UX writing is a powerful, affordable, and transformative skill that can improve anyone’s resume within a few weeks of study.
UX writing is the user-centric engineering of text elements (titles, buttons, & descriptions) for the interfaces of digital products like websites & mobile apps.
UX writing is clear writing that uses a consistent voice to meet the goals of users and product stakeholders alike.
Crafting the perfect UX writing voice for a digital product is essential for success – but that isn’t easy. In this post, you’ll learn the UX essentials, so you can start learning faster.
What UX Writing Really Is
UX writing is multidimensional and can be difficult to understand.
The good news: if you can use a mobile device, you can learn UX writing. To learn faster, check out my UX Writing YouTube channel.
First, UX writing isn’t content writing, technical writing, or copywriting–although it’s similar in many ways.
UX writing is considered an art form that emphasizes the user-centric organization of stylized text elements throughout digital product interfaces.
Stylized text elements include titles, buttons, descriptions, and other elements that users rely while experiencing a website, application, or other digital product.
UX writing also combines a brand-specific voice to improve a user’s experience of a product—which isn’t easy… that’s why UX writers can make a lot of money according to ZipRecruiter.
Because UX writing can be defined in so many complex ways, researching what UX writers actually do can help beginners learn UX writing without experience.
What do UX Writers Actually Do?
Many UX writers make great money. Coursera found that the average base salary is $119,983, and that’s because UX writers do valuable work.
UX writers craft strategic writing to onboard, engage, & support the ways users experience an organization’s digital products (usually websites or mobile apps).
UX writers understand that the success or failure of digital products depends on great communication. As a result, they work hard to write the perfect words for a user’s experience.
UX writers know that the process of UX writing is what’s called an iterative process.
An iterative process is a cyclical procedure that UX writers use to help them write the perfect words.
To help you learn faster, this is what my UX writing process is:
- define the voice of a digital product
- write imprecise words
- rewrite using more precise words
- repeat this process several times
This is how you can create valuable UX writing voices for your digital products, or someone else’s – and that’ll help you make more money.
To learn about this process in greater detail, watch my YouTube channel – or download my free ebook.
By repeating this iterative UX writing process of writing and rewriting, UX writers produce the best writing solutions for digital products.
Unfortunately, UX writing is hard to learn. That’s the tradeoff that comes with an above-average salary.
But what makes UX writing so challenging? For starters, creating the perfect voice for a digital product is hard.
Understanding why UX writing is difficult will help you learn UX writing faster – that’s what’s next.
Why is UX Writing so Difficult?
UX writing is like any valuable skill: it requires focus and perseverance to learn.
The good news: helping you learn UX writing faster (and for free) is the project of my YouTube channel.
UX writing is difficult to learn because it requires a deep knowledge of UI/UX principles, writing, and human psychology to craft successful digital products.
Despite how difficult UX writing is to learn, it isn’t difficult to start practicing.
UX writing is actually unique because of how affordable beginning your learning process can be.
As long as you have an internet connection and a word processor, you can start overcoming the many challenges of UX writing.
Here are my top 3 reasons why UX writing is so difficult:
Starting UX Writing without Experience
Good news: starting UX writing without experience is easy – all you need is an internet connection, a word processor, and the UX writing voice chart.
UX writing is unique because of how affordable the skill is to learn.
But here’s the problem: UX writing jobs at prestigious companies have a high barrier to entry.
Even if you don’t have an internet connection or a word processor, so long as you know how to make a UX writing voice chart, you can learn to become a UX writer faster.
A UX writing voice chart has several sections:
- 3 product principles columns
- A Concepts row
- A Vocabulary row
- A Verbosity row
- A Grammar row
- A Punctuation row
- A Capitalization
To learn how to use this incredibly valuable UX writing tool, keep reading, or check out my YouTube channel.
Defining your UX Writing Voice
UX writers work hard to create a recognizable and consistent voice for their digital projects.
In UX writing, voice is the set of characteristics that help make the user’s experience of a digital product recognizable, consistent, and distinct from other industry competitors.
Great UX writers, like Torrey Podmajersky, spend a lot of time selecting words to be used across an entire experience.
To streamline the creation of a unique and unifying voice, Podmajersky said this about the voice chart in her groundbreaking book, Strategic Writing for UX.
“The voice chart holds a set of decision-making rules and creative guidance to make the UX content align to the needs of the organization and of the person using the experience.”
UX writing is so difficult because creating a cohesive set of linguistic rules for a user’s experience is difficult.
Practicing defining a UX writing voice for an imaginary digital product is one of the easiest ways to start UX writing with no experience.
If you’re interested in starting UX writing without any experience, watch my video about the voice chart.
Perfecting your UX Writing Process
Aspiring UX writers should spend time researching UX writing processes.
English is a difficult language to learn. Writing is also a difficult skill to master. If you don’t have a UX writing process, you’ll struggle to become a UX writer.
UX writers always try to communicate tasks in a simple and empathetic manner to users, but the rules of the English language complicate the UX writing process.
To overcome the inherent challenges of writing in English, UX writers engage in the iterative process of UX writing we discussed earlier.
Simply put: UX writing is difficult because it requires many rounds of writing, revising, and rewriting.
The good news? As long as you have an internet connection and a word processor, you can learn how to master the art of UX Writing. Check out my YouTube channel for free UX writing advice.
But the question remains: how, exactly, do you start UX writing? You’ll know in less than 2 minutes.
How to Start UX Writing without Experience
If you’re starting to learn UX writing, don’t worry: you aren’t alone.
If you really want to become a UX writer, the best thing you can do is to join a community—visit my YouTube channel or check out one of these UX writing sites:
Here’s how to start in 5 easy steps, even if you don’t have any experience as a UX writer.
Practice by Completing UX Writing Voice Charts
Reading, watching, and researching will only get you so far if you’re serious about learning UX writing.
Eventually, you’ll have to take action – you’ll have to *actually* practice UX writing.
Practicing UX writing can be daunting. Where do you even start?
You should start with an empty UX writing voice chart. You’ll learn UX writing quickly by completing several voice charts.
To help you quickly complete your first few voice charts, I made this YouTube video.
Research UI/UX Design Principles
To start UX writing without experience, you should research UI/UX design principles.
Researching UI/UX design principles will help inform your approach to UX writing.
If you understand design best practices, you will have a much easier time writing words for user experience.
Here are a few of my favorite UI/UX design books
- The Principles of Beautiful Web Design
- HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites
- Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited
If you cannot afford these valuable resources, contact me on social media.
Read UX Writing Job Descriptions
A free way to start UX writing without experience (and cheaply) is to research job descriptions for UX writer positions.
Here’s how you can save time, energy, and money:
- Spend 30 minutes reading job descriptions on Indeed, UpWork, and Fiverr
- By comparing descriptions across each platform, you will get a more well-rounded understanding of the skills needed
- Spend 30 minutes making a list of the specific skills companies want UX writers to have
- Documenting your findings will you increase the speed at which you’re able to learn new information about UX writing.
Once you have a short list of skills UX writers need, you’ll be able to learn UX writing best practices – saving you time, energy, and money.
Take 2 UX Courses, Read 3 UX Books
If you’re serious about starting UX writing – even if you don’t have experience – you need to invest in your own education.
Here’s the problem: courses are expensive. Go to uxcontent.com, for example, and what do you see? Courses that cost hundreds, if not thousands of USD.
For a field that emphasizes accessibility, UX writing courses and books can price out many people who are trying to become a UX writer with no experience.
Fortunately, you came to the right place if you’re looking for affordable, accessible, and accurate UX writing information.
Download my free UX writing guide to learn faster, or follow my social media accounts.
Build your Portfolio
Your UX writing portfolio should include information about you, contact details, demonstrations of your work, and testimonials.
If you don’t have any testimonials, don’t worry — everyone starts somewhere.
With some creative ingenuity, you can create your own portfolio example.
Here are 5 tips to help you make a UX writing portfolio without experience:
Know Your Audience
Reading, watching, and researching will only get you so far if you’re serious about learning UX writing.
Here’s how you can create a user persona in 5 easy steps
- Collect and organize information about your users
- Identify potential behavior patterns
- Create user personas
- Prioritize personas based on behavioral patterns
- Reread and revise user personas
Research Portfolio Examples and Save your Favorites
If you want to build your UX writing portfolio without experience, start by creating a collection of your favorite UX writing examples.
When I was learning how to become a UX writer, I took screenshots of my favorite UX writing examples and inserted them into a word processor like Google Docs.
Maybe you will organize your favorite UX writing examples in a different way.
My point is simply this: save and organize your favorite UX writing examples.
Study your favorite UX writing examples. Try to understand why you’re so drawn to them.
UX writing is a craft that isn’t easy to master. Studying successful UX writing is a great way you can get ahead of your competition.
Create a Custom UX Writing Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)
Reading, watching, and researching will only get you so far if you’re serious about learning UX writing.
Conclusion
In conclusion, UX writing is considered the user-centric organization of text elements — like titles, buttons, & descriptions — for the interfaces of digital products (such as websites & mobile apps).
UX writers write strategic words to introduce, engage, & support the ways users experience an organization’s digital products (usually websites or mobile apps).
UX writing is difficult because it requires a strong knowledge of UI/UX design principles, UX writing, and human psychology to craft a successful digital product.
You can start UX writing (even without experience) by using UX voice charts, researching UI/UX Design Principles, studying UX writing job descriptions, and building your portfolio.
To learn more about the field of UX writing, signup for my newsletter and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
