3 Must Have Resources for a UX Writing Career

It’s amazing when I see job postings for UX writing positions and part of the requirements are “3-5 years UX writing experience”. I don’t think it’s dawned on most companies yet that UX writing isn’t exactly an ancient profession. In fact, it’s so new that as of last check, Glassdoor doesn’t even recognize it as an official job title.

So what gives? UX writing is a new discipline combining some elements of copywriting, content writing, and a little UX design. The definition, or at least my definition, is that it’s the art writing professional copy for a digital product with a purpose to engage and interact with the user.

That means that every piece of content a UX writer creates has to have a distinctive purpose to keep it’s user engaged through a design process; in most cases this means the copy you see on an app or mobile platform.

Because UX writing is such a new profession, there is a limited amount of resources or references for how to develop the craft. After all, there’s no UX writing degree, or even certification at this point.

How do you break into UX writing?

The most obvious answer is to work in house at a company that engages with digital products. If you’re working for a company with an app or website, it’s likely that you already have a UX writer (even if it’s not exactly called that). For many people, it usually starts by accepting a role as a digital marketer, copywriter, or even UX designer, and gradually shifting the focus or responsibility to UX writing specifically.

But what about the people just trying to break into the field from a clean slate?

Many design and technical schools now offer UX Writing specific courses to educate people on the craft of UX writing. Some colleges now offer it as well.

But if you’re looking for some online material, here’s the best I found personally:

3 Online Resources on UX Writing

1. Microcopy: The Complete Guide by Kinneret Yifrah. This is the definitive UX Writing copy book according to many others in the field, including myself. Kinneret does a masterful job breaking down the purpose behind each UX strategy, and how UX Writers can maximize their impact.

2. Facebook Groups. This might not sound like the best place to go for writing tips, but there are a few solid Facebook groups dedicated to UX writing that I think pay off wonderfully. I have not only received a job offer through connections I’ve made in one, but have also learned valuable insight and expertise by some of the best in the field.

3. Medium. Hands-down the most important and viable platform to receive helpful tips, industry expertise, and staying ahead of current trends and news, Medium has something for everyone, at every skill level. Their articles on UX writing far surpass anything you’ll find currently whether in a text book or classroom. I have some articles I’ve written myself which you can read here: https://medium.com/@leonardraymundo

As with anything, UX Writing is a discipline that requires a little of professional insight mixed with a little first-hand experience and experimentation. Thankfully, there are a number of ways to get professional expertise without the need to fork over thousands to a university. I suggest starting out by networking on Facebook or LinkedIn, and take at least an hour each day to learn about the process of UX writing, depending on how serious about it you want to get.

Hopefully you’ll find these as useful as I have.

When Being a "Writer" Doesn't Mean What You Think it Means

So true story: In the middle of working on content to write this article, I attended a free class at the School of Visual Concepts in Seattle (a school for creatives which I can't possibly recommend more), and the lecture was about portfolios, resumes, and interview success. A copywriter friend and I sat in a panel of recruiters in the creative industry, talking about what it takes to land a dream job. 

However, as the class went on, my friend and I looked at each other because we suddenly felt very out of place. 

She wrote on my notepad "I feel like this lecture is VERY designer centric." She underlined very quite a few times. 

I nodded my head in agreement, but rather than embarrassingly walking out of a crowded room, we sat and listened. And it dawned on us perhaps at the same time: While some of the specific strategies were design focused, the basic principles for good design and good copywriting are universal not only in execution, but how they are applied to the workplace. 

There was once a time where simply being a writer was good enough. For you millenials out there, we used to have this thing called a typewriter where you actually typed on these metal keys that would stamp ink onto actual sheets of paper. There weren't even emoticons to express what we felt. Instead, we had to use real words.  

It was a weird time for everybody. 

But along came the processor chip and our lives changed forever. Nowadays, being a writer means more than just typing words, it means thinking about the overall visual presentation. You are a creative, an idea person, and a better designer than you probably think you are. You know what looks nice and what doesn't, right? 

This probably sounds like common sense to you, but check out this stat that I definitely did not Google or look up for fact checking:

The average user spends less than 5 seconds on a website/link before they get bored and look elsewhere. 

What does this all mean for writers? This means that we as writers have to think visually, in order to truly put great ideas on the table. 

It will benefit you as a copywriter to learn a thing or two about good design. This doesn't mean you have to spend your life savings taking a design class at the Art Institute, it just means knowing what the difference between serif and sans-serif is. Knowing how to properly apply white space. Knowing your color wheel. Knowing the difference between a well designed page, and a page that is simply doing too much. 

What's more, think about the fact that you will probably be working very closely with graphic designers, illustrators, UX designers, AD's, etc. and you will likely have to learn to speak their language.

And in case that's not enough to convince you, just know that the hiring manager at a creative agency or enterprise will likely be an art director with a background in visual design, so it would benefit you to be on their same page (man, I probably should've just started with that). 

If you are a copywriter, marketer, content writer or pretty much anyone whose job it is to write words, and you aren't thinking about visual design; the chances are that you are behind the eight ball. 

Writing Copy for the Tech Crowd

You’ve just been given a copywriting project. The goal is to write copy that will get people talking about a new technical product or service. In other words, your objective is to build hype. Maybe you know exactly what it does, or what it’s supposed to do. But it’s likely that if you were quizzed about the more technical features of the product, you’d probably fail.

So now you do your research. You look at similar products on the market and it finally starts to click. You’re beginning to understand the product and the people who might buy it, so now all you have to do is make a start on the writing.

You think about your audience. They’re smart, knowledgeable about tech, and well connected – mid-level professionals who are busy and may need this product to improve their productivity and save time. So you start typing, and maybe you’ve got it figured out. But if you find yourself thinking “I’ve got to sound smart, and technical….”, you need to slow down and re-think.

Before you start going down the path of making yourself needlessly erudite and tech-savvy it’s important to remember that good copy isn’t about sounding smart – it’s about selling a product. Here are three rules-of-thumb you need to keep in mind when writing copy for a tech product:

1. Avoid jargon. SEO, ISP, DNS. I know what these mean, and I’m not that technical. You probably know what it means. But that doesn’t mean your customers do. Just spell it out, at least once. There may be a portion of your audience that will thank you for it, and that means more sales.
2. Be clear and sell the benefit. This is the whole “not trying to sound too smart” thing. Stop brainstorming ways to sound smart, focus on the benefits of what you are selling. Streamlined optimization? Try “It’s twice as fast as our previous version.” That, I will buy. And speaking of optimization…
3. Avoid words that aren’t really words. Optimization, actionable, bandwidth. These are fancy words, but do nothing but fill customers heads with complexity and pixie dust. Try: Faster, more efficient, effective, time saving……it won’t make you sound dumb, it will make your audience feel smart.

You might be thinking: this sounds great, but its not realistic. Technical people want to know that you speak their lingo, right? Or what about the clients that like this sort of speak? But wait – technical people still speak plain ol’ English. And so do clients. Avoid big, smart, and technical terms, and instead aim for simple English with a dash of quirkiness. Technology, at its core, should be easy. At the end of the day, isn’t technology about making our lives easier? Why should the content we write about it be any different? So don’t write it as complex as the technology itself. Streamline….errr, I mean make it easy.