UX Writing Guidelines
In 2018, I was hired as the first (and only) UX Writer for Digital Design & Development DCUBE, at GovTech Singapore.
For a start, I led the effort to create UX Writing Guidelines for 2 digital products— MyLegacy and LifeSG (formerly Moments of Life).
Writing tips were accompanied by examples from actual product screens
Before getting the team’s buy-in, I started creating the Writing Guidelines in a shareable Dropbox paper and teammates could search for information quickly with hyperlinks and CTRL+F.
CHALLENGE
With different designers, agency partners and managers writing product copy, MyLegacy and LifeSG faced the following content issues:
grammar and formatting
inconsistent vocabulary used in user interfaces (UI)
unclear product voice, style and personality
SOLUTION
Provide helpful guidance, tips and examples for anyone who has to write or edit product copy — designers, developers, managers and stakeholders from other government agencies.
HOW I HELPED
Created UX Writing Guidelines for 2 products: LifeSG, MyLegacy.
Conducted a content audit of existing product screens to standardise vocabulary, button copy, labels and error messages.
Presented the guidelines to stakeholders to seek alignment and buy-in.
Presented Writing Guidelines and shared about best content practices with other product teams
Topics covered in the UX Writing Guidelines
Voice and Tone
Understanding brand personality. Choosing the right tone to provide clear information, create moments of delight, give assurance when errors happen— all while keeping a consistent brand voice.
Translation
Content strategy for translation. Writing tips for creating translation-friendly copy in English— allow for text expansion, avoid language-specific metaphors, front-loading important points and more.
Grammar and Format
Writing rules for anyone touching product copy — use plain language, standardise use of capitalisation, bold, italics, lists, dates, time, numbers, pronouns and more.
Punctuation
Writing guidelines for the use of contractions, ampersands, colons, hyphens, exclamation marks and full stops.
Actionable Language
Standardise the copy on buttons, labels and instructions.
Outcome
Other than making sure that LifeSG and My Legacy had clear and consistent microcopy, I also had the chance to share about UX Writing and Content Design with the design community at GovTech.
These content guidelines were later used as a reference for other digital products in GovTech and they were shared as a content resource with designers, developers and managers from other product teams.