The UX writing revolution has begun (and you’re part of it)

UX writing: what it is, why it’s so important and how to pitch it.

“UX writers thrive on context. Our job is to dig into the weeds, ruthlessly untangling a web of user insights, strategy, and functionality. If all goes well, we emerge on the other side, victorious, clutching a single line of text that explains only what the user needs to do at that exact moment in time. The more we know about and contribute to the product at hand, the better we can speak to it.”

-Sophie Tahran, Senior UX Writer for The New Yorker

I think for most of us copywriters who got into UX writing, we didn’t realize at first that we were wearing a new hat.

We never got hired outright as UX writers. And even if we got involved at the beginning of a project, brainstorming with designers or reconstructing sitemaps so that all the moving parts functioned intuitively, our job was pretty much thought of as “content creation,” not “user experience.”

To the brass, we were still copywriters hired to fill containers with words that would get them more conversions if the story we told was compelling enough.

But make no mistake. Every story you write is a user journey, whether it’s a novel, an article, the homepage of a website or its navigation system. In fact, that’s pretty much the definition of storytelling: leading readers from point A to point B.

And if the route is the essence of a story, the one thing you never want is for readers to be scratching their heads and asking themselves “huh?” anywhere along the way.

That’s why UX writing is important. It’s also why every copywriter (and editor) working on a website or app needs to wear that hat.

Because, as The New Yorker Senior UX writer Sophie Tahran so aptly points out, making website copy work boils down to understanding where it fits in the journey, i.e. its context.

If you want users to get from A to B, in other words, you’ve got to know what that button you’re writing means and what it’s supposed to do, both at that step in the journey and in the broader journey towards “conversion” and beyond.

You not only have to know what it’s doing. You’ve also got to make sure it’s doing its job. Seamlessly.

When it’s not, it’s up to you to point that out to the rest of the team, and offer a better way of interfacing with users.

Another way of putting that?

You are very literally the last line of defense between a website that works and a website designed to confuse.

That’s the idea anyway. Here’s the reality.

UX writing, what’s that?

First, the underpinning philosophy of UX writing, and all the grunt work that goes into it, isn’t the kind of conversation you’ll ever overhear waiting on line at Starbucks.

So it’s not the brass’s fault, or the project manager’s, designer’s or CMO’s fault, if they don’t understand why you’re asking so many questions or why your budget is what it is. UX writing is simply not a widely known specialization.

Which means, for the time being, the burden of proof is on you, the UX writer.

You’ve got to explain your process to stakeholders so that they can appreciate its value and bring you on board when the ideas surrounding a website haven’t already congealed into a head-scratching fun house rigged to disorient unsuspecting visitors.

It’s just a navigation menu, right?

Second — and this is probably more relevant to many of us who don’t write UX for big organizations like The New Yorker or Condé Nast — most of the companies you’ll be working with don’t have the budget or scope for a whole ground-up UX writing build that covers everything from a fundamental grasp of product design to collaboration with in-house marketing and UX teams.

They literally just want you to write the buttons, navigation menus, and notification text.

If that’s the case, then we have three pretty convincing selling points you can use at your next pitch to justify your budget (while proudly wearing your UX writing hat.)

Targeted language

Buttons can’t do much if they don’t know who’s pushing them. That’s why companies that spend time getting to know their target audiences always have websites with the best user experiences. What do their users care about most? What bugs them? What are they looking for? What do they need to read to get hooked?

Copywriters are expected to create that language, yes. But they can’t unless they understand context, nitty-gritty and big picture.

The companies you work with need to know that.

They need to understand that when your job calls on you to probe into every nook and cranny of a website — when you have to take all those buttons and labels and messages apart and put them back together again so that they work at 100% efficiency for a very specific segment of the consumer public — they’re no longer using the services of a copywriter. They’re employing a UX writer.

If the fine points of button microcopy aren’t hitting home, then maybe this will. Companies that don’t fit UX writing into their website or app budgets invariably end up building user interfaces that never reach 100% efficiency.

And who wants that?

Fewer bounces, longer visits

User journey is the backbone of a website, just like story arc is the backbone of a novel or film script. But it can easily slip through the cracks when companies are developing websites.

Developers and designers have got their hands full with functionality, layout and a thousand other things. Traditionally, copywriters are expected to focus on content.

That visitors can actually use a website to find what they’re looking for easily and quickly is simply taken for granted.

UX writers provide this critical oversight, delivering websites with better user journeys, fewer dead ends, and longer visits.

Faster builds, smarter copy

UX writing is more than just contextualizing content. Designers need instructions to integrate copy into their wireframes. Font size and weight (hierarchy). Position on the page (layout). Container type (function).

If companies don’t use UX writers, they’re not only slowing down the whole website build. They’re not getting the most out of their copy.

Here’s why.

Copy all by itself has no hierarchy. It doesn’t speak HTML, so it can’t magically change itself into a heading or subheading, caption text or hover text. It can’t tell designers how it’s supposed to be interacting with the rest of the website either.

Does it need a graphic to get its point across? Would it function better as a link or a button? Or a primary button with a secondary link? A slider or a hero banner? Copy can’t tell designers any of that.

UX writers-part writers, part designers-can.

That’s because UX writers don’t just write copy. They deliver web-ready texts marked with HTML text tags and layout and container suggestions so both developers and clients can get a clear idea of how their content will actually work on the page.

The bottom line

It isn’t as if your pitch is going to miraculously become self-evident to your digital stakeholders any time soon. Website design trends sink into the public conscience indelibly in months, as effortlessly as pop songs. Evolving copywriting philosophies won’t ever.

So, yes, you will have to explain yourself and what you do, probably for as long as you’re in this business.

The good news is that if you can get these key points across clearly and enthusiastically as close to the beginning of a project as possible, you’re giving companies the chance to see the light.

When they do, more “aha” moments will be happening on the drawing board before anyone starts designing or writing, and not after the fifth iteration when you’ve all been stuck in digital quicksand for months.