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Design Process
min read
May 18, 2021
April 9, 2021

What is UX Writing?

What is UX Writing?
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When UX Writing wasn't even a thing, some fairly, 25 years ago Bill Gates wrote an essay "Content is King", he said, “Content is where I expect much of the real money will be made on the Internet, just as it was in broadcasting". Well, how he perceived the greatness of content at that particular point in time turned out to be true.

There has been a dramatic uptick in awareness across the importance of content and over the past few years, there has come a proliferation of content specialist as UX (User Experience) Writers — the ones who write for the web and follow the process of design to write, the ones who research, strategies and write to resonate with the users.

What is UX Writing?

UX Writing is designing with words to make the conversation between the product and its user meaningful.

Content created for UX Writing is concise but at the same time, it is impactful in terms of communication, accessibility, meaning, and the ability to translate according to the user's linguistic, geographical, and cultural environments.

A UX Writer inspires people to take action and make sure that the message is received as intended. They understand the users through research, empathy and follow the design process to design with words. UX Writing is not just limited to what we read when we interact with a website or an app.

Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Cortana and Bixby, all give a seamless experience through the words that are built from the process of UX Writing.

Every word that helps users to communicate with a digital product, spoken or written is a result of a UX Writer's work.

Why is UX Writing Important?

In 2020 there were 2.95 million apps available for download in the Google Play store. There are over 1.8 billion live websites. With the saturated digital market, UX Writing gives a chance to get the right attention from the right user while also helping the users select the right app and website for their work.

Content is everywhere we see, every second that the users spend online they come across a different kind of content. Their attention span is shrinking and at the same time, it is also getting more extreme. That can be explained in a way that, users or we are engaging with things that are both increasingly longer and shorter, anything in the middle tends to feel antiquated. In a complex digital scenario it's critical to break through the clutter by communicating the right message in original, interesting, relatable, clear, and simple words. 

Dropbox, Google, Spotify, Apple, and Airbnb incorporate UX Writing as an integral part of designing and UX Writers are considered an important member of their product and design teams.

Spotify UX Writer Marina Posniak simplified their user experience in a clear and simple language.

Image of Spotify's UX Writing

Apple explains the features of its product, AirPods in a simple, fun, and informative way. The process of UX Writing has helped to create a clear, concise, and useful message for the users while also keeping intact the true product character.

UX Writing for Apple air pods

The power of appropriate words creates effective communication that helps users to complete tasks easily. They help to drive the right engagement and build a long-term relationship with the users. The process of UX Writing has proven to make a product stand out from niche to masses and increasingly competitive marketplace.

In Conclusion

UX Writer's entire focus lies on paying attention to interaction and communication of the product with the users. They are involved with designers and developers from the inception till completion of the product design and development process. The result of that work is the microcopy that helps the users to understand and use the product.

Dropbox UX writer John Saito says that language is now a critical part of design and experience. It’s natural to want to have somebody knowledgeable about words, semantics, style, word choice, and tone.

UX Writing is the quintessence of experience design. The words that come out of this process are useful design elements. These design elements help the users interact, communicate and understand the product. It's how people make sense of the product they use. At the end, one could say that UX Writing was invented for the sake of design.

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