📚 3 things from “Writing is Designing” on the Writers of Silicon Valley podcast 🤓
Saturday morning in Sävedalen, Sweden.
I try to listen to the latest episode of “Writers of Silicon Valley” while I clean the messy table after breakfast. My daughter wants to ride my back. “Horse, horse, horse”, while my son can not wait for me to see his super-duper ultra-bronto cool new lego creature.
This episode is about a brand new book on UX-writing. The title says it all: Writing Is Designing. And authors Andy Welfle and Michael J Metts say wise things about the UX writer role.
Believe it or not, but these are 3 things that I heard and take away from the episode:
- Writers are designers first – designers of words. To all writers: do not ever play yourself down, or apologize when you present your ideas and sketches.
- The culture and mindset of companies need to change: a UX writer should be involved early on, and do way more than fill boxes with texts.
- You write to make things easier for people, to help them solve their problems. There’s more to UX writing than to delight people; a chatbot saying “Have a nice day!” is not always a good idea, since it has no clue if the reader has been in an accident or has had their house burnt down, and that’s why they talk to the chatbot (wow, that’s a long sentence, sorry).
Also, I’m reading the book right now, and it is the most thoroughgoing one out there for sure. I like the read! And I’m so happy to bring in to every student in the first educational program on “How to write UX writing in Swedish” (the next class starts on in April).
This is the book:
