Train your technical writers in UX writing – join our training day on October 21. Learn more.
Train your technical writers in UX writing – join our training day on October 21. Learn more.
Unless we want to build products for ourselves, we need to recognize that users have different lives and perspectives from us. This is why you also often hear the phrase “you are not the user.” But how can we understand someone else if we don’t talk to them and listen to their perspective? During the Coronavirus era, at the very least we should try to get a hold of some kind of data that tells us something about them.
In Don Norman’s article “Why I Don’t Believe in Empathetic Design” he points out that designing for users requires us to do research and get to know our users. To design for our users we need to have a better understanding of their lives, behaviors, and needs. This is why all UX work requires user research.
UX writing during a global pandemic is no different and unfortunately I’ve seen a few cases classism in UX copy. Good writing guides users through the experience of an interface while being invisible and intuitive. Bad writing can lead to a confusing experience for users, but the stakes can be even higher when users are facing more emotional turmoil than normal.
On an average day users tend to skim most examples of UX writing, like microcopy, and forget what they read right away. Bad writing runs the risk of alienating users when it is not inclusive, and doesn’t take their potentially traumatic experiences into account. We need to make sure that our content is supportive, or at least doesn’t cause more friction, of the user’s journey instead of a reflection of our biased perspective.
In “Designing with Care During COVID-19 and Beyond” Margret Gould Stuart describes issues with content related to working from home. A lot of content writers are working from home during the pandemic, and it’s easy to forget that not all workers are able to work from home. For individuals who can’t work from home, quarantines have been economically devastating. Less than one third of American workers can work remotely, and they tend to be higher paid and better educated.
UX professionals fall into this group of generally well paid workers who can work remotely. This doesn’t mean that design, collaboration, and research aren’t harder in a remote context—they definitely are. Remote collaboration affects the way we speak, our body language and every other social aspect of our communication. Working from home can also be difficult for its own reasons. You may not have an adequate work space. Your environment may be more distracting, which affects your workflow. You may have to deal with loved ones or kids who interrupt your work with their own needs.
Still, product design work can continue remotely. This
