Content systems to create cohesive copy
Maintained voice and tone standards, wrote visual and writing guidelines, and trained other copywriters.
Objectives
Maintain and promote voice and tone
Create consistent content
Train and support other writers and designers
- Improve efficiencies
The Project
Western Union helps people send money online and through retail locations worldwide.
As a UX writer at Western Union, I participated in a content team project to evaluate and upgrade our design and copy guidelines. I also trained other writers.
The Challenge
Western Union has UX designers and writers located in different regions and working on specific products and local markets. Each product team had its own voice and tone, resulting in a lack of consistency. Some content didn’t even sound like the Western Union brand.
UX designers and writers also redesigned from scratch for each project instead of reusing existing elements. It was time-consuming and inefficient.
Finally, as the UX team grew, Western Union needed to improve its onboarding and training process for new and existing employees.
My role
- Content strategy
- UX copywriting
- UX copy lead
Team
- Product owner/UX writer
- UX designer
- UX researcher
- Engineer
The Process
- Defined objectives and shared project background at the kick-off meeting.
- Conducted user and competitive research.
- Identified user pain points.
- Brainstormed with UX designer, UX researcher, and other UX writers.
- Collaborated closely with the UX designer from initial concepts to prototypes and final iterations.
- Conducted A/B testing to validate prototypes
The Research
User research
- Conducted user interviews with internal designers and UX writers.
- Identified user pain points.
- Identified valuable information to include.
This guideline is not very clear. Could you give me an example?
I am working on my first design project at Western Union. Where should I start?
Competitive research
Design system
- Atlassian
- Salesforce
- Cisco
Our competitors took their users through brand principles and content, design, and accessibility guidelines before their logos and components.
Atlassian included writing guidelines in its design system.
Editorial style guide
- Mailchimp
- Spotify
- Atlassian
Other companies’ editorial style guides included:
- Voice and tone
- Word usage/vocabulary
- Grammar (formatting, punctuation, numbers)
- Guidelines for specific types of content (emails, social media, legal content).
Atlassian used examples with checkmarks and red crosses for word usage.
What should we include?
The Solution
Maintained voice and tone
I promoted the voice and tone across the company. I wrote voice and tone standards for our new design system and created a tone map for error messages.
Messaging tone map
Design system
Presentation
Updated editorial style guide
As a team, we upgraded the content style guide. We included:
- Grammar and language (formatting, numbers, punctuation)
- Guidelines for different types of content (Emails, SMS, partnerships)
- Word usage/vocabulary
I worked specifically on the word usage section, where I included examples of what to do or not do. I collaborated with the UX designer to include checkmark visuals for clarity.
Word usage
Before
After
Trained other writers
I’ve created materials to share my UX writing knowledge with other writers and help them improve their writing.
I trained them on how to write accessible content, for example.
Wrote copy for a new design system
I worked hand in hand with the UX design team to create Western Union’s first design system.
Based on competitive and user research findings, I included and wrote the copy for:
- Voice and tone standards
- Design principles
- Accessibility guidelines
- Components
Next, we’ll add grammar and vocabulary to the design system and include copy guidelines for each component.
The Result
- Improved brand, voice, and tone consistency
- 35% decrease in project completion time
- 50% onboarding and training efficiency increase
- Improved user satisfaction (UX design and content team)
