Our friends over at UX Content Collective released a new report outlining the biggest challenges facing UX content experts — straight from the mouths of content experts themselves.
At Ditto, we’re all too familiar with the struggles — and opportunities — of content design. In fact, it’s a big reason why we created Ditto in the first place: To help content writers and teams of any size centralize, manage, review, and ship better product copy, faster.
Because the tens of thousands of words in your product—responsible for user education, conversions, liability, personalization—should be treated as an asset, not an afterthought.
Let’s break down some of the biggest struggles facing UX writers and content designers today — and how Ditto can help you overcome them.
One of the most common challenge voiced amongst writers is advocacy — 47% of UXCC survey respondents cited advocacy as their #1 challenge. According to content designers, they have a hard time helping others understand what they actually do.
We hear this one a lot. Content design is constantly floating between teams, sorting through one-off requests, putting out fires, and trying to get a seat at the table to take a more strategic approach to content. As one survey respondent perfectly put it, “Oftentimes product partners think they can solve a problem by just adding more content.”
So how can you overcome this advocacy issue? By investing in an intentional system to operate in. With an intentional system, content designers and UX writers are able to centralize, manage, and track their work in one source of truth. Content designers don’t have to jump between Figma files, slack channels, PRDs and whatever other tool their teams are using, because all the product copy is managed in one repository, and integrated where the other work is happening. Write product copy in Ditto, sync your changes to Figma, and ship updates directly to prod (without relying on engineering).
UXCC’s report also found (unsurprisingly!) that UX writers and content designers are pressed for time. For most respondents (44%), they’re facing old challenges but in new ways. UX writers and content designers are now having to do more work with fewer people and support. Lower budgets and headcount have also increased the pressure for content people to “sell” themselves to stakeholders.
The best way to do more with less is to get a tool that can help you work smarter, within a scalable system. Without the right system, even something like AI tools won’t be effective on their own — if the work is isolated or disconnected, the consistency and scalability problems won’t go away. Content designers can save huge amounts of time by automatically staying in sync with design files, and streamlining review workflows by bringing edits and approvals into one running log. Designers and engineers are able to work faster by working in Ditto as their always-on source of truth. No more working from stagnant spreadsheets or redoing work when a small change needs to be implemented — make the change once in Ditto and sync it to design and development.
Read how Stash, OwnUp, Staffbase, or Blip unlocked new levels of efficiencies with Ditto.
Content designers and UX writers are ready to engage at the business strategy level. Respondents in UXCC’s survey frequently said they want to learn skills traditionally owned by product managers, like “business strategy, product strategy — and how content strategy can advance those… [and] how to work with PMs without feeling like we're competing with one another when it comes to strategy.” Content people can’t work in a vacuum; their value compounds when they’re able to get close to the product and business goals.
The problem is, content designers can’t embed themselves in product workflows without the right tools to own. Oftentimes content designers find themselves working across Figma files, Google Docs, spreadsheets, slack threads, Jira tickets… you name it, content designers have requested access to it. With Ditto, content designers have their own workspace that automatically integrates to the other places work is happening. By investing in the right infrastructure, content design can streamline workflows, bring other teams in on their process, and demonstrate impact of the work they’re doing.
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Content Design is still a relatively new function, and that comes with its fair share of challenges. The silver lining to this, however, is that we’re all experiencing similar challenges, and they’re all solvable ones.
If content experts can connect what they are working on to the entire business strategy of an organization, build allies in areas where UX content can and should have influence, and connect day-to-day work with tangible impact, we can put these challenges in the rearview. As our friends at UXCC so eloquently put it, “The more UX content professionals can see the bigger picture and demonstrate impact, influence will naturally follow.”
