Where UX writing and content strategy meet

After five and a half years in a senior UX writing role, I moved to a content strategy position within the same E-business area. My daily tasks changed, as well as my team and how I interact with other roles. In contrast, my ability to contribute from a content perspective remained, and I keep honing my skills every day, but now from a slightly different space.

There are too many articles describing what separates a UX writer (UXW) from a content strategist (CS), so I will not bore you with that.

Instead, I want to share three skills that both UXWs and CSS need to carry out either role effectively. It only takes a little adapting to make the most of them in each scenario.

Skill #1: Cross-product vision

We cannot successfully work in digital communication if we are constantly looking at our own belly buttons.

UX writers don’t just focus on a specific screen’s content; we need to get involved in every step of the design process (you can check the article I wrote about this). UXWs should also know and understand the ecosystem in which our product exists to avoid inconsistencies, redundancies, or misinformation throughout the users’ journey.

This means we UXWs must:

Keep our glossary and voice/tone guidelines alive. We should constantly review and update our definitions collaboratively.
Identify which products could intersect with ours and make sure we keep track of their UX roadmaps and iterations for possible common solutions.
Ask ourselves if our product “should be the star or an extra” in communicating specific messages that could also impact another flow. Are there other touchpoints where users can consume the information more effectively?

For content strategists, every decision should have intent within a cross-product perspective.

Having a cross-product perspective is also determinant to any content strategist to make decisions and define guidelines that can impact different features, flows, and areas.

Not having this panoramic view of our company’s digital communication can result in reactive solutions for each problem and challenge that comes our way instead of implementing a well-designed game plan where every piece of content responds to a purpose.

This means we content strategists must:

Give constant feedback to the UXW team on how to communicate core messages (although we aren’t necessarily are the ones who put together the glossary or the voice/tone guidelines).
Design communication guidelines that UXWs can apply to their product and keep them in the loop about possible decisions and other areas’ concerns.
Know what the road maps of all product teams look like to anticipate communication opportunities and have an updated mapping of the existing touchpoints. Join feedback sessions and review meetings.

Skill #2: Alignment and prioritisation

We need to participate in every conversation that involves content actively.

Advocating for the users’ experience is at the core of what both UX writers and content strategists do. We want to help people and make their lives easier. But digital products and companies are often complex, and our noble crusade is not the only interest or factor that product managers, stakeholders, and other roles consider when making important decisions.

Both UXW and CSs need to think strategically to influence prioritization and carry on content initiatives.

This means we UXWs must:

Negotiate within our team and with stakeholders to ensure that our product MVP and upcoming releases will offer a valuable experience to our users. I wrote about how UX writers need to work on their negotiation skills in detail in this article.

This means we content strategists must:

Act as a bridge between areas. Content (storytelling, strategy, information architecture, final texts, etc.) is pretty much the UX’s backbone. However, within a company, digital communication is key to other teams as well. For example, marketing campaigns or branding initiatives also need a digital presence, and it should be aligned to the way product teams interact with users.
Take a deep breath and work on your frustration tolerance. As mentioned above, when working with areas that have nothing to do with UX, content strategists need to make an extra effort to reach agreements. Their vision, decisions, and requirements are often very far from good UX practices and digital behaviour research.
Negotiate to prioritise. Again, not all areas we have to interact with work with our same methodology. Some don’t know about sprints, backlogs, refinement sessions, user stories, kanban boards, or continuous improvement. Aligning communication actions and timelines in this scenario is challenging and takes a lot of patience. This is where our seniority shows.

Skill #3: Teamwork

Giving content the place it deserves in the digital product design process is not something we can do alone, regardless of our role.

Both UX writers and content strategists need to empathise with other roles and know how to communicate with them effectively to create synergy.

The input from our team is valuable and will help us get better results.

This means we UXWs must:

Learn from every role. Being part of a cohesive, mature group that builds something together, from the inception of a project until our “baby” goes live and every iteration after that, is an amazing and enjoyable experience for any UX writer. Soft skills, even more than technical knowledge, will make the difference.

This means we content strategists must:

Learn from every role too. Soft skills are equally important here, but with a slight difference. Content strategists take a step back from specific flows to have a cross-product vision. We are not part of a design team; our team is the whole ecosystem that involves communication. This can bring a bit of nostalgia if you make the transition from UXW to CS, but in a way, our contribution makes us part of every product team.

Whether you are considering moving from a UX writing to a content strategist position or vice versa, be confident in your skills. You already have them, and you only need to adapt them to make the best contribution possible within your new team.

=====

Now that you’ve read this, you may be interested in

Featured