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UX Writing vs Copywriting
Write First, Design Later
I recently stumbled across the term, “UX Writer” and since then I’ve had plenty of questions- the most important one being, “what exactly is UX writing and how is it different from copy-writing?” UX writing in and of itself is not a new concept, but it is a new title that came about as recently as a few years ago. From what I gather from Google’s job description, the job of a UX writer is to:
“Convey brand voice and shape the product experience by crafting copy that helps users complete the task at hand.”
Traditionally, how things have typically progressed is that the design team would design a product and send it over to the the development team who would then build it. Finally this product would arrive to the marketing/advertising team who would then have to use words (copy) to advocate the product and brand to customers. This is where the copy-writing comes in and is defined as:
“The process of writing promotional materials often aimed to get the user to take action.”
In this model, UX and Copywriting are on two opposite sides of the product design process, but as more and more things are shifted to an online platform, the need to have well written copy at the beginning of the process becomes more and more apparent. As UX designers, we are taught that when we design a product, app, or a website, it needs to be user friendly. In fact, it should be more than just “user friendly” it should be intuitive.
The fundamental principles of design — structure, simplicity, clarity, visibility, and feedback- all play a huge role in how we build designs, iterate on them, conduct product research, do testing, and all other aspects of UX design.
So why is it that copy is not a priority earlier in the project sequence? How many companies put out designs that still have Lorem Ipsum to show their teams? Or draft quick copy to add on the site during the testing phase? The answer: too many, and that’s to their detriment.
User Experience as a Conversation.
Users desire more than just pretty colors and nice pictures on their screen. They want more than just functionality and usability. Users want to be understood, and the only way…
