Is Technical Writing Part of UX?

Content Is the Experience

“Content actually is the experience,” insists Dana. “You can have a minimalistic design and great content, and people will be happy—for example, see craigslist.org—because they can do what they came to do. Or you can have a lavish design and crappy content, and no one will be happy—including the people looking at the bottom line for your company. So, yes, reading—or skimming and scanning—is part of the user’s experience, especially in situations in which customers are reviewing, comparing, and making decisions. So, my advice to you is: Don’t wait to be invited to those meetings. Just show up. Stay until they kick you out. You are a designer, too.”

“Absolutely!” exclaims Cory. “Text and, more generally, any content is just as important as the user interface and structure. There are multiple UX-related professions and skillsets that deal specifically with content—including content strategy, technical communications, information design, and content writing.

“But legal disclosures can also be a funny thing. By definition, you sometimes have to display exact words, no matter how confusing they are. If you have a situation like this, create a simple, plain-language explanation of what the legalese is saying. Emphasize this more understandable text for users, while displaying, but doing your best to deemphasize—to whatever extent legal constraints allow—the stuff that nobody can understand.”

Teamwork Is Key

“User Experience is multifaceted and informed from many sources,” answers Gavin. “Content certainly is an input to the user experience. Often, when we’re designing user interfaces, we neglect to recognize the influence of user expectations. A user interface can be more successful when user expectations are understood and the interface maps to them. If the entry point into a user interface involves a user’s making a decision, the content is very important.

“Sometimes, as UX designers, we think, if we build it, they will come. But the reality, as we’ve found through eyetracking and thousands of usability testing sessions, is that nothing is 100%. A problem can be as simple as: the user did not go down the right path. Is it because the design made the path difficult to see or find? Or was it that the user saw the path, but when they read the copy, it didn’t match their expectations or provide the right value proposition to prompt them to take that path?

“UX design needs both sound user interface design and great copy. But the two together, working in concert, can ensure that, when users expend effort considering a choice, they make the intended choice. So, creating user experiences really is a team effort. I’ve seen many very good, well-designed user interfaces fail because of poor copy—or, rather, copy that doesn’t integrate well with a user interface to support the value proposition.”

“While we like to repeat our frustrations, saying things like ‘No one reads,’ naturally the whole point of the design of any system is to distribute information and allow people to perform tasks,” says Steven. “Text is almost all of that. Your problem with communicating how to use complex products in specific or legally mandated ways is sadly typical. While we’ve known this deep down for years, there is lately a whole movement of content first design, so I’d encourage you to read such recent articles as the following:

• Lis Hubert and Donna Lichaw’s three-part series on UXmatters, “Storymapping: A MacGyver Approach to Content Strategy”
  
  • Part 1
  • Part 2
  • Part 3
• Riley Graham’s “Mobile First: What Does It Mean?”
• Stephen Hay’s “Content-First Design”
• Bobby Anderson’s “Change Your Focus and Design ‘Content First’”

“This is very much like the principles of starting with good, well-vetted feature lists; stories, information architecture, or any approach that starts with the structure,” continues Steven. “If the UX team is ignoring you, I tend to think they are spending a lot of time in Photoshop and not so much time thinking of users, contexts, and interactions.

“This may be a good time to use your collaboration skills. Don’t just insist that the team lets you get to work—all alone—first, but bring a set of cards printed up with the content you must have, and get them to do a design exercise with those as a constraint. I am a big believer that the no-wrong-answers style of brainstorming is a recipe for wasting time. Constraints are what drive design in good, interesting directions.”

The Oppressed Become Oppressors

“Your saying, ‘The mentality of the UX team is that writers are an afterthought,’ brings to my mind the famous Paulo Freire quotation about how the oppressed become oppressors,” responds Baruch. “First, let me offer an apology on behalf of the professional UX community. I am sure many will agree. Not too long ago, user experience was also considered an afterthought. Now, in what very well may be our golden age, we are dismissing other discipline’s contributions as an afterthought?! You are not off base; the content is critical to the overall experience.

“I also work, at times, on projects in highly regulated industries, and I know the pain of wordy, seemingly inflexible information that has to be on pages. The ability to transform so-called copy into something a user can easily digest, understand, and take action on is an incredible talent to have. The best design in the world will fall flat if there is too much content crammed into it.

“Showcasing the need for clear text might be the key to unlocking the value that you offer by ensuring that the content in the user interface supports the design rather than gets in the way. As UX designers, we sometimes spend too much time using fake text when we should be using the real content that we need to put in the user interface. Using the real text exposes areas for improvement in the design and that is something you can certainly help drive.”

Shared Values and Understanding

“The best technical writers share many of the same values that UX designers have—empathy for users and a passion for clarity, consistency, and logical flow—as well as a deep understanding of user needs, task flows, and usability,” answers Pabini. “They’re often the first to try out our designs and find them wanting. Not leveraging their feedback to improve our products’ user experiences is simply wasteful.

“These shared values and common understanding are the reasons many former technical writers, including myself, have broadened their skills and become UX designers or researchers. For those UX professionals, writing is a core skill that enables them to communicate more effectively with users by writing clear, concise UI text and error messages. It also enables them to communicate with teammates by writing clear design documentation.

“Today, many schools and even colleges do a poor job of educating people on writing well. Sadly, many UX designers lack strong writing skills—even some who think they’re pretty good writers. This is an impediment to becoming a great UX designer. So much of our work is writing—creating UI text, writing specifications, preparing presentations, and more. I strongly recommend that designers work hard to improve their writing skills. Study syntax rules and style guides. In the meantime, rely on the technical writers on your team to help you create better user experiences by crafting good UI text for you. Acknowledge the value that the technical writers on your team provide and learn from them so you can become a better writer yourself.”