If you, willingly or unwillingly, have the task of choosing the words for a digital product, always remember that UX writing is a cake with five layers (a lot of Cs coming up): it’s got to be clear, concise, constructive, conversational and consistent. Sweet! Thanks for the words, Charlene Nuval.

Edwin Mohammad, UX writer at GO-JEK in Indonesia, thought he had got his head around the difference between copywriting and UX writing. Then he realized that he hadn’t. So he turned to thousands of writers to get a good answer. 

Many people, like product managers, think that UX writing is just another name for copywriting. Is it? No. While copywriting should convince and sell, UX writing is about guiding users and helping them achieve their goal. The copywriter owns the pre-customer experience, while the UX writer owns the customer experience. Also, the copywriter is part of the marketing team, while the UX writer belongs to the UX team. 

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As UX writer for an app you will need to add new copy or update existing copy. Today, that’s not an easy thing to do. In fact, you need one of your developers to do the job. Sadly, they have always, always, always more important things to work on. 

The team at Picnic – the Dutch online supermarket app – had the same problem. They created their own solution: Babelicious. It’s a plain text Git file (called the Babelfile), which you can directly edit through Github’s editing interface. Great for developers, great for writers. 🥂

For writers and developers working with words together, some of the tools out there are: Phrase, PO Editor, Launchpad, Localize and Bablic. Which tool do you use in your UX team? Do tell! 🙏🏻 

Today marks the opening of the Fundamentals Course in UX Writing, ambitiously put together by the expert team at UX Writers Collective. Bobbie Wood and her staff work with content strategy and writing at Google, Amazon, TurboTax and General Assembly in San Fransisco. 

This online self-paced course is perfect for journalists, copywriters, and marketing writers who want to transition to this new and exciting field. In just 2-4 weeks you will learn the essentials of successful UX Writing. Each of the 7 units is broken down into a series of 4-6 lessons. 

The Fundamentals Course in UX writing costs 895 USD (roughly 8 000 Swedish kronas). As a huge thank you for getting this newsletter, you can now use the code COPYME20 to receive 20 % off the course fee. This golden ticket to UX writing expires by February 15, 2019. 🤓

➡️ I want to know more about the Fundamentals Course in UX Writing

I’m Mattias Åkerberg, a freelance UX writer from Gothenburg, Sweden.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about all those things in life that I am ridiculously bad at. See, I absolutely cannot use any building tool, wrap a gift, grasp too many spoken numbers or play even the simplest video game 🤦‍♂️. And this is just the beginning of a looong can’t-do-list.

However, I’m pretty awesome at UX writing and doing a newsletter about it. You and 621 other kind people tell me so. That is, to me, a huge comfort in my otherwise complete incompetence. So thank you! 

This is my daughter Ilse and me. She’s by far the happiest 9-month-old creature I know. That’s one of the reasons why I’m really looking forward to spending three days off every work week with her until September, 2019. 

Besides being on parental leave, I will do B2B sales for Rulla vagn (Swedish for “Roll the stroller”), a startup run by my wife and me; in less than 3 years we’ve taken our tiny idea from the sofa in front of the TV to a solid plattform that reaches 100,000 mums and dads in Sweden every month.

I will also spend time and money to become a better UX writer in numerous ways. That’s pretty much me, for now. Feel free to contact me or add me on Linkedin or on Twitter – I would love to hear from you.

The next issue will be out on February 12, 2019. Later that same day me and my family will leave for 5 weeks of “workation” (work + vacation!) outside Malaga in southern Spain. ✈️👨🏼‍💻💦🍷👨‍👩‍👧‍👦