10 tips for creating an effective UX content strategy

Content is an integral part of creating a well-rounded user experience. It should complement the design and provide information quickly and precisely. 

In UX, it’s all too easy to focus on all your design aspects first, from color schemes to usability testing. But your UX writing is just as important — your content and visual design need to match each other seamlessly. 

What is a UX content strategy? 

Think of a UX content strategy as a comprehensive plan that helps guide you in creating, managing, and then presenting your content within your product. This serves to improve your end-product users’ overall experience. 

It’s all about making sure that your written content (i.e., your text, buttons and icons, instructions, error messages, and page content) is clear and consistent. Like any other aspect of your UX design, it should align with your users’ needs. 

These key aspects usually make up a UX content strategy: 

1. Understanding the audience 

Knowing who your users are and what they want to get out of your product is a crucial first step. It helps to ensure that your content is relevant to your product and, most importantly, easy to understand. Try using tools like surveys and user interviews to gather buyer intent data.

2. Defining your tone and voice 

Think about your product, its user base, and what tone of voice and writing style will work best. Developing a brand guideline will help your team maintain the same tone and style of content across all aspects of your product. That way, you can match your brand and better resonate with your user base. 

3. Content structure 

Planning out your content, including how you’ll organize and present it, will improve the end product. A logical flow and working hierarchy will make it easy for users to find the information they need when navigating your product.

4. Creating and managing content 

As part of a UX content strategy, you should develop a salient process for writing, editing, and updating content within your design. That way, you can ensure that all information available to users is accurate and useful. 

5. Testing and improving

Your UX content doesn’t end after you’ve written it. You need to continuously test it with real users to get valuable feedback and make improvements. This will ensure that when it’s time to publish, all your content is effective and user-friendly.

How can a UX content strategy improve the user experience?

With a UX content strategy, you can ensure that every piece of content in your product is purposeful, clear, and aligned with user needs. Here are some ways to develop your own UX content strategy for your project to benefit the user in the long term. 

1. Provides clarity 

If you execute your UX content strategy well, you’ll be able to provide your users with some much-needed clarity. Following UX principles when creating content ensures you use straightforward language and avoid over-complication. 

Getting bogged down in niche language and jargon can be all too easy when you’re in a technical role. Having detailed content guidelines for all team members will ensure you use understandable language. For instance, instead of saying “authenticate your identity”, you might use a different phrase, like “please confirm your identity.” 

2. Gives users a consistent experience 

Consistency in your terminology, tone, and style helps create a seamless user experience. When content follows a consistent format, it’s much easier for users to predict and understand what they can expect. This works to reduce frustration and boosts their confidence as they get to grips with the product. 

Consistency boils down to the minute details. For instance, you’ll need to choose whether to use “send” or “submit” within your UX content guidelines and then stick to that.

3. Improve usability 

The main point of UX content is to guide users through their tasks. To improve usability, you should include clear instructions and microcopy (i.e., small bits of text). With your text, users can easily accomplish their goals without getting confused. 

4. Personalize content for different users 

Stronger UX content strategies will also tailor content for different product users. You can only start personalizing content when you deeply understand different users. This makes content more relevant and engaging. 

Dynamic content changes depending on user behavior. An example of this in action might be a product recommendation engine, which pushes items to users depending on their previous search history.

5. Guide the user journey 

A good UX content strategy will ensure users get the information they need at every stage of their journey. This is perhaps most important in the onboarding process, where you must provide clear instructions and explanations to help the user understand the product. 

6. Reinforce brand identity

Content goes hand in hand with your brand identity, and a UX content strategy ensures that the brand tone stays consistent throughout the user experience. Users can enjoy a consistent experience, whether they’re using an app or a website. 

10 tips for creating a UX content strategy

Improving your user experience with a solid UX content strategy isn’t as simple as producing great content—it’s also about ensuring that your content works harmoniously with all the other parts of your UX design. 

Here’s how to bolster your UX design with a UX content strategy in ten easy steps: 

1. Start with user research

Before you even think about writing a single word, you must understand who you’re writing for. Researching your users is a great way to deeply understand your audience, for example, what they need and how they think. 

This will help you gain insights into what users are looking for and what stage of the buying process they’re currently in. You can then tailor your content to address these pain points and motivations. 

The best way to adapt your content is to develop user personas. These represent your typical user base, so you can start tailoring your content to meet their individual needs. Remember, the more you get to know your audience, the more effectively you can communicate with them. 

2. Map out user journeys

After you’ve got a solid grasp of your audience, you can map out their journey as they use your product. 

Consider how users will interact with your content through various application integration solutions. Carefully identify your key touchpoints within your UX design. These could be a landing page, product interface, or customer support channels. 

After you’ve mapped your users’ journeys, you can start to consider what content will be most useful to them. 

3. Write clear and concise content, focusing on usability 

Clarity is crucial when writing UX content, especially when explaining complex products like phone queue systems. Users prefer to scan content rather than read it word for word, so your messaging should reflect that—it should be direct and easy to understand. 

Use snappy headers and bullet points to break up text and make it more readable. Pay attention to your tone of voice and whether it accurately reflects your brand personality. 

4. Create brand guidelines to keep your tone consistent

Consistency isn’t just about using the same words and phrases throughout. It’s also about keeping your tone and style consistent across all your content. This helps users feel more comfortable as they navigate your product. 

A style guide can help you confidently outline your brand’s tone and voice. It needs to be a living document that every member of your team can refer to. That way, all your UX designers and content creators are on the same page. 

5. Design your product with content in mind

Your content and design elements need to be more than just acquaintances. When you start to implement your UX design, consider how your content will fit into your layout. This stops you from not only having to redesign your product at the content stage but also prevents it from feeling like an afterthought.

Remember, content is an integral part of the user experience. Designers and writing teams should consistently collaborate on layout. The text shouldn’t be cramped into tight spaces, and there should be enough contrast between the text and background so it’s easily readable. 

6. Focus on making content accessible

Accessibility is essential in any UX content strategy. You must ensure that your content is usable for people with a range of abilities. This could include providing alternative text for images or using descriptive link texts. 

Write in plain language so your content is understandable to a broad audience, including people with cognitive disabilities or who speak English as a second language. 

7. Test your content with real users before launch

Even if you’ve spent months carefully crafting your content strategy, you still need to test it with real users. This is called usability testing, and it’s a vital step because it lets you check that your content is clear and understandable to a range of audiences.

Running A/B tests lets you compare different versions of your content and see which performs best. These insights will help you refine your content and make real improvements based on usage before launch. 

8. Monitor and update your content 

A UX content strategy isn’t a one-and-done task. Setting up a content management system and sales database software in your tech stack will help you analyze whether updating your content is having a real impact on your product’s sales numbers. To stay relevant and effective, regularly review and update all your UX content. 

9. Use analytics for better insights

Using analytics tools to track how users interact with your content can help you better understand how users are interacting with your product. Metrics like bounce rates, time on page, and click-through rates are all valuable indicators of your content’s performance. 

Combining this with other software will help you get a clear overview of how your UX product is performing in the market and where you might be able to sell to new customers. B2B leads software (like these alternatives to ZoomInfo) will help you keep all potential customer data in one place. 

10. Try using feedback loops

Feedback needs to be an integral part of your content strategy. You should encourage users to provide feedback on your UX content. Try sending out surveys or feedback forms to your active users. 

Having a consistent feedback loop will help you stay informed about what your users need so you can continuously improve. 

Let’s say 20% of your users report that one section of your instructions is difficult to follow. Based on that feedback, revise the content using clearer language, making it more understandable for your entire user base. 

Final thoughts

A well-crafted UX content strategy is essential for optimizing your user’s experience. By understanding your audience, crafting clear and consistent content, and continuously testing and refining your approach, you can create an end UX product that meets user needs and keeps them satisfied. 

Remember, in the world of UX, content is just as crucial as design—treat it with the same level of care, and your users will thank you for it!

Author bio

Sam O’Brien is the VP of Marketing for Dealfront. He is a growth marketing expert with a product management, demand generation, and design background. His knack for analysis and finding opportunities have served him well in his broad scope of expertise in the full GTM function.