What lies ahead for UX Writing
This article is the first, out of four, that I will be writing. The ideas came up after having a one-on-one conversation with Torrey Podmajersky on December 2nd, 2022.
Our jobs have been taken over by artificial intelligence. It’s done. UX writing has no future…
Just kidding! I just couldn’t miss the chance to tell this joke.
When I brought this up with Torrey, she said that UX writing would remain important. Keep in mind that if you read it carefully, you’ll see two things:
1 — UX Writing is important.
2 — It will continue to be important.
About #1
When I go to a meetup, I talk to other professionals, like PMs, Designers, and POs, and make connections with them. When I tell people I am a UX Writer, they often say:
“Wow! That’s awesome! We only have one UX Writer at our company, but we know how significant this position is”.
Not only that, people usually ask about the UX Writer to UX Designer (or Content Designer to Product Designer) ratio, and when I mention 2:8, they go crazy.
This shows only the surface of the market: they know what we do and that we’re significant.
I think that those old days when we had to sell our work to companies are gone. I’m not saying this doesn’t happen anymore; I’m just pointing out that it does not happen nearly as frequently as last year (yeah, time flies).
About #2
Now that people are paying attention to us and companies recognize how valuable we are (why are they still asking for UX Designers or Product Designers to do our work?), I think the bonfire is just getting started, and it tends to grow. How high can this fire go? Well, it can go on for a long time.
From what I’ve seen so far, not only have we become more important in writing, but we have also become more responsive. This means that we are working on KPIs, doing our jobs strategically, and getting results (most of the time positive, I hope).
Uncle Ben once said;
Super true. We’re not “only” involved in writing anymore. We work with l10n, which means adapting content to the country where it will be used, i18n, which means changing the product and its design so that it is easy to localize, and t9n (translation, changes a text into another language). I could write all day about things we do now that aren’t just writing, but I think you get the idea, right?
It should be clear by now that languages change, right? We’ve been putting more effort into our writing lately, trying to make it more gender-inclusive, accessible, anti-racist, diverse, etc. And from my own experience, it’s us UX Writers (or Content Designers) who need to be up-to-date on the best terms to use and work on any language problems that may come up in your sprint.
Last but not least, we’ve recently seen how well A.I. can do when it comes to text completion, and it’s pretty amazing. But A.I. also said (that’s so weird) that it’s not going to take our jobs. It is here to make our work easier. I really think we should be interested in it, learn about it, try it out in our daily lives, and see if it helps.
In one of my past work experiences, I had to change the word “blacklist” due to its racist connotation. I asked A.I. if it was a racist word, and the answer you can see right below.
Interesting, huh? Quoting A.I.:
“It does not have any inherently racist connotations, but it can be used in a racist manner if the criteria for being added to the list are based on race.”
I’m a human, so I know that the word “blacklist” carries a racist connotation, even if the criteria for getting on the list have nothing to do with race. It’s just the wrong thing to do.
My point is that we’re people with feelings, and we are able to understand this term is just wrong.
You might be curious about the word I suggested, right? Avoid list. Just like that. It fit the situation and made sense.
I know that we’ve talked about a lot on this first part, but here’s what I think:
People are starting to see us as trustworthy experts who need to be on board. Not only is the work we do important, but we are the only ones who can do it in a way that adds value.
Things are going to get fascinating, and we need to be ready for them. Be curious, learn about the new technologies, processes, tools, and everything else that comes onto our market every day, sort them, and use the ones that make our deliveries better.
