Steve Howe, Typeform
I’m 33.33% of the copy team at Typeform. We’re based in Barcelona.
How did you get into UX writing?
Honestly? I stumbled into it.
I’ve written my whole life. The first thing I ever wrote was a comic book parodying storylines from classic Nintendo games. I sold them at school for 50 pence each until my teacher caught me and confiscated all my stock.
I studied Media & Modern Literature at Goldsmiths University, London. The course was broad — from linguistics to journalism and everything in between. But I really got into short stories, and turned my hand to them. The joy (and challenge) of packing a glimpse of truth into a few thousand words really appealed to me.
Like most English students, I then did something completely unrelated to my degree and worked in services for homeless people.
Tired of summers that last a week at best, I moved to Barcelona and worked as an English teacher, translator, and freelance copy editor before getting a shot with Typeform. Even then UX writing was alien to me — I was more of a generalist . But it quickly became apparent that we needed a writer to focus specifically on our product.
What does a normal day look like?
Before I even get to work I try to read for 45 minutes, then write for 45 minutes. It could be anything — in fact I find it’s best if it’s unrelated to work.
A day full of surprises is a normal day at Typeform. I usually start with copy revision and editing. My colleague Paul is based in the US, which is nice because I write something, go to bed, then in the morning feedback magically appears. He’s the tooth fairy of the editing world.
Then it could be anything. Meeting with product designers to go through new feature flows, brainstorming or presenting copy for product-related marketing campaigns, giving and getting feedback, checking in with our localization agency, strategizing and improving our processes. Most importantly, I block off time to write.
What are the top 3 apps you use?
Slack for quick comms (although I switch it off when I’m writing). Google Docs for writing, collaborating, and editing with other writers and designers. Abstract to collaborate with designers on their Sketch files and get context for the words. Can I have one more? Airtable. Our copy team are big fans. We first used it to do a copy audit of our product a year ago and haven’t looked back since.
Where do you go and what do you do for inspiration?
I completely switch off if I want inspiration, because my experience is that the best things come after I refresh my mind. I play a lot of football (soccer to friends across the Atlantic) and getting booted in the shins for a couple of hours usually works wonders.
I’d recommend in-depth conversations with people you relate to. I try to practise active listening as much as possible (still fail at it most of the time). You learn a great deal, but also — crucial for anyone writing for an audience — you notice how people talk, the natural language they use. We try to channel that as much as possible when writing for Typeform, our voice is conversational.
Learning a language is also a good one. You start seeing the nuts and bolts of your native language as you learn another.
Reading is crucial. Personally, I can’t write if I don’t fuel it. I actively seek recommendations from people and put them onto a list that never ends.
Are there any books or blogs you’d recommend?
Yes! I love the Farnam Street blog by Shane Parrish, which helps people “master the best of what other people have already figured out.” I also subscribe to Wait But Why — infrequent but insightful long form articles on life. And The Hustle — a daily digest of tech and business news that always makes me laugh.
Here’s a list of books that have impacted me in 2018:
An accessible examination of humanity’s future.
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories, Lucia Berlin
Beautiful, funny, poignant short stories about society’s underdogs.
Attrib. and other stories, Eley Williams
If you love short fiction and playful linguistic gymnastics, you’ll love this.
When Coffee & Kale Compete, Alan Klement
Really unlocks ways to make innovation practical and not just theory.
Conversational Design, Erika Hall
I love the way she briefly explores the history of communication then applies it to interaction design.
Metaphors We Live By, George Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Reveals the metaphors hidden in language we take as “literal”. Opens up opportunities to be more creative with everyday terminology.
What have you worked on that you’re most proud of?
As a copy team, we identified opportunities to practise what we preach. Typeform transformed forms. Our founders took something that was like an interrogation — NAME? AGE? COUNTRY? — and turned it into a conversation.
But we noticed some content we published didn’t take the same approach. Job postings on our careers page, for example. We started started thinking about them as we would a blog article. We now add quotes from the hiring team so the reader can get a peek at our culture. We remove verbs we’d never use in everyday conversation.
We recently took a similar approach to GDPR. We noticed it was something that a lot of companies didn’t want to speak about in a clear way. When we first drafted content, it didn’t feel like it matched our DNA. So we wrote an email that was clear and playful, with terms and conditions in plain English to match. We got a good reaction to that.
Another big piece of work I’m proud of is making our product’s voice consistent. Before I started, we never had a dedicated UX writer — product copy could come from anywhere. It took months of collaboration with product designers and devs, and I think together now we’re more confident about “what we sound like”.
How do you approach getting stakeholders on board?
Face to face conversations. Getting up from your computer can be tougher than you think, because instant messaging is so pervasive. But it’s worth it, because it’s easier to practise empathy. Listening is key. I try as much as possible to understand every team’s needs, culture, processes — then adapt to them. When people see you approach collaboration in a positive way it’s easier to accept your point of view. Having this broad understanding of the entire company helps when it comes to writing for different audiences, too.
What are the biggest challenges you face as a UX writer?
Currently it’s not knowing how our copy is being perceived by people who use the product. We can easily measure things like sign ups, feature adoption, etc. But we have no idea if we’re hitting the right tone. Are people getting tasks done despite a bit of confusing copy? Does that joke we added affect clarity? Are the benefits of that integration accurate? We can work off intuition, but it’s essentially guesswork. We want to tackle this with better testing to know if our words are working. In a nutshell: talk to users more.
As the only UX writer, there’s a lot of focus switching. Product teams are working fast to deliver more value to our users, which means a “copy request goes in → copy comes out 3 days later” model doesn’t cut it. I need to be on hand all the time, working with product designers and developers. That can be quite demanding.
What’s your biggest content pet peeve?
Saying something’s awesome when it’s not.
Dehumanizing people by labelling them in other ways.
Telling me how I feel when I use a product. “We get it. You’re X. But we can fix that with Y.”
Clichés.
Do you have any advice for aspiring UX writers?
Write a lot, and get it critiqued. Messages go two ways — you’ll only know how clear yours is when you ask your audience.
Teach English. I know it’s not easy advice to implement, but it really helped me get to grips with grammar. Most people, including me, forget what they learn at school. Teaching can reactivate your power with words and shift your attention to the finer details — essential for UX writing.
Is there anything you want to promote?
Yep. Head over to our careers page. We’re hiring two email marketers and two designers — including a senior interaction designer and a senior product designer.
I’m biased of course, but my colleagues produce consistently fantastic content for our blog. We recently released a couple of documentary-style short videos about our rebranding and overhaul of the product.
Where can people find and follow you?
Here’s my website and feel free to add me on LinkedIn. I’d love to hear from you.
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every word matters is curated by Dominic Warren.
Thanks again to Steve Howe for taking the time to answer these questions.
