7 Pillar Skills of Product Content Strategy in 2020
Imagine downloading a new app on your phone only to realise that it has no words that explain what you should do, that label the different sections, or that tell you what ButtonX is and does.
Instead, you find an intricate arrangement of different colourful shapes, icons, animations, etc.; all of them prompting you to perform actions you’re not even clear about or aware of. Wouldn’t you delete the app as quickly as you downloaded it?
Now, that chaos is what digital experiences will look and feel like without the intervention of Product Content Strategy, also known as UX Writing. The role of the product content strategist is to shape the voice and tone of digital products while using words to design how users navigate the product’s interface by ensuring that users understand what each component of the interface means and/or requires them to do.
Although a relatively new field in the world of digital product design, product content strategy is quickly solidifying its place as a core design discipline as its relevance in the design process is quickly becoming mainstream. Even large tech companies like Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Apple are also rapidly expanding their team of product content strategists/UX writers in order to design more user-friendly products.
As most product content strategists typically come from a wide range of backgrounds, identifying the core skills required to succeed in this field can, most times, be a confusing undertaking.
From our experience and our research, we’ve found the following to be the pillar skills worth mastering in order to succeed in product content strategy in 2020:
Succinct Writing
The entire discipline of product content strategy is built on the foundation of stellar editorial skills. Therefore, it should be no surprise that the ability to craft concise strings of words for the UI that convey unambiguous messages and instructions, is a prerequisite of product content strategy.
Product Savvy
It is impossible to make meaningful design decisions for a product you don’t understand. It is important to develop a thorough understanding of the product, including the seemingly technical bits, to be able to explain even the complex parts of the product to the user in as few words as possible.
Strategy
Product content strategists should be able to adopt systems thinking models to understand the broader implications of the content they create. By thinking strategically about these things, they will be able to minimise the occurrence of inadvertent miscommunications or misinterpretations in UI.
Empathy
Writing for the end-user, which is the primary concern of product content strategy, cannot be possible without the ability to recognise and be in tune with the needs and pain points of the users in question. Writing with empathy for the end-user makes it easier to decide what to prioritise as it keeps the needs of the user at the centre of the design process.
Research
To identify and understand users’ needs and pain points, product content strategists must be able to conduct basic user research at least. This is contingent on being able to ask the right questions and on being a keen observer of how users engage with different words and information architectures in order to conduct product iterations based on concrete information rather than assumptions.
Relationship Management
Most product content strategists work within a design team consisting of product designers, UX researchers, interaction designers and an even larger product team comprising software engineers, product managers, data scientists, etc. Therefore, in order to collaborate effectively, product content strategists must be skilled at managing multiple relationships with different stakeholders.
Critical Thinking
The process of writing for digital interfaces requires a lot of decision-making. From as little as deciding what syntax of words most enhances comprehensibility to as large as deciding the overall voice and tone of a product or suite of products, product content strategists need to be able to think critically by thoroughly evaluating competing alternatives in order to maximise user delight.
