UX writing is the craft of creating clear, concise, and engaging text for digital products and interfaces. It helps users understand how to use a product, what to expect, and what value they get from it. As a UX writer, you need to use various tools and platforms to plan, write, test, and deliver your content. In this article, we'll explore some of the most common and useful ones.
Before you start writing, it's important to have a clear content strategy that aligns with your product goals, user needs, and brand voice. Content strategy tools can be used to define your content vision, audit existing content, map out the content structure, and document the content guidelines. Examples of popular content strategy tools include the Content Strategy Toolkit - a set of templates and worksheets - Content Design Studio - a web app for designing user journeys, content models, and content types - and GatherContent - a platform for managing content projects, collaborating with teams, and delivering content to different channels.
I have a few tools that help me to be a better UX member. When I, UX Writer meet Developer: I love how platform like Lokalise or Ditto help content to be consistent & easy to update for dev. With a simple process of integrating our API with the tools, writer can update any copy without dependent on developer’s help. When I, UX Writer meet designer, researcher: Using FigJam is definitely a GEM! I can visualize my ideas & create a wholesome brainstorming session with them. When I, UX Writer meet other writer: Online collaboration platform like docs, sheets or figma is necessity. We can work on things together and it will updated real-time.
I typically draft written content and ideas out in collaborative Google docs. Sometimes I use ChatGPT for inspiration and editing. For visual content, Figma is my bread and butter.
- I still prefer Word for drafting and writing. That’s its one job, I’m less distracted when I work collaboratively in the desktop app, and I’m typically responsible for a deliverable copy/content deck. That said, Google Workspace has better collab capability. - WordCounter is essential to my process. Character limits are real, plus, it tells you the reading time, reading level, and keyword density and has a built-in thesaurus. - Figma is king for the rest. (I also like Axure RP.) FigJam won my heart over Miro for brainstorming and content mapping. - I think knowing how to use ChatGPT, etc. is important, though I rarely do. - For 1:1 translating or testing, I use DeepL.
Creating content that follows your style guide, tone, and voice requires writing and editing tools. Hemingway is a web app that helps you improve your readability by eliminating passive voice and reducing adverbs and filler words. Grammarly is a browser extension that checks your grammar, spelling, punctuation, and tone. Phrase is a platform that helps you write and manage multilingual content, ensuring quality and consistency across languages. With these tools, you can craft clear, concise, and consistent text that follows best practices for UX writing.
I do love Hemingway and Grammarly. I would add, when you use ChatGPT, be sure to take your time to effectively train the model. By feeding ChatGPT with the relevant sections of the content style guide, such as voice and tone. Then specify that you wish it to assess you work based on adherence to those standards. By feeding the LLM the right information and crafting the right prompt you will be able to gain quick and useful insights about your writing.
Use ferramentas de inteligência artificial para criar conteúdo útil e ter ideias, como o ChatGPT ou Niara (mas sempre verifique no Google se as informa??es est?o corretas e atualizadas). Se você está escrevendo um texto para um blog, é importante usar o SEMRush Writing Assistant Tool para entender quais palavras-chave s?o necessárias e se seu texto está claro e simples o suficiente. Para revis?o, o Language Tool pode ajudar apontando erros no texto.
After you write and edit your content, it is essential to test and validate it with your users and stakeholders. Testing and feedback tools can be used to collect data, insights, and opinions from your target audience, which can then be used to improve your content. UserTesting is a platform that helps you conduct remote usability tests, interviews, surveys, and card sorts with real users. Hotjar is a tool that helps you visualize user behavior, feedback, and satisfaction with heatmaps, recordings, and polls. Additionally, Google Optimize can be used to run A/B tests, multivariate tests, and personalization experiments with your content.
I have used Maze, HotJar, and Facebook to run A/B tests on my content in the past. I have been most impressed with the data and analytics that are available (even for free) through Maze and would recommend that everyone gives the tool a try. I've also had great success making card sorts and other tools (for FREE) in Miro to have stakeholders use during discovery.
Finally, you need to deliver and integrate your content with your product and interface. Delivery and integration tools can help you export, import, and sync your content with design and development tools. Examples of popular tools are Sketch, a design tool for wireframes, mockups, and prototypes; Figma, a collaborative design tool for interactive prototypes; and Contentful, a headless CMS for storing, managing, and delivering content to any platform or device. There are many more options and alternatives available that depend on your needs, preferences, and budget. It's essential to find the best tools for you and your project.
The obvious answer is Figma. It's not the only answer, but should be the most common one. Figma has fundamentally changed the relationship between content and our design counterparts. The key with any tool is clearly understanding operational needs, identifying the tool that addresses these needs, and finally building out clear operational standards among collaborating teams.
Tools are largely useless without process. And process is just as ineffective without buy-in. Before putting too much focus on tools, step back and consider your work from an operations perspective. Where are the breakdowns? Who are the teams? What matters to them? What common goal brings these teams, and your work together? Only by zooming out and answering key questions can you then start to identify tools that assist in filling operational gaps (i.e. breakdowns during content handoff to dev).
As a bilingual UX writer who writes in English (left to right) and Arabic (right to left), the first thing I would look out for in a writing and translation tool is whether it supports RTL orientation. Figma—a design tool—does but having a glossary or translation memory is indispensable, so the next thing I would look out for is whether duality is supported, which is part of Arabic but not many other languages. I would follow the same priority pattern, putting in mind that all of these features have to be writer-friendly—in other words, they’re available to implement from the UI and not from the code only.