10 Ways Writers and Designers Pair Skills to Build Better User Experiences
Check out these hands-on techniques to work more closely and effectively with your UX team partners.
Have you worked with a copywriter or designer and wondered how they do their creative magic? Project motives and merits vary, but aligning the right “words” and “pictures” is always a UX priority. Content and design teams share creative space like two sides of the same coin. Our Predix writers and designers are regularly familiar with each other’s work. Below are some collaboration steps that work for us, and we hope will help your teams, too.
1. Buddy-up your principles
The starting place for any creative project is to understand each other’s current processes and mind-sets. The left hand should know what the right hand is doing. Content and design teams can advocate for one another’s best practices by identifying their latest purposes, approaches, and means.
What we do: We often sit alongside our Predix content or design peers while we co-create, and learn each other’s solutions on-the-spot. (Emails and texts are best for follow-up conversations.) Sometimes our working lunches are actually about work, as we share fresh thoughts and spontaneous insights.
2. Have an equal say in plans
Your teams should contribute equally at a project kick-off. Maintain focused meetings, too, and avoid the He said/She said later. Be of one mind when UX requirements are presented and negotiations for content and design priorities are decided.
What we do: Do you ever get stuck having a kick-off for a kick-off? We avoid this churn with Predix meeting agendas that share purposes, roles, steps, actions, and even docs. It’s great to know where content and design peers stand when you discuss a common UX path forward.
3. Brainstorm big time
Schedules permitting, allow meaningful project prep time. Have your content and design teams bring their unique research and perspectives to a workshop. Brown bag it, and bar the door. Fill whiteboards with ideas using little or no bias, capture insights, and consult on copy and design aims.
What we do: Predix whiteboards chart our get-to-it conversations. Our content and design teams often wind up with sophisticated concept sketches showing the arrows and boxes that keep us thinking clearly. We have note-takers, post-it people, and photo-shooters who capture the growth of the group wisdom.
4. Get wired
Put your whiteboard concepts into practice with prototype webpages. In full visibility, have content and design teams create the initial versions together. Draft a copy doc and a design sketch, and merge them into a single interface wireframe with placeholder copy and visual mock-ups.
What we do: Most serious wireframes have similar goals and obvious ends. Predix places special emphasis on how we debate our work. Our wireframe is the first shared expression of our content and design vision for the customer. So we poke, prod, and push each other’s ideas to the utmost readiness.
5. Play nice with UX teammates
In preparing webpages for development, your teams may campaign for their favorite copy templates or design patterns. A little professional quibbling is good. Your ultimate agreements should help you choose cool copy and design components that also make seamless webpages.
What we do: Where would we be without our style guides? We have distinct Predix docs — some citing the content “musts” and others the design “how-tos”— and we consult them like bibles. The beauty part is when we get consensus recommendations, and we can build faster and with more confidence.
6. Share the UX love
Once you’ve produced an interactive demo of webpage copy and design, it’s time to show off your UX collaboration. Give your project sponsors (product, marketing, support, legal, etc.) key input and approval before publication. Stand together in your UX recommendations, even as you accept change requests.
What we do: Our Predix review process is honest and fair. Not to say painstaking at times. And it’s all for the good because our content and design teams catch pre-launch red flags. This mostly involves making copy updates to products or policies but can include switching logos or images affecting layouts.
7. Ask how you’re doing
Teamwork is great, but go easy on the champagne just yet. Once you’ve launched your webpages, the next step is to test the user response. Once again, you’ll want content and design teams working with one voice to ask key questions about why users like or don’t like the copy and design interface.
What we do: We engage with our Predix user research and testing teams. They produce detailed user personas and conduct user testing sessions for us. The trick is to produce consolidated content and design use cases and scripts that rate relevant feedback. When we score well, the user wins.
8. You’ve gotta iterate to be great
Quality content and design teamwork is accomplished through project iterations. Try, try again. Articulate and practical user feedback leads to more knowledgeable copy and design responses. That way, creative missteps become motivation for making smarter, more desirable user experiences.
What we do: Predix UX researchers provide findings quickly, so we can rethink and rework pages, and not skip a beat. Our content and design teams mutually interpret user feedback and agree on updates. We focus on making called-for adjustments, and not throwing the baby out with the bath water.
9. Back up each other’s work
No website page is ever “finished.” We all tweak like there’s no tomorrow. The organic nature of the work assures teams will do retrospectives with post-production assessments. If there were ignored steps, miscommunication, or lowered standards, content and design teams stop at nothing to find and fix them.
What we do: There’s no pointing fingers; we’re all in it to win it. Predix copywriters and designers are consumers of each other’s work. So we’re in the best position to offer informed and objective critiques. Writers check layouts, designers scan text, and together we find common understanding for future fixes.
10. Be better together
What’s the value of content and design teams doing overlap work? You could argue teams produce better on their own, if the goal is not to get in each other’s creative ways. But there’s more efficiency and flexibility–and inherent potential–when work is mutually transparent, complementary, and adaptive.
What we do: Rather than accept creative silos (though we respect unique content and design skills), Predix teams prefer the webpage whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. We foster specific UX exercises that challenge content and design assumptions, so that neither team owns a webpage, and both can claim its success.
Thanks to Dan Harrelson and Diana Freeman-Baer for their support.
