Getting started with writing inclusive copy

Here at UX Writer’s Collective we recognize that accessibility and inclusive copy are not topics that can be reduced to a single blog post. As you use this article as a starting point, we encourage you to explore the topics further.

Here are more resources:

“Design for Real Life” by Eric Meyer & Sara Wachter-Boettcher (2016)

“Accessibility for Everyone” by Laura Kalbag (2017)

Invision’s DesignTalk, “Inclusive UX copy: Making words work for everyone” by Ada Powers (2018)

Empathy is the most important tool that we have as writers, designers, teachers, and humans. Inclusive writing allows us to directly connect to our audience without excluding anyone. It’s important that we not only know our audience but understand them on such a deep level that we can anticipate their every need. Empathy empowers us, our users, our product, and the overall user experience. 

We all get this. As UX writers, we always try to tune in into people’s feelings and keep their needs in mind.

However, it’s so important that we don’t forget about the needs of all of our users from every background, education level, ability, culture, and identity. 

To make our intended impact and build trust with our customers, here are key things that we need to take into account when making our products and the user experience welcoming to everyone that uses it: 

Don’t ignore unconscious bias

In our everyday lives and therefore in our professional work, we all hold biases that affect our work whether we like it or not. We all have privileges that affect the way we approach our work and we need to do the inner work to recognize, be aware of our biases, and address them. 

98% of our thinking happens in our subconscious mind and that’s where we store our biases, whether we’re aware of them or not. Unconscious bias is the result of the brain working automatically to make decisions without thinking. Since it’s automatic, our brain naturally deflects to what we know. 

This doesn’t make you a terrible person—it makes you human. It’s important to recognize these biases and privileges and use this acknowledgment to change our practices to incorporate inclusive writing for all users. 

Diversity in writing

As you’re writing to meet the needs of your users, you can’t forget to make sure that your copy is accessible and inclusive to all users. Diversity is important to include in our writing.

Diversity includes differences in experiences and these experiences can shape user’s different perspectives and thoughts. These experiences can be due to multiple factors including but not limited to: race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, ability/disability, and education level.

We need to make sure that we’re writing for users who are not caucasian, male, Americans (the population that most copy is currently written for). 

Here are simple ways that we can stray away from writing just for that small population of users:

1. Don’t use cultural references. Cultural references automatically exclude everyone who is not a part of the culture that you’re referencing. This is not only alienating, but confusing for users. We want to make sure we’re writing useful copy, not confusing copy. 
2. Don’t use metaphors or idioms. These can be usually associated with a certain class, ethnicity, or culture. 
3. Work with and hire a diverse team. This is something that companies as a whole need to do a better job at. We need to make