The Dash: How to be a truly great UX writer

This is the published edition of our weekly UX writer and UX writing newsletter, The Dash. Sign up to The Dash to have these updates sent straight to your inbox!

What does it take to be an exceptional UX writer? This week’s Dash should help you find out. We’ve got articles from around the globe about how to do ‘good’ UX writing, what it means to be a UX writer on a CX team, respecting your users, and staying empathetic in your online communications.

• What happens when a UX writer joins a CX team? Well a lot, apparently! In our latest UXWC blog post, one of our students, James McGrath, shares everything (seriously, there’s so much good info in here) he’s learned since joining a CX team with a UX writer mindset. From blueprints and affinity mapping to what CX teams actually do, this is an article you simply must get your eyeballs on!
• What makes UX writing good? We all ponder this from time to time as we write buttons or error messages or any other number of things we conjure up in a day. Nick DiLallo outlines the key reasons UX writing goes from average to good.
•  Stylish writing. This is a wonderful piece that’s been translated into English from Spanish, and explores Queneau’s “exercises in style”: how one story can mean many different things, depending on the tone you apply (and of course, how that applies to UX writing). 
• Your users aren’t stupid or lazy. This is a somewhat controversial piece about the “dumbing down” of products by product engineer Ozzie Osman. He states that we should simplify things because we respect our users’ time, not because we think they’re intellectually incapable of understanding. Zing!
• Thriving as a neurodivergent UX writer. Here’s a beautiful article by UX writer Audrey Hamoy, who also lives with ADHD and anxiety. We get to see how this difference makes her more intuitive and empathetic while setting better boundaries to become a better UX writer.
•  Speaking of empathy… Annie Bacher is going through a trying time at the moment filling out not-very-user-friendly forms to get back to her home country of Argentina. She uses this experience to outline why we need to be more empathetic in our online communication and interfaces in her latest post.
• Create products people love… with user experience research. Convince your team, stakeholders and bosses to do more UX research with these cold, hard stats from the team at User Interviews.
• CTA powerhouses. Master the art of writing high-converting buttons with this guide by Mobile Spoon. As a bonus, it includes advice you can implement into your extended UX writing, too.
• New tool alert! New tool alert! This one’s for collaborating on website audits and keeping communication streamlined. We haven’t tried it yet, but it looks like it’s going to be helpful for copywriters, UX professionals, and designers.  Have a little look into Heurio here.
• The life of a UX writer at Spotify! Do you remember this episode Patrick did with Tamara Hilmes from Spotify? She has so many good nuggets of wisdom to share, including what makes working at Spotify so great, and what skills we need to succeed as UX writers.

Did you enjoy this blog post?
Level up your skills and knowledge in one of our courses. Your career is depending on you
!

Feature image copyright by Les Finances.