Why is UX Writing important in product design? What does UX Writing do and what role does it play in UI/UX design?
Unlike clothes and cars, the design of digital products does not last very long. Because not much time has passed since the spread of the Internet and the use of websites and applications. However, the design of digital products is rapidly evolving and becoming more complex and detailed every day. Every day, a new concept and expertise is defined with the aim of improving the functionality of products in that field. UX Writing is one of those concepts and specialties.
In this content, I talk about the importance and key role of UX Writing in the product design process and answer the above questions.
Table of Contents
Why is UX Writing important in designing digital products?
User experience design (UX Design) was officially born in the mid-90s. Before that, user interface design (UI Design) was born. Today, interface design and user experience are integral parts of the digital product design and production process. The main competition of digital product manufacturers is to be able to produce a product that has a better user interface and user experience.
Why? Because it is UI/UX that makes human-machine interaction possible. What do you see when you open a software, site or app? What makes you (users) able to do what you want in the software or application? What guides users through the site, software or application? A collection of tools, short texts and visual elements (such as icons).
The human (user) is the final consumer of the digital product. The design of those tools, short texts and visual elements and in general every component of the product should be done to guide and guide the human so that the human interaction with the product is satisfactory and useful for him. UI/UX design is to make every detail human-centered and based on design thinking, so that human-machine interaction takes place in the best way.
So, the product design team carefully designs every component of the digital product that humans interact with. Words, phrases and short texts that are written on the site or application for any reason are part of the product. By the way, they are a very important component because they convey decisive messages in the user’s interaction with the product.
If all the components are designed correctly, but the texts are misleading, vague and insufficient and the users do not understand them; the interaction of the user with the product becomes impaired and possibly impossible. Therefore, expertise is needed to design those short texts appropriately and clearly for users. UX Writing is the specialty.
What is UX Writing?
Short texts and writings guide the user on the way to use the product. They may tell him what the next step or step in the interaction is, they may explain to him the reason for doing something, and finally, they may inform the user whether the action was successful or not.
Those short texts (Copy) are called “guide text or user experience text” and the expertise and process of designing and writing user experience texts is called UX Writing. The person who is responsible for writing those texts is the “User Experience Writer” or UX Writer. Experience writing is a subset of user experience design and a stage of UX design.
Let me mention a brief and useful definition from a reference site in the field of UX Design so that the definition of this new concept and expertise is completely clear.
UX writing is the act of writing copy for user-facing touchpoints.
When did experimental writing enter design and become a part of it?
An important question that arises about this specialty is how much history it has and when did it start? I mean, since when was a new member called a user experience text writer added to product design teams?
It has been less than 4 years that a new specialty and profession called UX Writing has been found in product design and user experience design. Big companies like Google, Amazon, and Apple added user experience copywriters to their product design teams. Therefore, UX Writing is a very new and up-to-date specialty and profession that is at the beginning of the path of growth and evolution.
What is the role of UIX writing in product design?
Why did big companies decide that writing help texts is not the job of a user interface and user experience designer? Why did someone else need to write the texts? To answer those two questions, it is necessary to determine what the user experience text does in product design and what role it plays. With an example, I will show you what happens to the user experience when the help texts are written carelessly and by a non-expert.
So Ux Writing:
1. It completes the user experience and gives coherence and harmony to the product design
As shown in the examples, the best and most suitable colors, fonts, icons and visual elements in product design are not enough. If the texts are not calculated and written based on the needs and knowledge of the users, the interaction of the user with the product will be ruined and the user may be so upset and dissatisfied that he will not use the product anymore.
In addition, since the UX Writer in the product design team is responsible for doing UI Writing, all the texts and expressions are written in a consistent, concise and useful, clear and coherent manner on all the pages of the site or application.
2. It helps the product design team to better understand the user and his needs
Writing user experience text requires creativity and mastery of language more than anything else. In addition to them, the author must know the user of the product and his preferences. Because the audience of those texts is the user, and those guide texts are supposed to facilitate communication and interaction between humans and machines. So, the UI/UX designer and the writer research and test the user’s behaviors and preferences together to design the product sympathetically.
It is true that the authors of the user experience text are writers, not designers, they are also considered a member of the product design team. Collaborate with other members to find solutions and solve design challenges. Maybe there is a problem in the design and the answer to one of the needs of the user is to write a short sentence or not an image or visual element.