Providing customers with unparalleled user experience has been the focus of attention of marketing and technology industries over the past few years. Companies that do UX and design templates for websites apply significant efforts to deliver a smooth user experience across all their touchpoints. The rise in UX awareness has resulted in a proliferation of specialist UX roles, like UX designer, UX researcher, UX consultant, and UX writer. This article is focused on making a clear distinction between the role of the UX writer and the things making it different from content design. Let’s dig in!
What is a UX writer?
A UX writer is responsible for crafting content that appears throughout a website, application, design templates for websites, and other digital product interfaces. The scope of UX writers’ work in web design companies like TemplateMonster includes everything starting from texts that appear on content pages (404, 401, 502, etc.), confirmation pages, popups, menus, signups, etc. Users can find short text pieces throughout a website, often called microcopies.
The job of a UX writer is to guide people through using products in an intuitive and easy-to-follow manner. UX writers should deeply understand the products and development process to ensure they understand every step users should take while navigating their digital project. As a rule, UX writers need to conduct user testing and interpret analytics to understand how well the website or design templates for websites are used and how well the content is performing. The UX writer's job involves ensuring the website copy achieves specific business objectives while keeping the end user's needs and preferences in mind.
UX writing combines writing, communication, psychology, and other skills. Although there is no formal requirement to have a background in any of these niches, having certain knowledge and experience in any of them helps UX writers achieve better results in every project.
Thus, the skills that are the most relevant to the job of a UX designer include:
- Strong writing and communication skills;
- The ability to write clearly and concisely;
- Having a clear understanding of product design and how to improve it;
- The ability to understand and interpret data;
- Paying attention to detail;
- Feeling passionate about improving the UX.
UX writing vs copywriting
UX writing is not the same as copywriting. Although many UX writers have a background in copywriting, there is a difference in the objective of both roles. While a UX writer guides users through the content of the website or design templates for websites, a copywriter aims to market a specific product or service. A copywriter creates persuasive texts aimed at attracting new users and convincing them to take a particular action.
UX writers are not responsible for editorial, although they may have a respective background. A UX writer might be colled upon to help copywriters better understand how to communicate the brand’s tone or create a company-wide style guide referenced by content all across the organization.
There is one particular thing UX writers and copywriters have in common. It’s the brand tone. While a copywriter needs to craft a copy that uses a brand’s distinctive tone, a UX writer should consistently convey a brand’s voice across all touchpoints.
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UX writing vs content design
Let’s now refer to another couple of terms that are often confused. The content designer's description sounds very similar to the UX writer. What’s the difference between the two?
The content designer and the UX writer are two different names for the same role. UX writing refers to writing a microcopy and nothing else. UX writers are frequently involved in the design process, conducting research, testing, and setting down style guidelines for the company’s content production.
Content design refers to designing all types of content, including graphics, animation, audio, video, etc. However, in most cases, it crops up in the context of written content. Content design advocates insist that the role purely focuses on handling website design matters. However, the UX writing proponents will insist that using the “UX” in the title is the most relevant and emphasizes the primary goal of facilitating user experience on websites and design templates for website no matter what it involves.
Companies use different terms to mean the UX writer or a content designer. Depending on the organization, there may be a slightly different emphasis on the job title, scope, responsibilities, etc. If you are interested in the discipline of UX writing, ensure that you read the content design upfront.
About Author
Frank Hamilton
Frank Hamilton is a blogger and translator from Manchester. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English. Meet him on Facebook and Twitter. Write to me, please, with the feedback.
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