Who are the UX copywriters? What do they do? Does the team need them? What does a good UX copywriter checklist consist of? Let’s try to figure it out.
This specialty gained popularity in 2015, right after the publications of Google, Apple and Dropbox, job search sites began to rapidly grow with job offers for UX writers.
It’s not a content strategist. It’s not a microcopy writer either. UX copywriters are writers who develop texts for interfaces, software and email campaign based on the user experience of their target audience.
Simply put, they are the voice of a product that allows you to have a humane dialogue with the user. For clarity, open the last update of any application on your smartphone and read the description.
You may find the following text: “Fixed bugs, improved performance. Does it cause any emotional response in you? I think not. But if you find a message that describes each corrected inaccuracy, you can be sure that UX-copywriter has tried to correct it. Such descriptions are usually based on reviews of actual humans who are not satisfied with something in the application.
You might have heard about UX-design. So UX-copywriting contributes to that as well. I’ll go further and tell you that beautifully designed buttons are often less effective without humanized text. But the humanized text without good design and overall experience will work neither.
Properly designed workflow usually begins with the study of the target audience, with the reflection on the meanings and contexts with which UX-specialists will fill their messages.
You might have heard some call it Language Market Fit.
On this basis, it is impossible to answer the question “who is more important: a designer or a copywriter?”, because the result and its effectiveness are the common work of two directions.
Communication between UX copywriters and developers (duh) also helps to get effective results. Without a copywriter, the application remains dry and foreign to a user. For example, the Uber application offers to choose the number of sites to go, and the Lift application – the number of passengers/friends who will go with you.
In the second case, you can see the hand of the UX-copywriter, which has added a friendly and humane touch to the question. Everything in our life consists of trifles, so the choice of taxi service for the user, at least in this example, becomes more or less obvious.
It is useful to hire UX-copywriter so that the whole company will have its own voice, which will be recognized by the users. It is often called Voice Style Guide.
And of course, when you hire a freelancer to do the copy in the application or on the website, you risk getting a mechanical job that is done according to your requirements (the number of characters, the necessary keys, etc.) but has no emotional content inside. An average freelancer will just do the job to get paid. UX-copywriter digs deeper, starting from the study of the target audience, ending with the selection of the right words that create a story and connection between all your products and messages.
Looking at the role of the UX copywriter in the company, we can conclude that it complements each area of work and unites them, making it accessible and understandable for the people who use your product.
To sum it up on UX Writer
Like any other specialist, a good UX copywriter has a list of basic rules to follow in order to get the most out of it. A kind of checklist. Summing up, we have collected the basic rules, which were shared at the Google I/O conference by the employees of the company of the same name:
1. The first thing that UX-copywriter works with, you will be surprised, not the text. The first place in his or her work is always taken by the target audience. It is impossible to create a working text without correct and detailed understanding, or better, empathy for the product’s target audience.
2. Secondly, it is not an easy task to create accessible and clear text, but this is the goal of the specialists of this sphere. The user should understand what steps he or she needs to take to achieve the desired result.
3. After the content is defined, it is necessary to “pack” it well, to create a concise form, to pick up the right words, avoiding colloquiality and jargon, so that the message does not lose its functionality.
4. And, of course, to keep the “voice” of the company, so that all the messages were kept in a single style.
Create meaningful texts, a soulful interface and then come peace and harmony in your relationship with users.