Is this you? As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.
Claim your profile
Articles by Ux Writing
11 key content design considerations
I’m a content designer at Microsoft. My job is to design the content experience for our products, specifically, the Microsoft 365 admin center. The content experiences I work on help customers sign up for, set up, and manage Office apps and services.This content design work includes the following: Information architecture, or how the customer navigates through the admin center. Information pacing, or making sure just enough information is presented to the customer at the right time.
Five UX writing job trends to look out for in 2021
If you spend as many hours as I do reading ‘UX Writer’ job adverts you start to notice some trends. For example, what’s the difference between a ‘Content Strategist’ and a ‘Content Manager’? I’ve spent hours thinking about the differences between the two. I never said it was a glamorous job but somebody has to do it. As we roll through the new year, I thought it was time to take stock and share five important trends for the next couple of years.
Announcing the New York Times App for Slack
The app includes a ‘Popular in Your Workspace’ feature and a great read of the day selected by Times editors. Illustration by Jenice Kim By Anna Dubenko and Scott Sheu Over the last few years, The New York Times Audience team began paying attention to how Times journalism was shared in private messaging spaces like text, email and other chat platforms. The team began thinking about how to deliver our journalism that fit our readers’ needs.
Do in-app marketing right: Remove the friction
Friction-free is the way to be A few months ago I fired up Webex Teams at work to check for a message from someone, but what did I see the minute Teams loaded? A giant pop-up message about all the cool new features Webex had added. Yeah, not interested. Annoyingly interrupted by friction, I was on a mission because I had something important to get done—stat! To make matters worse, there was no way to dismiss this giant eyesore. No button. No “X” at the top right. Nothing.
“Learn more” is not enough: A case for descriptive CTAs
Have a look around a few websites. Chances are that you’ll see at least a couple of “Learn more” links. While CTA links like “Learn more” are found all over websites and within apps, they don’t bolster the user experience. First of all, what’s a CTA? CTA stands for call-to-action and refers to the prompt for users to take an action. It can be a button, a hyperlink, or even an image but the text generally denotes the action you want a user to take. Why is “Learn more” everywhere?
Your entire design team should write microcopy • UX Writers Collective
As content designers, it’s easy for us to understand why microcopy is so valuable. We’ve even become pretty great at convincing product managers and design leads why they should invest in dedicated UX writers. But this has an unintended consequence. It may cause those on the design team to think that microcopy and other UX writing responsibilities should only be handled by the writer.
Tips for your UX writing portfolio when you’re starting out
UX Writing by Andy Welfle One of the ways I’ve been trying to make a positive difference during this lost COVID-19 season is to hold office hours for unemployed or emerging UX writers. I hear over and over again from writers in other industries — journalists, marketing copywriters, technical writers, etc. — that they’re pretty interested in UX writing but just don’t know how to break into the field. I get that.
How to complete a UX writing challenge during the interview process
Getting started The user experience (UX) writing field is growing rapidly but remains relatively new in the greater ecosystem of UX. It’s still figuring itself out as a discipline, which means there are many different approaches to the process of writing UX copy. Drawing from the standard practice in UX design, your potential employer may give you a challenge during the interview process for a UX writing position.
What Is UX Writing & Who Are UX Writers? • UX Writers Collective
This blog post is made up of material from the first 3 lessons (out of 44) of the UX Writing Fundamentals course– written by senior UX writers from Google, Amazon, Intuit, and more top companies. If you enjoy this sample, enroll in the class today! So what is UX writing? UX writing (user experience writing) is the practice of crafting the customer-facing text or copy that appears within the design of digital products.
Knowing how brains work will make you a better content designer
Understanding how we think and act can help you craft better content for your customers. As a content designer or UX writer, you know what sounds good. You know your company’s voice and tone. You know that words matter because people don’t read much on a screen. You probably also know good UX from bad UX. But do you know why? You can make better content choices when you understand how your customers think and act. This is where cognitive psychology comes in.
Write and design a chatbot • No coding required • UX Writers Collective
Curious about how to write and design chatbots? This post is made up of material from the first few lessons of our Chatbot Writing & Design course. If you’re a UX writer, content strategist, developer, project manager, product manager, producer, or anyone interested in learning how to create a chatbot, this course is for you.
The Beginner’s Guide to Microcopy
Four tips for writing great microcopy and how it can help your bottom line Photo: BongkarnThanyakij/Getty Images Which sign would you prefer to find on the coffee machine when you get to the office in the morning? This one: Or this one: This isn’t exactly microcopy because it’s not a digital product—it’s a paper sign. But the difference between the two signs is the essence of microcopy.
You’re not still using “Read More” are you?
It’s probably not the first time you’ve heard that using links like “Read More” or “Click Here” is bad practice. This topic has been widely discussed and the internet is packed with information about why it sucks. If you’re still making links like “Learn More” in 2020, it’s really time to kick this habit to the curb. If you’re not, you can probably stop reading… But, are your alternatives that much better?
15 failed attempts at describing UX writing at parties
What’s that weird feeling? Ah, yes. The imposing dread of explaining what I do for a living. Photo by Antenna on Unsplash “I’m a UX writer.” “What’s that?” “You know apps?” (chuckles) “Yes, I do know apps.” “What’s your favourite app?” “Well I subscribe to The New York Times, I use that a fair bit.” “Right. Well in your New York Times app, there are a lot of words.” “Yes. Oh, you write articles? You’re a journalist?” “Umm, no.
UX Design Trends for 2020
“User Experience” has been one of the buzz-words of the last decade. In the years gone by, UX has gone from being just another catchphrase in the world of design to the make or break ingredient in the world’s most iconic digital products. Research suggests that an average individual spends over two hours on the phone daily, and most of the time is spend on apps that are not even a decade old.
Writers with biometric devices measuring brand voice
Though limited, here are methods my team and research partners resorted to, what worked and what didn’t. Human Perception AI Working with a company called Affectiva, we experimented with the latest emotion technology. We created flows that carried different versions of voice. The researchers set up participants with the task and left the lab. Affectiva technology captured face recognition data as participants read and clicked through the prototypes.
Content: the design system element you forgot
Design and content are interdependent. For a design system that genuinely scales, integrate content. This was the question my ex-colleague Jonathon Colman raised this question on LinkedIn. The answers given by designers ranged from ‘each use case is so contextually specific’ to ‘it’s not because language isn’t important, it’s because design and code are more impactful to a team’s ability to ship product’.
Personajes, Brand Voice y Voice Tone para UX Writing
De la ilustración a la escritura de experiencia de usuario: ¿y ahora dibujo o escribo? Ilustraciones de Luisa Brandt. “¿Entiendes o quieres que dibuje?” La pregunta que no quiere callar resuena cada vez que se necesita el chiste. El dibujo es la forma más antigua de comunicación, libre de los “lazos” de idiomas y modas.
This is how we built a content strategy team from the ground up
Image by dappledesigners at Pixabay When I first told a design peer that our new content strategy team wouldn’t write a word for users, his mouth fell open. As a 35-year-old software company, Intuit has a history of equating content with writing. If there was a content problem, hire more writers. Over time, many content writing teams were formed, resulting in publishing silos, suboptimal content management, and way too much content scattered all over. This isn’t a unique story.
WeWork copywriting: what they say to 1.47 million pageviews every month
This article is an excerpt of the original, published here.
A new way to talk about content strategy
I don’t know about you, but I need methodology and theory to be really simple, and also visual. ‘Draw me a diagram’ is often my go-to line. I find it very hard to make the abstract tangible and practical without clear diagrams and examples. For this reason I sometimes struggle to articulate content strategy to clients and colleagues. It’s essentially the substance, tools, people and process that get you to your outcomes — or how to focus your efforts to achieve your goals.
A mega list of UX writing resources
Books, articles and podcasts to feed your UX writer mind A little over a year ago, I landed my very first job in UX. UX never felt like a career option for me. It just wasn’t on my radar, because it’s for designers right? People who are good with visuals and typography and all that wizardry? And design doesn’t have much to do with words, does it? (Oh now there’s an article for another day…). So, anyway. It turns out I was wrong. Words have a LOT do with design.
How to write for interactions
Improve your designs and communicate concepts through better word choices Interaction design is inherently connected to language and communication. I’m a UX designer, so this is an integral part of my job. I was also a content strategist and copywriter for about a decade, and I notice that writing is something designers can struggle with. This article shares some common writing conventions that are key for interaction design. Dos and don’ts, and a few helpful tips to improve user experience.
UX Writing and Content Strategy: What Is the Difference?
Customer experience can make or break the future of an online business. In this world where marketers produce and share tons of content every day, customers are bombarded with marketing messages that heightens their expectations from brands and challenges their loyalty. That is why creating quality, relevant content on a consistent basis is the biggest challenge faced by content marketers and producers.
Show More
loading
Actions
Is this you?
As a journalist, you can create a free Muck Rack account to customize your profile, list your contact preferences, and upload a portfolio of your best work.Get in touch with Ux
Contact Ux, search articles and posts on X, monitor coverage, and track replies from one place.
Learn more about Muck Rack