have more productive reviews with your stakeholders which in turn helps you move faster and save valuable time.
So now you know why and when you should be writing, let’s look at some of the opportunities to write.
Words create the experience
It’s easy to overlook the small elements such as button labels and error messages in favor of the more prominent elements such as page titles and subheadings but the success of a user interface is dependent on every single component of it, large or small. Paying attention to every single word will make a big impact on the overall experience of your product.
Writing is an essential part of creating great experiences for our users. Take advantage of the opportunities that you get to practice your writing. Some opportunities to write are:
- Button labels
- Error messages
- Page titles and subtitles
- Forms
- Onboarding flows
- Confirmation modals
- Loading messages
- Checkout flows
- Empty states
- Notifications
- And many more!
UX Writing Resources
Want to get started with UX writing? Here are some resources to help you supercharge your writing.
Tools
Grammarly
Grammarly is a great tool to check your writing for grammar and punctuation errors.
Ulysses App
Writing requires focus, and the Ulysses app helps remove the noise as you focus on crafting the right words.
Books
Writing is Designing by Michael J. Metts & Andy Welfle
Writing for Designers by Scott Kubie
Content Strategy for the Web by Kristina Halvorson
Strategic Writing for UX by Torrey Podmajersky
Articles
How to use voice and tone in UX writing
How to build a better product with UX writing
16 Rules of Effective UX Writing
A mega list of UX writing resources
Online Resources
UX writing is a critical part of creating a positive experience with your product. Finding the right words to use is a process, so start writing as soon as you have the opportunity. Collaborate with your team and test with the people using your product.
Using the right words, along with the right design and interactions, make great experiences.
Keep on writing!