The Content & Product Design partnership
Together, Content and Product Designers can create magical product experiences.
Product Designers and UX Writers share an almost-sacrosanct relationship. It’s almost an unbreakable, essential symbiosis that helps create beautiful products and beautiful product experiences.
Most of the content design work happens in close collaboration with product designers. From project-kickoff to high-fidelity mocks to Minimum Viable Product (MVPs), designers and writers work together to deliver successful user experiences for customers.
Copy has an irreplaceable role in the designs that product designers create. It is not uncommon for content designers and product designers to huddle up quickly, run through the content strategy, the product design strategy, the product/technical requirements, and sketch out ideas for the visuals.
I look at the Content Designer-Product-Designer relationship as a partnership — that of sharing, a deep understanding of the value of each other’s craft, and continuous collaboration to achieve business goals.
Here are a couple of things that I think are common between what Content and Product Designers do:
We advocate for our customers
Empathy rides at the helm of experience-designer emotions. A close connection with customers, their pain points, their asks, helps in thinking about, and creating solutions that make for satisfying experiences.
Being empathetic doesn't always mean giving customers what they want. It’s about proactively identifying and anticipating what works in the best interest of the customer (in the short or long run or both, as the case may be) and providing the same.
We strategize
Strategy is a critical component of design. Strategizing is about taking a step back, considering all the moving parts, and sketching out experiences that complement not only what the customers need, but also your organizational objectives and goals.
As UX writers, we need to ask critical questions around what customers are likely to want to accomplish, anticipate what they are feeling, preempt questions they might want answers to, think of a lexicon they’re familiar with, and more. Product designers need to be asking these questions too. Together, we need to make sure to understand our customers’ asks and needs to intelligently craft experiences for them.
We partner with the same people
UX writers and visual designers collaborate with Product Managers, Developers, Marketers, Researchers, the Legal team (if your organization has one), and more. Our collaboration with all of these experts is crucial.
Product Managers give us excellent business information, competitor understanding, and technical know-how. Product developers, on the other hand, tell us about what can be built and what can't.
Marketers and legal folks help vet the content and the interaction designs we create. Making sure that the promises made in the product align with the promises made to customers via the marketing channels of communication is crucial. The legal team plays a critical role in stepping in at the right time and making sure that we don't create opportunities for any legal issues by exaggerating or making claims that may not be true. If you don’t have a legal team, make sure to cross-check the content you create with PMs and others before you take the plunge.
We (should) use the same tools
I find that working collaboratively with Product Designers has several advantages. For one, you get to immerse yourself in the context of the designs. You get to visualize what customers will see when they use the product.
Working on the designs directly is a great empathy-building exercise. When you’re able to step into the shoes of the customer and anticipate what challenges/blocks they could face, you can proactively try to remove those.
Figma is a great tool to collaborate on. What’s even better is that Figma is introducing a lot of new, very cool features that make collaboration fun and fast. For example, Figma Chat.
Copy can have a design system too
Content Designers and Product Designers can make life easier for each other. Having a Design Language System (DLS) and Content Design System/Content Language System is one of the ways.
A Content Design System isn't vastly different from a DLS. Only, it outlines standardized content practices that Content Designers and Product Designers can use to provide standardized content design experiences across the product.
We’re all Designers
While Product Designers make the visuals—the look and feel, writers create copy — the medium that connects customers with the interface and speaks their language. Both writers and designers dabble with the same information and research data before zeroing in on a design and content strategy.
Both writers and designers have to think of the customers first—what are they familiar with seeing in the product, what have they used in the past, and remember, what are their top concerns (Net Promoter Score, in-product feedback).
We design experiences that make using products frictionless. Our goal is common—help users accomplish tasks in the product successfully.
A couple of things you should know:
- I’ve used copy instead of content in places. But I’ve used them to mean the same thing. So don’t be confused.
- I’ve used Content Design instead of UX Writing. Again, they’ve been used synonymously.
These were just fleeting thoughts that passed my mind. Would love your thoughts on the partnership. Also, what’s it like in your organization? Let me know!