Practical tips for UX Writers
Hi! Welcome to part 4 of, “Microscopy Writing tips Series”. In the final part(bonus article, coming soon :)), we are going to discuss the survival guide :P for UX Writers in the field. So let’s begin.
1. Measure your copies
“In God we trust; all others must bring data.” — W. Edwards Deming
One of the best ways to prove the value of your UX copies is validating the performance of your copies by measuring their result through KPIs such as:
- Conversion rate vs. drop rate: To understand that whether the user is able to comprehend the language or not, are they feeling confused, lost or disconnected from the content.
- Click-through rate: Are users following the desired funnel or not, are they engaging with the content or not, accomplishing the desired function.
- Customer feedback score: It’s always good to know and hear your customer voices.
- Stakeholders Issue: Those the content, explains the stakeholder vision or aim for the product.
(These are the list of items, that I considered in my copywriting project. If I missed anything, or you do anything more or different. Please do, drop in the comment below. )
2. Collaborate
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much. — Helen Keller
In today’s world more than ever, Where the consumer has an abundance of choice. The businesses are at stake of burning or flying as unicorn based on the value that the brand or the product communicate, to its user.
As a UX Writer, it’s our role to collaborate with UX Designer, UI Designer, stakeholder and users to set the stage for active communication, where it matters. Have to move away from design first mentality and filling lorem ipsum boxes to integrating correct and realistic text. Setting the tone and direction for communication.
3. Speak your Brand
“Words are free. It’s how you use them that may cost you.” -KushandWizdom
It's a good practice to create a document based on your brand voice and tone guidelines of words that are acceptable to use. And to share the same across the team, so your team can always refer to that as the source of truth for all your product communication and copies.
4. Document all
There is no greater feeling of accomplishment than comparing, before and after copies. It helps us to see how our product communication has moved forward, connect to the user and showcase the return of investment (ROI) on the ux copies. It helps in gaining credibility and visibility of your work as a UX Writer.
5. Be Aware
To actively engage with users, it's important to know what they say, what they hear and what they search. Integrating most google searched words in your copies, eventually make the user feel more comfortable and quicker action on the product interface.
6. Hear Feedback, Edit Copies and Grow
One of the interesting thing in Design is that nothing is right or wrong or have a defined rule of thumb. Everyone comes with perspective and optics, at the end what matters is what works and click with the user.
As UX Writer, we should be open to critique and gratefully try to make sense of the words of wisdom. Carry with us, what matters and helps us to deliver better quality work. Analyse, Interpret and apply what makes sense to us and to the user. For, in a product, we are the voice that represents and connect a product to its user.
7. Testing
When in doubt, always talk to users.
After writing endless copies or sitting behind the screen to get inspired by the perfect copies from your competitor. Still stuck with your creative block or tipping over your imposter syndrome. Remember its time to connect to user and test your copies as you do design for their feedback. Check out this blog for your deep understanding.
8. Mindset
Along with the right technical skill, we also need to have the right mindset to function in a team. As a UX writer we need to have two types of mindset, as follows:
- Reactive- Design effective content solution for the product goal and problems
- Proactive- Find problems on your own and not only present them to your team but also craft a probable solution for the way forward :).
Thanks for reading this article in the series. You can also check out the other articles in this series,
What’s up! UI Microcopy where we discuss basic terms and concept of microscopy.
User Conversion with UI conversation where we discuss how effective microcopies can engage users and generate user conversion.
uX your U I microcopies where we discuss which ux tools can be used to help write a better user copies. Cheers!
