Interview with Yael Ben-David, author of The Business of UX Writing

Yael Ben-David is a content designer, speaker, lecturer, and the author of The Business of UX Writing.?

Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity

Lauren: So great to meet you, Yael. Congratulations on your book, The Business of UX Writing. Could you share the book’s central idea?

Yael: The core idea of the book is that UX writing is not just about the user experience and about creating an enjoyable app for a user to interact with. UX writing has great business value as well.

For a long time, UXers, including writers, have had to advocate for the user in such a single-minded way that the pendulum swung too far and we spoke only about users even when it came at the expense of the business. It's time for some course correction and to bring the business needs and interests back into the picture. In the end, doing this works to the users’ benefit as well.

Lauren: Who did you have in mind when you were writing this book?

Yael: Primarily, UX writers and content designers. Also, content design-adjacent folks including product managers, designers, and even front-end engineers who are UX-oriented. The people who are dealing with this day-to-day and looking to have a bigger impact with their work.?

I also think there's value for CEOs, founders, and those in very small startups who are wearing all the hats and don't have dedicated people in these disciplines. Because they are especially resource-constrained, they’re looking for “low-hanging fruit” or “quick wins” — easy, cheap ways to have a big impact. Copy can often be that because it is so cheap to implement. I'm hoping this book can really help that whole group.

Lauren: What kind of feedback have you gotten from your book so far?

Yael: I’ve received very positive feedback, which is really exciting. Obviously, I had some nerves since it was my first book and you never know how it's going to be received.?

But the content design community is such a warm, welcoming, communal space that I think I may have been more nervous if it was about something else. I really have been feeling the love.?

The most rewarding positive reviews are coming from solo practitioners and UX writers who don't feel that they have that community where they work. They don't have that space to brainstorm with peers and do proper crits. And they don’t have the capacity or space to “make their case.” Hearing that they are using this to fill some small part of that void has been really meaningful.

Lauren: You mentioned the challenges of being the only content person at a company. You have a lot of suggestions in your book about how to make sure that the work that you're doing impacts the business in a positive way. But if you're an individual practitioner, how do you find the time to use the ideas in the book while also reacting to everything that happens in an average workday?

Yael: I guess I'll start by repeating the concept that the copy is getting written anyway, even if you're the only one. So you do have the time to write it and it doesn't always take more time to write it better.?

I hope there's enough in the book that different parts are relevant to different practitioners and that everyone can find something that levels up their work.?

When you're putting out fires all the time and you're the only one and you're getting tasks from all different directions—in the book, I talk about how you prioritize that work. For example, it's not just “I have this problem. I have these 3 proposed solutions and I need to prioritize which one to try first.” It’s also about prioritizing the problems you're working on across different product teams.

I do believe that part of that should come back to business impact. If you have a PM asking you to work on one feature and another PM asking you to work on another feature, ask, “Which of these features copy-wise has the greatest potential to impact the business?” These are the kinds of factors that should go into which one we work on first.

Lauren: Do you have different advice for people who are part of a larger content design team as opposed to sole practitioners?

Yael: I would assume that one of the biggest challenges for a large team is staying aligned to avoid redundancy, especially when it comes to decisions that are relevant for everyone. For example, if you're all working with the same style guide and a decision is being made about a guideline and it's not communicated to everyone, that's a problem. And the more people you have, the harder it is to communicate to everyone.?

I also worry about conflicting work. Even as a practitioner of one, I was in a situation where PMs weren't aligned. One PM asked me to work on a paragraph in an email to make it accurate for a new feature he was launching. Another PM asked me to work on a different paragraph in the same email because that messaging was related to a feature she was working on. And I was the only one who noticed that we were going to have developers in the code on the same email trying to merge and get in production at the same time. That would have been a disaster. But I think it can all be solved with all kinds of communication tools and rituals and forums. There's not a dearth of solutions! It starts with a mindset and a drive to solve the problem.

Lauren: I’d love to hear your advice on how UX writers can build closer relationships with our product partners. We tend to be paired with designers and we don't always have as much access to the PMs. What are your thoughts on how we can build those connections, learn to speak their language, and understand what they're measured on?

Yael: It starts with being genuinely curious, asking questions. It's about checking ego and checking imposter syndrome at the door and not being afraid to not know.

One of the things that I think is amazing about working in product and about working in content design is that the vertical shouldn't matter. I got my first job in UX writing at a company where I was working on a genetics product because my background was in genetics. Knowing the topic of the product is what got my foot in the door. But after that, I could go anywhere. So, I moved to fintech. I didn't know anything about finance but that was OK because that was not what they hired me for. They hired me to bring the UX writing expertise and they hired somebody else to bring the financial expertise. It was my job to ask the right questions, ask enough questions, and genuinely be interested in the answers to write the copy that would be best for the product.

People like it when you ask them questions. They like to talk about themselves and their work, and they like to talk about what they know about. So, I really wouldn't be afraid of not getting the time of day. I wouldn't be worried about anyone being annoyed with you for asking too many questions. I've really never gotten that sentiment from any stakeholder.?

Remember that at the end of the day, you share goals with these other stakeholders. You are both aiming for what's best for the product and best for the users. Just keep the mantra, “We’re on the same team” and assume good intent. If you feel excluded from a process, it's not malicious. It's because they probably don't understand why you ought to be in that process and what you can contribute.?

Lauren: In your book, you provide a very helpful framework for maximizing the ROI of UX writing. Could you talk about that?

Yael:? Sure, the acronym is KAPOW.

Know your goals?

Articulate solutions?

Prioritize options

Own your metrics?

Write

To dive deeply into all of them, it's worthwhile to buy the book. But here are some of my favorite bits. Notice that W, Write is at the end. I believe that by doing all the foundational work in KAPO before W, when you eventually get to the writing, it will be faster, easier, more efficient, more effective, more impactful, and the return on the investment will be positive. So even though you took all this time to do this other work beforehand, the final deliverable will be so impactful that it was worth it.

I also think it's important to talk about O, Own your metrics. I think a lot of “words people” feel that they are defined by being words people and cannot deal with numbers, numbers are scary, analytics are scary, and it's somebody else's job. I'm by no means recommending that we all become experts in analytics. That's what data analysts are for. But I do believe that if we want to show our impact, then we need to feel ownership over metrics. That means liaising between the people whose area of expertise that is. And it means making sure that every metric that is collected is an accurate proxy for the success you’re trying to learn about.?

Lauren: That’s great advice. Do you have any upcoming talks for who people who’d like to hear more from you?

Yael: Utterly Content is a global content conference happening February 28th through March 2nd. It's all online and there's programming almost around the clock. I'm giving a keynote and a book session. The keynote is about career trajectories in content and what it means to be a leader versus a manager versus a senior individual contributor. We’ll be exploring the pros and cons of different paths and opportunities out there for people in our field that just didn't exist a year or two ago. And in the book session, I'll be talking about the Business of UX Writing.?

Lauren: Thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me today.