Why UX writers need to work on their negotiation skills
When Oliver Lindberg invited me to share a few tips for his article on UX Writing for the Shopify Partner blog, I immediately said yes. I wanted to spread the word about one skill that I find super helpful for any UX writer’s (UXW’s) daily work: negotiation.
After sending him my tips, I kept thinking about the importance of this subject. So this story is an extension of those ideas.
We often hear about how UXWs should be great communicators. It’s almost on every job description; ‘flawless grammar', ‘passionate about languages’, ‘superb writing and editing skills’, and so on. But we don’t talk enough about how we should use our communication skills to interact with other roles and stakeholders effectively.
A key aspect of our work is giving visibility to our design process. And a common scenario is us trying to explain experience decisions in front of people who don’t necessarily know about UX and its value.
Negotiation is one of our daily activities as UXWs, whether we are conscious of it or not.
Here are a few things I have learned about negotiating on two levels.
Negotiating within your product team
Choose your battles
UXWs interact with every role within the team: developers, product managers, UX designers, business analysts, and scrum masters. Every meeting, workshop, and refinement session can unchain a new discussion. And yes, we should always have a say on anything that can directly or indirectly impact the experience of our users. But no…we can’t win all the time.
Technical feasibility, time to market, business needs, and KPIs are all significant factors when making team decisions on how to approach the product and the users’ stories. Reaching agreements often means we need to compromise. And that is fine.
The gentle art of saying ‘no’ is key to any UX-er, but this also means we should come up with alternatives, proposals, and ideas to enrich conversations, instead of blocking them.
Michael Corleone’s product team would not be too happy with him as a UX Writer.
Use your influence to define the MVP
Commonly, teams working with the Agile methodology approach are under a great deal of pressure to deliver fast. For a new product, this means dividing the backlog into different releases, and deciding which features are essential for the Minimum Viable Product (MVP).
Technical aspects seem to be the priority during these conversations. What can we do with the least amount of effort? The definition of the MVP is one of the big battles every UX-er should choose. We need to ensure that, even for the MVP, the experience we are offering is valuable for the users.
For this one, be strong.
Negotiate with your PM over backlog decisions
After defining the MVP, teams have a long list of tasks and features to include in future iterations and releases. Product managers have ownership of the backlog and its prioritisation, however, UX-ers should work hand in hand with them to let them know what aspects are more critical from the users’ standpoint.
We advocate for the experience, but product managers should be our main ally and defend the value of our role. Let’s not forget they act as the first filter to every request we get from other areas. Whenever a stakeholder reaches out to them to demand a change of text without any solid argument, we should expect them to respond that UXWs are the experts and that we will evaluate the case and make a decision.
And for that, we need to develop a relationship of mutual trust and fluid communication.
Negotiating with stakeholders
Choose your words wisely
Applying your company’s voice and tone to every text is something we are used to doing as UXWs. But we should also excel at communicating effectively at meetings and whenever we interact with stakeholders. We need to develop a specific voice and tone to do this.
Depending on who we are talking to, we will have to be more direct, use euphemisms, or explain in more or fewer details to get our point across. Knowing how to read your audience to understand which words to use takes observation, time, patience, and a lot of work.
Communicating with our stakeholders is easy when we understand and use their language.
Be precise and keep things simple
I know we are very passionate about our discipline, but keep in mind that not every meeting we attend is a UX conference. Prepare the answers for possible questions, but start with the minimum information that your audience requires to understand your rationale.
It’s all about the users
The users’ needs and expectations are at the centre of our work. It is always good to present those needs and remind the audience of why we are doing this. Everyone in the room should align on that before going deeper into the process and your solutions.
Use data
Having data to back your decisions is very important, especially if you are presenting to the business area. Mention which KPIs you are trying to impact with your design, research results, A/B testing numbers. If you only have qualitative data at the time, let your stakeholders know about your next steps to gather quantitative information. You know they will be expecting those big numbers, so be prepared to calm their anxiety.
We need our stakeholders to trust our opinion, but we should never forget we are advocating for the users.
Get involved
Being present and giving visibility to our work is both strategic and practical. UXWs should know who is who within their organisation to:
Get to the answers faster
Gather and double-check the information
Unblock discussions
Make better designs and content decisions
If you have a background in journalism, use those reporter’s skills to get to the right people. Show up to meetings and use your voice (and tone) to let others know you are the face of UX.
Negotiation on these two levels is not easy. It takes time and effort. But using our innate communication skills to build relationships and a position of influence makes us better UX writers.
Negotiation helps us place users at the centre of our organisations’ decisions.
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