What Does UX Writer Actually Do? — With Dewanty Ajeng Wiradhita
By: Girls Kode
Tags: Girlskodevoice, Technology, Women In Tech, Digital, Ux Writer

A while ago, Girls Kode has a chance to has a conversation with Dewanty Ajeng Wiradhita, a UX Writer at Mola TV. She is graduated from Psychology major but has an interest at journalistic. She ever worked as a HRD, a journalist, and a copywriter. Now, she is a UX Writer at Mola TV.

UX Writer: The struggles

As a UX Writer, Dhita writes to help and guide user to use the product. At her company, UX Writer works together with UX Designer and product engineer.

“Empathy, trying to understand the user, is what important.”

She said that in order to relate with user, UX Writer need to empathy and use the inductive-deductive thinking skills. Technically, UX Writer don’t do coding but need to understand it’s vocabulary. Since UX Writer will have a meeting and discussion about product with product engineer. As someone who didn’t graduated from IT major, she had the struggle to understand some IT engineering terms at first.

Copywriter and UX Writer: The Difference

While both copywriter and UX Writer do writes, they have difference at the goals.

“Copywriter is to invites people to come to the place while UX Writer guide people at the place.”

That is a metamorph to what Copywriter and UX Writer do in Dhita’s perspective. If copywriter writes about promotion and stuffs, then UX Writer writes to introduce the products to user. So, to make it more user-friendly, UX Writer needs to understand every technology-related-terms.

As someone who ever worked as a journalist and copywriter, the skills to write an effective sentence is also beneficial, especially in microcopy. Right now, she said, UX Writer is not only demanded by start-ups, but also from corporate companies. Are you interested in to be UX Writer?

Luck is What Happens when Preparation meet Opportunity

“If we prepared enough, we will be ready to take the chance”

Linkedin is impactful. Dhita was reached first from Mola TV and be asked to send her CV to join Mola TV as a UX Writer. After that, she joined the interview, did the psychotest, and did health check.

Fortunately, Dhita has a bunch of learning sources and willing to share. One of them is warung.copy, UX Coffee Hour, Daily UX Writing, and books “Microcopy: the complete guide” by Kinneret Yifrah and many more (you can check it on here)

The Workflow of UX Writer at Mola TV

UX Writer also have portion in producing digital product: they design with words. So, UX Writer also have meeeting about product’s function and flow to get the big picture of the product.

In Mola TV, there’s also UAT (User Ability Test) when they test the product to the insider who doesn’t know the product yet. By doing UAT, they can get the feedbacks from people who don’t design the product.

If the product released on Apple App Store or Google Play Store, UX Writer also write the release note to inform people.

Writing tips from Dhita

“It is challenging to write a summary in a sentence.”

To be a UX Writer, Dhita sugest three most needed characters:

Language and IT terms understanding Efficient writing A will to learn.

Because UX Writer will write to guide user, the language used in the writing must a well-known and easy to understand.

To make it easier to writes in a short time, Dhita has her own glossariums which includes: type of pages, type of sections, flow, function, and the keywords she should use. Using this, she could completes a sudden request in no time.

But when it comes to crafting, she looks for words in google trends and word scraping from twitter. This is used to look the word’s sentiment in the society and how familiar the word is. Dhita use Microsoft Excel and Twitter Archiver to scratch data and mapping the good sentiment word and the bad one.

“Do something refreshing, such as have a random conversation, watch movies, or read something else.”

The challenge is real, but it’s possible

The learning sources is abundant. So it relies on our will to find what suit us. Critical and analytical thinking is needed so we also can give feedback about the product, such as its flow. Not only that, be open minded to receive every ideas and not feeling down when ours get rejected.

Communicative is the key to success may be applied to UX Writer’s needed skills. While understanding the big pictures of the product, UX Writer may also telling their co-worker what they can help and what they need.

“Bring the concept to real life experience”

The copy must feel familiar enough to be experienced in real life.

Being UX Writer is challenging but it still worth some adventure. Hear the full story and some QnA from our IG Live.

Written by Esa Difny