Review of UX Writing: Designing User-Centered Content

Abstract

UX writing (writing for user experience) is a professional field of growing popularity and consequence in which technical writers apply design principles to produce content, texts, and digital applications. UX writing demands usefulness—typically defined as the sum of utility and usability. Utility refers to how well a design achieves its purpose, while usability measures the ease of a design’s function. With UX Writing: Designing User-Centered Content, authors Jason C.K. Tham, Tharon Howard, and Gustav Verhulsdonck provide an exigent and, crucially, useful text that is well-designed in achieving its primary purpose of helping instructors develop UX writing courses. Indeed, for me—an assistant professor in a writing department currently developing a course in writing and design for user experience—UX Writing is a timely, valuable resource for helping me think through applicable genres, theories, learning outcomes, assignments, and potential class activities.