UX writing, also known as content design, is integral to the product design process. It can make or break the user experience, but getting it right can be tricky. Those small but meaningful messages that guide you whenever you’re using a website or app are the result of extensive research, careful planning, and countless iterations. Believe it or not, UX writing isn’t just an afterthought; it’s an entire UX discipline.
What is UX Writing?
UX writing is the practice of creating the text for a user experience. It aims to improve user experience by informing and engaging the user. Examples of UX writing include notifications, titles, buttons, instructions, labels, descriptions, controls, and warnings.
UX writing is essential for seamless and intuitive user experiences and helps eliminate pain points. When done well, it can help users navigate a product more easily, understand its features, and accomplish their goals more efficiently. On the other hand, poorly written copy can lead to confusion, frustration, and ultimately, a negative user experience.
Why is UX writing so important?
UX writing is critical because it helps to shape the overall user experience. The user experience (or UX) describes how easy it is for the user to navigate and interact with a product or service, and how seamlessly they can complete their desired tasks (e.g., booking a flight or buying a cinema ticket).
If the experience is good, the user will happily use that particular product again. From a business perspective, that’s a loyal customer who will continue to interact with (and most likely recommend) the brand. If the experience is bad, the user will quickly seek a more user-friendly alternative. That’s a customer lost and a hit to the brand’s reputation. You can learn more about the value of UX design in this post.
UX writing has a pivotal role to play in either helping or hindering the user experience. In fact, the most successful brands (like Google and Airbnb) have dedicated UX writers in their design teams. UX writing is not just an afterthought or an add-on once the product has been designed; it’s an integral part of the design process itself.
How Has UX Writing Evolved?
Language and text have always been part of digital products and user experiences, but previously, they needed manuals, generally written by technical writers. The product’s usability depended on the manual’s quality, in other words, how clear and concise the manual was. These manuals eventually developed into online help and other forms of “user assistance”.
With the rise of user-centered design, intuitive experiences, and increasingly complex digital products, so came the need for UX writing. Now we can navigate user experiences without a manual.
In the 2000s and especially the 2010s, UX writing became its own discipline and position within design.
Here are some key factors that have contributed to the growth of UX writing as a distinct field:
- The growth of mobile and web-based applications: The proliferation of mobile apps and web-based applications has resulted in the exponential growth of UX writing.
- The rise of user-centered design: As digital products and services have become more user-centric, the need for clear and compelling language in interfaces has become increasingly important. UX writing has emerged as a way to ensure that the language in a digital product is clear and effective, and consistent with the brand’s voice and tone.
- The increasing importance of brand voice: It is more crucial than ever to have a consistent brand voice across all channels, including digital products. That means that UX writing has become an important part of brand strategy. UX writers work closely with brand managers and marketers to ensure that the language in a digital product is consistent with the brand’s overall messaging.
- The recognition of the value of good UX writing: As companies have recognized the impact that good UX writing can have on user engagement and satisfaction, the demand for UX writers has grown. Many companies now have dedicated UX writing teams or hire freelance writers to work on their digital products.
The Importance of UX Writing
Effective UX writing is a crucial element of a positive user experience for digital products and services. Here are a few reasons why UX writing is so important:
1. Clarity and understanding
Good UX writing ensures that users understand what they see on their screen and how to interact with it. Clear and concise language helps users to navigate a digital product or service with ease, which reduces frustration and increases engagement.
2. Consistency:
Consistent language and terminology throughout a digital product or service can reinforce the user’s understanding of the product’s functionality and build trust. If you use one word to describe a particular term, ensure that the same word is used throughout the experience. Additionally, a consistent brand voice also helps to strengthen the user’s relationship with the brand.
3. Accessibility
UX writing can make a digital product more accessible to users with disabilities and, by extension, better for all users. For example, there should be text for all elements (icons, buttons, and other affordances) so that screen readers and other assistive technologies can pick them up.
4. Tone and personality
A well-crafted tone and personality in the language of a digital product can create an emotional connection with users, which builds brand loyalty and increases user engagement.
5. Localization
Good UX writing recognizes the nuances of language and culture in different regions of the world—digital products should have different versions depending on the user’s location and language.
UX Writing in the Design Process
UX writing is an integral part of a product, and as such, UX writers or content designers should be involved in every step of the UX design process.
The approach will vary depending on the team, organization, budget and other factors, but ideally, UX writers will collaborate with designers, researchers, and other stakeholders early in the design process to understand user needs and business goals. This collaboration helps to ensure that the language in the product is consistent with the overall design and aligns with the user’s expectations.
As the design process progresses, UX writers work closely with designers to ensure that the language used in the interface is clear, concise, and useful. The team will test their language choices to ensure that users can easily understand and interact with the product.
UX writing is more than simply writing text; it should also create a harmonious brand voice and tone throughout the product. This involves collaborating with brand managers and marketers to ensure that the language in the product aligns with the brand’s overall messaging and tone.
UX writers will also work with developers and product managers to ensure that the language and UX content is implemented correctly in the final product. This collaboration helps to ensure that the language in the product is not only clear and effective but also practical.
User experiences need to be intuitive and easy to use if they’re going to succeed. UX writing plays a significant role in a digital product’s usability, so good UX writing is essential for an overall positive user experience. With consistent, clear, and accessible language, UX writers can help to increase user engagement, build trust, and strengthen brand loyalty.
The UX writing process
Just like designers, UX writers follow their own process. Generally, the UX writing process covers some or all of the following steps:
1. Scope out the project
The UX writer will start by learning about the user problem the design team wants to solve and understanding the objectives of the project. This includes figuring out exactly what part of the product or user journey they will be writing copy for and the goals their copy should serve.
2. Conduct competitor research and analysis
To inform their approach to the project, UX writers may look at what competitors are doing. In particular, they’ll look at what kind of terminology is being used in the industry, as well as the structures and flows other products tend to follow.
3. Ideate and sketch (with words)
At this point, the UX writer will have seen a wireframe of the design they’re writing for. For example, if they are tasked with writing copy to guide the user through the process of creating a new account, they will see how the UX designer has mapped out the flow and structure of the relevant screens.
With that in mind, the UX writer will ideate as many different versions of the copy as they can. At this stage, the copy ideas they come up with are the equivalent of rough sketches, they’re not yet written to polished perfection.
4. Prototype and revise
Having sketched out their copy ideas, the UX writer can then prototype them. If the designer has created a wireframe in Figma (or any other wireframing tool), the UX writer can usually add their copy to the same file to see how it sits within the proposed design.
This step helps to uncover any issues with how the text and the designs interact. Perhaps the proposed copy is too long for a particular section of the design, or perhaps the design needs to incorporate additional elements in order to accommodate some essential copy. Both the UX writer and the UX designer can make revisions that will ultimately benefit the end user.
5. Refine, user test, and iterate on the copy
Based on the outcomes of the prototyping phase, the UX writer will polish up their copy until they consider it user-ready. They’ll then collaborate with the UX designer or UX researcher to test the copy on users, gather feedback, and iterate on it. This process of testing and iterating can be ongoing and doesn’t necessarily have an endpoint. That’s the nature of UX, after all: continuously improving the product to meet the user’s needs.
6. Create documentation
As with any role in UX, it’s good practice to document your work and keep track of how the UX writing process evolves. This enables UX writers to establish conventions and best practices, which in turn can help to achieve consistency, an essential principle for a good user experience. You can learn more about the importance of UX documentation (and some of the best UX documentation tools) in this post.
That’s one version of what your UX writing process might look like. Next: some tips and best practices for outstanding UX writing.
UX writing tips and best practices
UX writing takes practice. It’s not just a simple case of writing instructions for the user and making sure they fit on the screen. It requires a careful balancing act to hit that sweet spot of being concise and functional, blending in with and aiding the user experience, while also injecting a hint of personality (whatever that may mean for the brand in question).
So, how can you make sure your UX microcopy gets off on the right foot? Here are 5 UX writing tips and best practices to keep in mind:
1. Be concise and efficient
Every piece of microcopy should serve a clear purpose. If it doesn’t help or guide the user in some way, it has no place on the interface. Seek to convey the message as concisely and efficiently as possible, trimming away any excess “fluff”.
For example: “Enter your passcode” is much more efficient than “You must enter your 6-digit passcode in order to log in.”
2. Don’t make the user think
When it comes to UX writing, simplicity is your friend (and the user’s). Avoid complex, convoluted sentences that require the user to stop and think. Always favour simplicity and clarity — make it easy for the user to understand exactly what they need to do.
For example, “I don’t want to delete my account” is a confusing sentence whose meaning isn’t immediately clear. A clearer alternative would be: “I want to keep my account.”
3. Use plain language and avoid jargon
You’re writing to help the user, so make sure you’re writing in their language. That is: plain language which doesn’t require any technical or expert knowledge to be understood.
For example, “Log your daily macronutrients and micronutrients” could be pretty confusing for someone who isn’t familiar with those terms. “Update your food log” is a nice jargon-free alternative.
4. Write in the active voice
UX writing is about engaging the user, and you can do this much more effectively and directly if you write in the active voice (as opposed to the passive voice).
For example: “A profile photo must be uploaded before you can complete your account creation” is rather awkward and long-winded. Switching to the active voice improves the message dramatically, like so: “Upload a profile photo to finish creating your account.”
5. Write for inclusivity and accessibility
This is a must for any and every part of the UX design process, and UX writing is no exception. Write in a way that can be understood by everyone, regardless of how they’re accessing the product.
For example, not everyone who is consuming your copy will be reading or seeing it; they may be accessing it via a screen reader. In that case, the copy that says “See more options here” will exclude those people. “Show more options” would be a more inclusive way to convey the same message.
Writing for inclusivity and accessibility is a huge and important topic and extends far beyond the one example we’ve provided here. Learn more in Adobe’s guide to inclusive UX writing.
6. Use an appropriate tone of voice
UX content can be formal, semi-formal, or informal. It all depends on the tone of voice that best suits the product you’re writing for. So understanding your audience and your product are essential.
For example, If you’re selling t-shirts to the general public, using an informal tone to get people to buy would be appropriate. However, you can use a more formal tone for a professional online spot for t-shirt makers.
7. Structure content appropriately
Structuring content appropriately so your audience can consume it comfortably is important. Do this by chunking up information so the content is brief but impactful.
For example, divide your headings into various subheadings, add bullet points, and don’t have more than 3 or 4 sentences in a single paragraph. These things make your content easier to read and help users skim the content easily.
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UX writing tools
UX writers and UX designers both champion the end user, but they have different ways of going about it. However, UX writers tend to work with a lot of the same tools as UX designers.
Tools that UX writers use include:
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Pen and paper
Sometimes the basics are exactly what you need. That’s especially true for UX writing. A UX writer should always keep a pen and paper with them in case they get a flash of inspiration and need to jot something down.
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UX research tools
When UX writers participate in research, they are looking to find out which words work for users. As a result, it’s key to use software that helps do this. Tools like User Zoom and Optimal Workshop let you conduct surveys and card sorting to ensure your copy shines. See more UX research tools here.
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Writing software
When you’re crafting your draft or final copy, you will inevitably need the right software, and most companies use standards, like Word or Excel. In addition, many companies use tools like Airtable and Asana that allow you to track versions of your content.
- Wireframing and prototyping tools
For writers who help create wireframes and prototypes, there are a variety of tools to use. They include Balsamiq Cloud and Figma, which allow you to design templates and write your copy on them. Figma is especially good for collaboration, so the whole team, including project managers, designers, and writers, can leave comments, allowing the writer to read them all and adjust the copy as required.
The role of AI in UX writing
AI can be a real help in UX writing. It can leverage your ideas and assist you with coming up with suggestions and alternatives for products. For example, AI can:
- Assist with brainstorming ideas, accelerating the process of writing
- Save time by helping with small pieces of work
- Ensure consistency across products by offering suggestions for phrases in styles that align with your desired tone
AI can speed up your writing, but you have to do the work to understand your users and the project itself first. If you do, AI can offer specific help that will assist you in becoming more productive.
Here are some real-world examples of AI-powered tools used in UX writing:
- Grammarly – Helps with grammar, tone, and clarity, ensuring UX writing is concise and aligned with brand voice.
- Writer – An AI-powered tool that ensures consistency by enforcing brand-specific style guides and terminology.
- ChatGPT – Assists in brainstorming microcopy, generating alternative phrasing, and refining content for clarity and engagement.
- Figma’s AI plugins (e.g., Microsoft Copilot, Jasper AI) – Assist in generating placeholder text, refining button copy, and ensuring linguistic consistency in design mockups.
These tools help UX writers speed up their workflow while maintaining quality and consistency.
At Marketing Chiefs, we believe that great design starts with the right words and the best digital experiences are built through clear, human, and thoughtful communication. UX Writing is not just about improving engagement; it is about turning visitors into users, users into loyal fans, and fans into true brand ambassadors. If you are looking for a digital experience that speaks your language, reflects your voice, and makes your audience truly connect with your product, not just it, then you are in the right place. Start your journey with Marketing Chiefs today, and let us help you tell your story with words that inspire, engage, and persuade.
