How to give your UX writers useful, actionable feedback

AKA no more “It sounds weird” or “Can you make it sound funny?”

If I had a penny for every time I’d received a Figma comment from a product manager, designer, or engineer on a line of text saying something to the effect of “I don’t like this”, I’d have enough to buy some really nice pasta, some organic cherry tomatoes, and a ball of fresh mozzarella. (If that doesn’t sound like a lot, remember inflation. 😎)

Don’t delay, make a UX writer smile today with useful, actionable feedback. 🌟

Now, if you’re reading this and you’re not a writer of any kind, I’m going to level with you: this is really frustrating feedback to receive. And to clarify, it’s not because of hurt egos or anything like that, it’s because it’s not useful.

For one, it’s an opinion and seems to skip over any thought process that might have gone into selecting the words you don’t like.

For another, it’s not concrete and doesn’t give me any idea what the problem could be, nor if or how I could improve the copy.

Here are a couple of classic pieces of feedback I see regularly that make me want to quit writing professionally, move to the Alps, and finally live out my dream of being an alpaca farmer in some remote Swiss village with a backdrop that looks like the logo on the Toblerone packaging:

• “I don’t like this word.”