Book Club: Strategic Writing for UX

One of my goals for 2020 is to master content strategy in all its forms. My experience so far has had more of a marketing and longform copywriting flavor— but there’s so much more to learn! I plan to go through a few different topics on this journey, and I’ll be blogging along the way, so stay tuned for more.

First up, a dive into the empathy-driven world of UX writing.

In Strategic Writing for UX, Torrey Podmajersky brings us a compact but informative guide to UX content strategy. Approachable for novices yet in-depth enough to be useful to more established professionals, the book breaks down guiding principles of UX writing. Podmajersky uses three very different apps as example case studies, taking the reader through each project from start to finish. Perhaps most valuable are tips for working alongside an entire product team, including best practices on how to integrate content strategy into the project in a meaningful and proactive way.

The purpose, value, and process of UX writing is distinct compared to more traditional forms of copywriting, so this was an eye-opening read. Here are three of my key takeaways:

1. Measurable value is for internal stakeholders.

Working with multiple stakeholders is integral to content strategy, and that often includes its own set of questions and headaches. For so many content strategists, the question of how to seamlessly integrate content into the design and development process is a struggle, made harder if their team doesn’t understand the value of good content.

UX writing is integral to the user experience in a tangible way. It’s interactive! This is how “[t]he experience talks to the person with words and visuals, and the person responds by interacting with elements on the screen.”

This is not always the case with marketing copy (though maybe it should be). I tend to think of this copy as more static, while UX writing is interactive.

I was already familiar with testing methods to assess UX copy’s functionality— from a quality/user-value perspective. What I didn’t consider was the role these metrics have in demonstrating the importance, urgency, and value of content strategy to teammates and other stakeholders.

Of course, it makes sense. How do you convince a team of engineers, for example, (who may not be used to working with a dedicated content strategist) that prioritizing a UX writing issue will improve usability? A simple A/B test to show that users will complete an action more quickly and frequently with optimized copy puts a metric to the fix. It demonstrates what we as content strategists already know— purposeful content is invaluable.

2. UX Writing is iterative and process oriented.

I love Podmajersky’s take on UX writing in relation to coding:

Both software engineers and UX writers use the grammars and commands specific to their languages to meet the goals of the organization and the people who use the experience. Both groups work in a process of design, writing, cycles of review and testing, and publishing. Both groups need to be flexible to adjust the idiosyncrasies in the languages, the compilers, the architectures, and contexts the experience lives in.

And this is true. At its heart, UX writing is an iterative process. The final product is only as valuable as the tests it went through, as its integration with the rest of the project, and as its functionality to actual users. Podmajersky sums this up nicely: “writing for UX, just like design and coding for UX, is a design and engineering process. It is an iterative process of creation, measurement, and iteration.” Like code, it’s perfectly suited to agile sprints, user tests, and rounds of edits. This also is part of what makes UX writing such collaborative process. From start to finish, this process can include an entire product and UX team.

3. Errors are opportunities to turn users into fans.

Perhaps most surprising and delightful of my takeaways from this book was this: pitfalls can be our biggest chances to connect with users in meaningful, empathetic ways. When something goes wrong (and it inevitably will), UX writing is how you can guide your user back to enjoying the experience: “when errors occur, text can create detours and provide maps for the person to navigate where they want to go.”

It echoes the sentiment that being able to own up to your mistakes with grace reveals character. Maybe that’s how users view the brand behind an experience when they are eased through an error, bug, or other pain point with empathy. Writes Podmajersky:

Whatever the cause of the break…the organization can either lose the person or support them. By supporting the people in the experience, it can retain and engage those people further. When an organization plans for potential breaks and fixes them ahead of time, it not only can continue to engage the person, it can use the break as a moment to transform person who is merely engaged into a fan.

This is another instance of how content strategy can bring measurable value to an experience (through interviews or testing users’ continued activity after a break, you could pin down the difference UX writing makes).

After all, “the kindest, and most usable, thing the experience can do is to help the person move forward.” And isn’t that what UX is all about? Empathy and usability, and in the end, connecting with the user on a very human level? It’s hard to reach such earnest and pure intentions in other forms of content strategy, and I think that’s my biggest takeaway of all— in the realm of content, UX writing just feels so… wholesome.

This is a great guide breaking down key principles in a relatively new but quickly growing field, and I would definitely recommend it. Check out Strategic Writing for UX here and give it a read.

If you want to discuss UX writing or content strategy with me, well, I’d be honored! Get in touch here.