Michael Wall
Nov 2 · 2 min read

Well, I can only speak from experience and what I’ve seen around the web… But I think a lot of the time it’s moot to segment in such a detailed way. We’ll find any one of those titles in a job posting and see that it is just a grab bag of skills that run the gamut from marketing copywriter to tech documentation. I can say that in my experience at small/midsize companies (huge orgs might be a different story, and haven’t spent much time in them), there is rarely room for multiple levels of task breakdown for writers (let alone UX vs. myriad other granular segments). I think a common situation is where there are designated writers for content/marketing stuff and writers for in-product stuff who also handle some technical documentation (now and then).

The problem there is that the skill sets that are often employed in-product copy and technical documentation, they don’t really come from the same root.

Step outside the world of cute web apps and technical documentation can get real heavy, real quick. Generally, it’s not a big priority to keep a keen eye out for mood and emotion in a KB for Rest API calls. Although I love to see it tried.

There is a huge tendency for “UX writers” to talk only about web-based deliverables. Which is unfortunate because there’s a vast universe of client applications that aren’t in-browser. And the ones who bring up UX writing on web pages whose purpose is to present marketing content, some seem to miss the boat completely on the science and application of copywriting principles, with little sense about the positioning and raison d’etre for those web pages (marketing content and conversion/squeeze pages, for example).

It’s really a mixed bag.

    Michael Wall

    Written by

    I strategize for, produce, edit, and classify content/copy—in-house and also provide conversion and UX copy as an independent strategic partner. Proud dad, too!