The copywriting process of a non-native UX Designer

Copy is a fundamental component of design.

Published in

Mike Markoglou: The portfolio

3 min readFeb 19, 2023

UX copywriting can be challenging for non-natives. Still, it’s a crucial step to a great user experience. Similarly to salt, it works better when added early in the cooking pot.

Non-natives can have the edge over native speakers

Often, non-native speakers understand non-native speakers easier. I learned that while traveling with my Irish, British, and American friends. Someone who has studied a second language is more aware of the phrasal verbs that can confuse and the verbs or nouns to avoid when explaining something concisely.

I won’t forget my friend who kept telling the taxi driver about our hotel being “close by,” while the taxi driver insisted our hotel was open 24/7. I was the first to understand that the magic word to fix that confusion was "near."

There are 400 million native English speakers and more than 1 billion non-natives. It’s quite possible that your target audience is predominantly non-natives.

How I write copy

Step 1: Research

I start by researching what competitors and other reputable products are saying or writing.

Where to search
Landbook
Pageflows
Screenlane
App Store & Play Store
Dribbble (very cautiously)

Step 2: Crafting copy

I enjoy creating and crafting my own work, so I continue by writing what I say using my flair.

Step 3: Quillbot Paraphrase for Fluency

I fight the beast of second-guessing myself with the power of AI.

Quillbot can rephrase what I’m saying in a variety of ways, but “fluency” is where I begin.

Step 4: Quilbot Simple/Shorten/Creative/Expand Paraphrase

Depending on what I’m working on, I check with QuillBot to see how I could say the same thing more simply or with fewer words.

Rarely, and depending on what I’m working on, I also use Creative or Expand to add a bit of style.

Step 5: Grammarly

Sometimes, I’m not super happy with the suggestions. Then, I pass what I wrote through Grammarly and back to Quillbot (fluency mode) to get final feedback.

Step 6: Testing

The previous steps can only get me as far as the first designs. Copy must be tested to ensure they are fit for use. And to be honest, the best copy usually comes later, straight from a user's mouth.