Results
20 hours
Time saved per release across
writers and engineers
30%
Reduction in technical debt
for labels and data model content
How my approach worked
Frontloaded content eliminated bottlenecks. Any product development comes with surprises, but with a feature to track UI text status, most work is planned and surprises are easy to accommodate. Writing isn’t a bottleneck for labels, and UX writers can deliver better usability when their work is defined and scheduled proactively instead of squeezed in at the end.
Localization benefited too. The sooner UI text strings are finalized, the more time translators have to localize.
Turnarounds got shorter. When writers can pace their work without frequent interruptions, it’s easier to turn content around faster.
Sprint reviews got more valuable. When UI text requirements are part of the definition of ready and approved UI text is part of the definition of done, sprint reviews generate better feedback.
Releases were no sweat. A stressful scramble turned into routine cleanup.
The situation
UI text was prioritized for developer workflow
UX writing work for software is sliced into pieces that are mapped to engineering priorities and schedules. This necessary process has no relationship to the experience of people who will ultimately use what the engineers are building.
My job as a UX writer was to see past this jumble of isolated words and phrases to what humans would see and feel and do when they encountered the product on their screens.
To gather the design, business, and technical information they need to write UI text, UX writers collaborate with developers, designers, product managers, and researchers. Ultimately, they deliver every text string to a developer who checks it in to the code.
The challenge
UX writers depended on manual communication and recordkeeping
Writers tracked their work through an improvised mix of email, chat, shared docs, spreadsheets, and standup attendance. Last-minute requests could disrupt a writer’s planned work, and requests saved for the end of a release created bottlenecks. UI text that slipped through the cracks could turn into a “documentation bug” that disappeared into a backlog.
To automate the communication and tracking for UX writing, I knew we needed to build on the automations that teams already used to track engineering work.
My approach
1. I proposed a fix that treated UX writing like a component of engineering
I wrote a proposal — with a co-author from another team — for a new status field in the project-tracking tool, specifically for UI text status. We presented it for feedback and got buy-in to add it to the tool’s release schedule.
To help keep writers’ deliverables on their teams’ radar, I also worked to add the field to reports and to team boards where developers and PMs collaborated.
I encouraged teams to include UX writing in their definitions of ready and done for user stories.
2. I designed the field around team workflows
The field tracked text status against a given work item defined by engineering, with states ranging from a default that signaled new work in the pipeline, through work in progress, to writer QA. The field helped writers stay on top of many strings with separate deadlines, and it gave developers visibility into the status of text strings needed to finish work in their pipeline.
3. I drove adoption
First I got my own product teams up to speed on using the field. Then I documented suggested workflows for writers and built customized report templates for writers, product teams, and leadership. The reports gave each discipline visibility into what was most important and actionable for them.
“Cate made an immediate and lasting impact on our team [and] elevated our work across the board. [Her] standards and best practices … dramatically reduced back-and-forth.”
Lead Product Designer, Fortune 500 Company
“Before, the process would cause a cascade of problems. Now the work is the same, but there’s no end-of-release bottleneck.”
Lead Engineer, Fortune 500 Company