Catching up with Yuval Keshtcher
An interview with the co-host of our UX writing meetup
On July 4th, we co-hosted the first Microcopy & UX writing meetup at our Amsterdam office with Yuval Keshtcher, founder of the UX Writing Hub and the official Microcopy & UX Writing Facebook group. We met up afterwards to get to know his view on the field.
Hi Yuval! Could you describe the meetup in three words?
Networking on steroids.
We were inspired for sure. Where do you look for inspiration?
I always manage to get inspired using the Microcopy & UX Writing Facebook Group, it’s where UX writers share their best work, thoughts and ideas. And it’s a great place to ask for advice from fellow writers.
We could see that one coming :-) What’s your favorite example of a company that excels in UX Writing?
Lemonade is doing a fantastic job with UX writing, and they impress with their conversational bot as well.
It seems your native Israel is leading the way when it comes down to UX writing and microcopy. What’s your take on that?
If you could read Hebrew, you’d immediately understand how advanced the Israeli UX Writing industry is at the moment. The conversational experiences people create here regularly blow my mind. A great example is invoicing platform Green Invoice. It was created by Tomer Filin and every single piece of content created on its interface is pure UX writing gold. It also helps that the Israeli UX writing community is very supportive and lots of fun. Shout-out to Kinneret Yifrah for that!
You seem to be visiting Europe on a regular basis. Why is that?
At this point I’m trying to decide which city would be best for hosting the Writers in Tech 2020 conference. Top candidates so far include Berlin and Amsterdam.
During our meetup in Amsterdam, I actually met with a few of UX Writing Hub’s students from Belgium and Germany. The fact that they actually came down to Amsterdam shows how easy it is to travel all over Europe. It’s simply amazing! Flixbus and BlaBlaCar are the real MVP’s here.
UX writing is quite hot these days. Aren’t you afraid it’s becoming just another buzzword?
I’ve been on the path of UX writing for three years now and I believe it’s here to stay.
In the future, with the rise of the conversational interfaces, we will need many more writers. Writers from different backgrounds and with different titles on their business cards. Conversation designers, content strategists, product writers, content designers, UX copywriters or whatever.
At the end of the day, you always need someone who knows how to communicate your interface clearly. Nobody has the time to deal with unclear and useless interfaces anymore. Like this one:
How did you come up with the idea for the UX Writing Hub?
It all started when I was interviewing UX writers and posting their stories on our Facebook group. Over 30 people ended up asking me about a UX writing course after reading the interviews.
Back then, there wasn’t anything like this yet. I decided to open up the first training- and one-stop shop for UX writers. Nowadays we also have a blog, newsletter, podcast, job board and a lot of free resources. We kicked off our third program recently, with over 50 alumni out there working for companies such as Mastercard, Careem and many more.
The course carries a whopping pace and is very intense. But then again, our course mentors help students find a UX Writing position after completing the course so that sure helps!
A success, to say the least. Where would you like to see the UX Writing Hub in 2025?
I’d like to see it become the leading training program in the world for writers in tech.
You’re a very busy man. What’s next on your agenda?
I am working full-time for the UX Writing Hub. In order to plan my next agenda, I need to scale! We are actually hiring a Customer Success and Social Media Manager at the moment, to put our growth in perspective. It’s part-time, remote and, most importantly, a lot of fun!
Think this position fits you like a glove? Go on and send your resume to yuval@uxwritinghub.com
