UX Writer and Copywriter Roles in the Multiverse of Madness

UX writer (UXW) and copywriter (CW) are two different professions. They are often mixed up for one simple reason: these professions have the same work tool — the text.

Leveraging this tool, copywriters create an enchanting universe, while UX writers put things in order there. In this UX-driven universe, it’s impossible to get lost, fail a task, feel puzzled or helpless.

A copywriter and UX writer are not interchangeable: they have different experiences, goals, and workflows. Without one of them, the universe will either lose its beauty and charm, or become inconvenient. Why can’t one specialist write all the texts?

I’m Lisa, a UX writer in the inDriver product team. In this article, I present all the differences between UX writers and copywriters in points and pictures.

• Text in the hands of UX writer and copywriter
• Goals of the product text and marketing text
• Who is responsible for which texts
• What are the similarities between UX writers and copywriters
• What is the difference between UX writers and copywriters
• Collaborative work
• If you choose your way to work with texts

Text in the hands of UX writer and copywriter

How the same working tool differs in the hands of different specialists

Concise — Vivid

UXW: UX writing, or product writing, is what a UX writer does. These texts are also called microcopy. There are many of them in IT products, and they help a person reach a goal without drawing attention to the copy. If the microcopy is concise and people don’t specifically focus on it, then it’s not distracting or annoying.

CW: Contrary to the above, copywriting, or marketing texts, should attract attention, highlight the brand, be bright and memorable. People read marketing texts in specific situations, so the marketing copy should be bright, but not intrusive.

Supportive — Separate

UXW: Since UX writing is part of the user experience, it should be supportive. The name of the button should clearly explain where the person will go when they press this button, and the microcopy of the error should suggest what happened and what to do next.

CW: Marketing texts are, most often, independent. For example, slogans are remembered and perceived on their own, without any context: a person may not even remember where they read it.

Consistent — Offbeat

UXW: Consistency in microcopy helps to boost the user experience. A person does not have to read the text, as the consistent structure makes it scannable. The use of the same words for the same entities makes the texts recognizable, so these names don’t have to be memorized.

CW: As an example of marketing texts, slogans must be offbeat, so the reader does not have associations with other firms’ slogans, and the brand’s reputation remains unscathed.

Goals of the product text and marketing text

What goals does the UX writer’s text and the copywriter’s text fulfill

Earn trust — Engage

UXW: The primary goal of UX writing is to earn the trust of a person and ensure retention. A person reads microcopy inside the product, so product texts are calm and informative. As part of the product, it makes people’s lives easier, while being in line with the user experience.

CW: A copywriter, on the other hand, writes a marketing text to engage a person — in a competent manner, with no hype or comparisons with the competition. The latter technique may attract attention, but it also creates an impression that the company wants to stand out at the expense of others, or copy their ideas from the competitors.

Build relationships — Make an impression

UXW: With the help of microcopy, the UX writer builds a long-term relationship with the product users, so they feel they’ve made the right choice, and their first impression was not deceptive.

CW: Most often, people get their first impression about a brand from marketing texts: these texts should encourage people to use the product and remain happy about it.

Respect a personal space — Get an emotional response

UXW: In UX writing, it’s critical to understand the audience and business values, yet the key concept here is empathy. Empathy means respect for a person and their personal space. Since we build long-term relationships with the aid of microcopy, we cannot evoke an emotional response from people throughout our communication: people will simply get tired of it. Sometimes we can see this mistake on button texts. Instead of helping a person quickly navigate onwards, an overly creative UX writer would make a mistake naming the button ‘Wow, what’s next?’

CW: One way to make the right first impression with marketing text is to decide what kind of emotional response we want to get from a person. We find examples in ads: some of them cause sadness, others — tenderness or laughter. All this is an emotional response. For example, a marketing text may appeal to nostalgia or tenderness: ‘Any distance can be overcome when you love.’ Or it can be inspiring: ‘Spend a year so that its results get a million likes.’ The main thing is to know who you are writing for, who will read this text. You also need to know who we want to attract to the product, and what will be the benefit of this audience for the business.

Who is responsible for which texts

Comparable examples of UX writing and copywriting

Header — Slogan

UXW: Microcopy is a small block of text that helps a person to navigate within a product: on a website, in an app, or through any interface. Of course, headers are also considered microcopy. Their goal is to unambiguously reflect the main idea of the content on the page.

CW: The slogans of copywriters are more ambitious: they succinctly reflect the values of the company.

Instruction — Longread

UXW: Instructions by UX writers are well structured and help a person to navigate in a complex or long process: most often, such instructions are stored in an FAQ section.

CW: Copywriters’ longreads are also long text blocks, which, unlike instructions, do not give a person an idea of how to use the product. Instead, they give an idea of how the product will improve their life, boost their social status or self-confidence. Adhering to the goals of a marketing text, longreads will impress and evoke an emotional response.

Onboarding — Presentation

UXW: In a product, onboarding is a brief and structured introduction. Good onboarding doesn’t aim to impress people, bad onboarding is always bewildering or irritating. Sometimes, onboarding is used carelessly, as a copy of other companies’ practices. In fact, a good onboarding should be unique. It should show how this particular product will make a person’s life more comfortable, and what a person can do to gain this comfort by themselves, i.e. how they can turn our product into a tool that makes their lives better.

CW: A marketing presentation highlights the benefits of a product, how we want people to perceive us. Perception doesn’t always match up with reality, yet a professional copywriter isn’t afraid to describe flaws. Using the right words, a copywriter can tell an honest story about a brand and the people who develop it.

What are the similarities between UX writers and copywriters

Points that UX writers and copywriters have in common

Audience and product expertise

Both professions must know their audience: what the clients want and why they come to use the product. Since a UX writer and copywriter write for a brand, they know how the product works. Of course, knowing the audience and the product is crucial not only for these two professions. Anyone who communicates with people through any kind of text should think in these terms.

Experience in writing

The more specialists are immersed in their fields, the more they write and explore, the better they feel and manage the language. The same happens with attention to detail: over time, it becomes easier to pinpoint typos. Anyway, using the tools to check your texts, especially the long ones, is a must.

Collaboration with designers

Since a copywriter creates compelling copy, designing it visually becomes an important task. Designers make it visually engaging. Design also matters in UX texts. For instance, without design buttons just look like unclickable text, causing gaps in the user experience.

What is the difference between UX writers and copywriters

The main differences between the two professions

Reason behind every word — Focus on the taste

UXW: UX writers must understand why this piece of microcopy is the best possible. UX writers are always objective: if the text is regarded to be faulty, the UX writer should have strong counterarguments — or microcopy has to be rewritten.

CW: Copywriters focus on people’s feelings and emotions. They rely on the tastes of the audience and on the team’s opinion. The key questions here are: Is the wording appropriate? What feelings can it evoke in a person? What feelings do we want to evoke in them? If everything matches, the copywriter’s text is ready to be published.

Join the project at the beginning — Join at any stage

UXW: The process of creating a product isn’t complete without UX writing. The earlier UX writers are involved in the process, the less work is spent on changing blocks, screens and entire flows where microcopy isn’t needed, or a completely different format is needed, or a different order is due.

CW: A copywriter joins when the product is already formed, and its advantages are clear and obvious.

Define the tone of voice and style guide — Follows the customer requirements

UXW: UX writers and copywriters have different workflows: UX writers specify the rules and voice of the texts that all texts in the product follow. The same voice is also used on all platforms within the company: support, stores, landing pages, social networks, and so on.

CW: Copywriters’ texts also stick with the brand guidelines, yet their tone of communication is more emotional.

Team workers — Work on their own

UXW: UX writers don’t create the product UX on their own. Microcopy is created directly in the designers’ layouts, the product manager coordinates the process and developers make it work. UX writers need to communicate and exchange opinions with different teams.

CW: Copywriters can work on their own, focusing on the brand voice, and simply provide the complete text to the designer. Of course, teamwork is always better, but not always as necessary as within the product.

Product team — Marketing team

Apparently, product and marketing texts are created by people from two different teams: product and marketing. When copywriters write interface texts, or UX writers create marketing texts, it breaks the entire process: the text stands out where it should hardly be noticed, or understates something that should catch the eye. Don’t fall into this trap. Better show this article to your manager and explain why the company should have at least two different text specialists.

Collaborative work

Since the UX writer works in the product team and the copywriter in the marketing team, they don’t meet each other too often. However, both specialists follow the same tone of voice, focusing on different tones of communication within this voice. In marketing, the tone is rather personal and even bold, in microcopy it’s calm and reassuring.

That being said, a UX writer and a copywriter do have room for cooperation. For instance, in landing page content. Scenario one: the copywriter writes the content for the page according to the ready-made structure and asks the UX writer to proofread the terms and verify the style guide compliance. Scenario two: the UX writer prepares the structure, writes the content and passes it on to the copywriter for slogans and headlines.

Overlaps do happen on different stages and customers do not always understand who should write which text. For example, push notifications can be both promotional and informative. The former are written by copywriters, the latter — by UX writers.

Within the same company, copywriters and UX writers should align to follow the same brand style. Users want consistency. You can’t treat the user as your bestie in a marketing text and communicate with them like a robot in a product text. The brand persona would simply fall apart, and the clients’ trust would be shattered.

The same will happen if a marketing text exaggerates the product’s ease of use. An announcement that the product is accessible in a ‘couple of clicks’ appears confusing for UX writers. It’s simply impossible to shorten the registration process because of the catchy words on the banner.

People encounter marketing texts first, and microcopy second. Inside a company, the process works the other way: from the product to marketing. You need to write slogans about a specific product, and not adjust the product to fit the slogans. Seems obvious, but better keep the workflow right to avoid further screw ups.

How to choose your path

If you wish to understand which profession is in your line, go back to the format and goals of the text. See what texts you like to write more, what works better for you, what kind of thinking you have.

I chose UX, because UX means care. Everything a UX writer does helps a person get familiar with the tech, save their time and effort, and make their life a little easier.

If you want to work with microcopy as a UX writer:

• Forget the pay-per-character model: the volume of work a UX writer performs and the amount of texts that go into production do not correlate.
• Study the subject matter and useful software: Figma is good for starters, but there’s more to it.
• Write and practice on the interfaces that you see daily, pay attention to microcopy and the UX in general.
• Be ready to substantiate every little piece of your work: this is one of the key UX writer’s skills.
• Be empathic and scrupulous.

The demand for UX writers is surging, yet UX writers still have to defend their right to exist — like copywriters before.

Copywriters dispelled the prejudices about their profession, and marketing texts took their deserved place in business development.

UX writers are also headed in this direction. Businesses are becoming increasingly aware of UX writing and its role as a crucial layer between the customer and the product.