Why Your Product Desperately Needs A UX Writer
The UX industry is one of the few industries that constantly shift and change, often radically, to fit the ever-expanding realm of the digital and the forward march of technology that doesn’t seem to be stopping anytime soon. In the midst of this revolution, a new role is born amongst the UXers out of necessity: UX writers.
The necessity which the UX writers are born out of is that the product needs to “converse” more with the users. Good design speaks of the product, but it doesn’t “talk”. UX writers talks with the users through words that the users want to hear and effective microcopies. The way a brand speaks to their consumers defines the way the way users behave towards their product. The users need to understand clearly what we want to communicate to form a bond with them.
The recent rise of conversational interfaces has also brought UX Writer into new heights. UX writers now pour even more time in user research so that the product talks in their language. It is important for the UX writers to take a data-driven approach to their work, similar to those done by the designers. Understanding the demographics and their choice of language helps the UX develop microcopies that sound relatable, and understand what the user wants.
Like human conversations, copies in the UI need to be consistent. Constant changes may just be as unattractive to users as humans with erratic behaviors. We want our message to be clear in every part of our product, starting from our landing page to error messages. Failing to be consistent in writing may just be as risky as it is with UI design.
UX Writers can also guide users in ways even good designs couldn’t. Blinking arrows and colorful buttons can call to the users’ attention, but it takes copy and effective wording to let them know which way to go. The users need to feel like they are making informed choices, not like they are trapped into a certain decision.
One development mistake that might occur which relates to UX writing is changing writings just before the product is released. You need to treat UX writing as an integral part of the development of your product, and integrate it to the phases of building your UI. Avoid using placeholders, and use actual drafts instead. Language-check should be done around in the same time of your product development, far before even the product’s first trial run.
Calling the UX writer a solution to the ever-expanding problem of UI familiarity is not a far-fetched idea. Seeing how rapidly the human interface technology develops, the user experience will grow to be even more important, and with it, the necessity for clear, and concise communication. Hence, human words will play an even bigger part in ensuring effective conversation. And what is better to talk to people than with words?