Applied UX Content Writing
A helpful template to be apply effective UX Content Writing in your organization.
This article provides a brief application of how designers can plan effective UX Content Writing to their design team or organization. It’s adapted from Tori Podmajersky’s book, Strategic Writing for UX, where a full description, exemplars, and a detailed application is covered. The book illustrates how understanding product principles can inform the tone and voice of all the content in the product or experience you are designing for.
Here is a link to a UX Content Writing template that can be used to apply the sections below.
Product Principles
Product principles define what the experience is trying to be from the lens of end users. When the voice and tone of UX writing are aligned with the product principles, then those principles can be conveyed clearly with every word read by the end users. Ultimately, there should be a direct relationship between a product’s design principles and every one of its features or functions.
Product Principles Examples
Here are some examples of product/design principles:
UX Content Writing Goals
The purpose of UX content writing is to achieve two sets of goals:
- The goals of the organization responsible for the experience.
- The goals of the people using the experience.
We can then align these goals to inform the tone and voice of the UX content of any product or experience under the organization only when these goals are identified. Here are two questions to consider when designing for specific flows of a product.
What are the company goals of the x flow?
What are the consumer’s goals of the x flow?
Organization X Product Principles
What are 3–4 product principles that can inform the voice and tone of content writing?
Principle 1
Principle 2
Principle 3
Principle 4
Principle 5
Voice Chart
The last section of this template includes a voice chart to begin describing you product principles in relation to Concepts, Vocabulary, Verbosity, Grammar, Punctuation, and Capitalization. I’ll write more on this on my next post on UX Content Writing.
I hope these thoughts and practices can be used in applying effective UX Content Writing for your next design sprints. Let me know how it goes!
David is a Product Designer at City of Wind Design, a design studio that specializes in serving startups through UX design & software development with a bias toward accessibility & sustainability. To learn more about David Pinedo visit: https://www.davidpinedo.com or follow @davidpinedo24 on Twitter.
