So you’re a solo UX Writer…
Lessons from my first 9 months
You’ve landed your first role as a solo UX Writer—amazing news! Well done you 👏
9 months ago I was exactly where you are. (Plus I was navigating the stresses of moving abroad for the first time, but that’s another article 🙃). So I know that, as well as being excited, you might have a few concerns.
“Will it be too much for me to handle on my own?”
“How will I improve in my role when there’s no one else to learn from?”
“How will I know where to start??”
I had all the same worries, so I’m here to pass on my 9 months of wisdom to anyone who’ll listen (or read).
Build a community
When there’s no one in your company to guide you, outside help is your only option. Thankfully, the UX writing community are a friendly and helpful bunch.
Search LinkedIn for other UX Writers and Content Designers nearby, and not-so-nearby. Then see who their connections are and connect with them too. If there was someone who had your job before you, put them at the top of your list. (Ideally you will have already connected with them before you accepted the role.) The aim is to make your feed a constant stream of interesting posts from brilliant people in the same field. These people will unknowingly push you advice, and answer questions you didn’t even know to ask.
Start doing this as early as possible. As well as all the fantastic, free help you’ll receive, it’ll do wonders for your mind. Building a community around you will go some way to replacing that team feeling you may be missing.
This list of 30 inspiring women in UX writing and content design is a great place to kick off your search.
Knowledge is power
As UX Writers, we write copy that is simple and intuitive. To do this, we need to really understand what we’re working on. It’s the only way we can know what information to leave in, and what we can take out.
So before you write anything, start by getting to know the product and the people you’ll be working with. You’ll need to understand the copy issues in the product, the individual issues your colleagues are having with their content, and how to best work with everyone.
As Megan O’Neill says in her article Five tips for success as a solo UX writer,
“It’s so so so important to start with getting to know the team.”
In the article, Megan provides great suggestions for info-gathering sessions you can run. She includes questions you can ask, and even shares the FigJam board she created. I recommend using her suggestions as a starting point.
Once you have this information, you can start to prioritise the improvements you want to make.
Alongside these priorities, you’ll need a plan for:
- Teaching the rest of your team how to improve their copy.
- Fielding all the copy-related questions you’ll get from your colleagues.
Your improvement priorities will change over time, but these 2 topics will be ongoing. Being solo, it won’t be possible for you to be part of every project or share the workload of answering questions. So having an efficient and visible process for these will help you in the long run. We’ll look at some practical ways you can do that next.
Solo UX Writer, not solo miracle worker
It’s important to be realistic about what you can achieve on your own, and to make sure everyone you work with is aware of this. You’ll likely have a backlog as long as your arm. You won’t get through it all, and that’s OK. Here are a few things you can do to help manage expectations, and lighten your workload.
Make your schedule visible
Make your roadmap and monthly/weekly work schedule visible to everyone you work with. This will help communicate your workload, and what your current priorities are.
Provide glossaries and guidelines
Supply your colleagues with up-to-date glossaries and content guidelines to follow. This will help them improve their content without needing to ask for your help. Below are a couple of snippets from Getaround’s design system documentation. Don’t forget to let everyone know when you’ve made an update.
Explain your decisions
When you work on a project with other team members, take the time to explain your decisions. It can be time-consuming to go into all the whys and why nots. But the more people understand, the more they will be able to apply the same logic to their content without needing to involve you.
Answer questions publicly
Answer UX writing questions in a public way for everyone you work with to see. This will make your work more visible. And you never know, your answer may benefit more than just the 1 person who asked. I encourage people to send questions via a public Slack channel, rather than to me directly. I also use the public channel to share writing tips.
Sharing the wealth 💸
Let’s finish up with some of the most helpful resources I’ve used from my self-built UX writing community. (A few names here you can add to your list 😉):
- The WIX UXW Product Lifecycle Meetup Series inspired my first piece of design system documentation. They discuss research, rewriting and editing, working with others, localisation, and rollout. You can watch the videos on their YouTube channel.
- Chiara Angori’s article 9 actionable tips to improve your UX Writer/Product Designer collaboration helped me rethink the way I work with designers.
- The Product Crew’s UX writing resource (in French) co-created with UX writing leads from OpenClassrooms, Doctolib, Malt, and Mirakl also helped me reconsider how I work with designers and Product Managers.
- Yossi Nachemi’s talk for UX Writing Hub ‘Don’t forget to be good! Track and evaluate your UX copy’ gave me practical tips for how to monitor the success of what I’m writing. UX Writing Hub is a fantastic resource in general.
- Torrey Podmajersky’s book ‘Strategic writing for UX’, and Mélanie Michou helped me assess how to audit and score our content.
Meetups I’ve enjoyed for chatting with other UX Writers:
- Content Design FR (online and in-person. I’m based in France — check for any groups where you are).
- Content Folks (online).
A few helpful tools that you may or may not be using already :
- Hemingway Editor — highlights lengthy, complex sentences, common errors, and gives a readability score.
- WordHippo — thesaurus and word tool.
- Wordtune — AI writing tool that rewrites, rephrases, and rewords your writing.
Finally…
Good luck in your new role, you’ll smash it 💪.
I’m Christina Grocott, UX Writer at Getaround. Connect with me on LinkedIn.
