Starting any content and design project brings its own challenges, and it applies to a UX writing project as well. I have not worked on a project that asked me to do only UX writing but I have the experience to share my thoughts on how you can plan starting a new UX writing project. Of course it depends on the organization size, team structure, product velocity, and many such factors and it means that your process and approach can expand or shrink correspondingly, to respond to the leverage or constraints.
Step 1: Get into the brand message
The best thing is to get into the brand message—ask them if they have a documented reference to the brand vocabulary, voice and tone, or the message itself. See getting started with the strategic brand narrative for more information on the brand vocabulary.
Ste 2: The product message that lives outside the product
Make a plan to understand how the folks in marketing and sales craft their message. Do they follow the brand message, or product’s design style guide, or the design system if they have one? How does the support team respond to the tickets?
Step 3: Validate the interface for customer journey
Users interact and validate an interface based on the interface text. Plan UX content cloud to prepare different sets of terms, phrases, and messages. You can organize these for user sentiment, user goal, user intent, product narrative, interface story—and assign different variables such as for accuracy, clarity, role in customer success, role in business success, compliance to brand message, compliance to brand voice and tone, merit to take the product vision, and so on.
Step 4: Document the edge cases.
You will always find use cases that might not be important for the masses but these might be important for specific user segments. Make sure that you document the edge cases and communicate these to the product team for a common reference. It also helps the support team which means that the customer requests are not escalated—being prepared always helps.
Step 5: Specific focus on the forms
The forms are such an important product experience elements for all the users types. While planning content for the forms, you need to raise the game to focus more. On an online form, every word matters. A single word can be the difference between a customer submitting a form or dropping the form midway. Look at the stakes—users share some information. Focus on the structure and respect their attention and their apprehensions when they share it.
The UX writing project
Your core UX writing work might confine to the product interface content only but this content exists and becomes a part of the product content strategy, and the branded content. Our job is to help the customers take the right actions when they are using the product and while making decisions.
An equally important part of our job is also to make the customers an easy and smooth switch from and to other brand touch points whether it is in marketing emails, support tickets communications, a product webinar hosted by the sports team, or the product’s footprints at an industry event. Words play the most important part here—which means that we should plan the UX writing projects very carefully.
I am running an advanced course on product content strategy, content design, and UX writing, tweet to me if you have any questions.
