My (un)typical day as a UX writer

The Klook Careers Hub originally published this article.

When you ask a Klooker about their typical day at work, you’ve got a 100% chance they’ll answer something along the lines of “There’s no typical day here” or “Each day at Klook is different”. And while that’s true, it’s also soooooo unsatisfying if you’re trying to figure out if Klook is the right place for you! In this series, Klookers take us along on one of their (un)typical days at work — no excuses. Today, Seb Smith shows us the behind-the-scenes as a UX Writer in Shenzhen, China.

8:00 But first, coffee

Not to be cheugy, but nothing starts until I’ve had a coffee.

Now’s a good time to set my daily intentions. Let’s go for “focused,” Which isn’t very original because that’s my intention for every day. But hey, I’m not paid to write down cheugy stuff.

9:30 Arrive at the office

I’m in the office now. Let’s get down to business.

As part of a lean team of just me, myself and I (two of whom are lazy, good-for-nothings), I receive a pretty high volume of UX writing requests each day.

So I had better get them all out of the way first thing, right?

Wrong!

I love being a UX writer, and I could happily write for UI designs all day. But then I wouldn’t learn anything new.

After two years of working here, I know that tackling my regular day-to-day tasks first is like playing whack-a-mole.

That’s why I make my own projects and ideas the focus of every morning (along with the coffee). Otherwise, I’d never have time for them.

But anyway, ranting at you, dear reader, isn’t part of my day. So here’s what I actually do…

Where the magic happens

9:45 Review time

Each day, I like to spend about 30 to 45 minutes just browsing through Klook’s app and website to review the existing UX content.

We’re always launching new features or making changes, so it’s vital to make sure everything’s up to date and looking spic and span.

Plus, we’ve got a UX writing style guide to enforce — that means making sure all of the copy follows the basic principles of being clear, concise and useful.

So, do tickets go on sale tomorrow? Or can I book for tomorrow? It’s a mystery!

I’m looking through Klook’s Things to do pages, and I come across some copywriting on a product card, “Available Tomorrow”. It definitely passes for “concise,” but is it clear and useful?

“Available Tomorrow” sounds like tickets go on sale tomorrow, so don’t bother booking now. But after speaking to the product manager, I found out customers can book now and go tomorrow. True story: I once put off booking something on Klook until the next day because “Available Tomorrow” confused me.

Much clearer!

Mustering all of my team’s brainpower, we came up with “Book now for tomorrow.”

We’ve now made this text into a call to action with a strong verb, “Book.” We've added usefulness with “now,” and we've made it both clear by telling them that they can book “for tomorrow.”

You might say it’s not as concise, but being concise doesn’t necessarily mean using as few words as possible. It just means making sure all words have a purpose.

I then put in a request with the Data Team to see if this copy change leads to an uptick in bookings for these activities.

10:30 Spice up Klook’s empty states

For my next trick, I want to revamp Klook’s empty states completely. You know when you’re shopping online and your cart is empty? That’s an empty state page. For example, if you’re a new user on Klook and you’ve never made a booking, you’ll see an empty state in the bookings tab.

Sure, they’re not pages that attract much traffic or conversions. But I want to revamp them to show off Klook’s unique and fun brand voice.

Here’s the empty state that I came across during a previous platform review. It’s not just the UX writing but the whole page design that’s a bit flat.

Yawn!

The page could at least have a homepage button so that the user isn’t at a dead end. Or, if there are tech resources, how about a recommendation module?

My mockups

I want this project to be led by the UX writing, so I make it bolder and add a bit of humor.

Now we're having fun

I finish my mock-ups and arrange a meeting with the product manager to discuss what’s possible for this page.

12:00 Check emails

It’s noon time, and I’m going to allow myself some distractions before lunch. I check my emails and reply to Lark messages. Most of this is just following up on ongoing projects with project managers and localization teams.

I especially like talking with localization teams because of their valuable insights for their own market’s users. Plus, they always have a lot of good gossip.

13:00 Lunch!

When you see plastic chairs at a noodle bar, you know you’re in the right place

14:00 Kick-off meeting

We’re getting ready to launch something big and exciting on Klook. It will make our users jump up and down and share candy. Okay, maybe it won’t be great, but I can’t tell you anything else about it.

What I can say is that there’s pretty much someone from pretty much every R&D team here — project managers, designers, engineers and so on. I’m here to see the draft UI design and troubleshoot early for any design choices that might obstruct the UX writing or anything that’s just not localization-friendly.

For example, a button on the draft design looks pretty small. In English, it should be fine to write something short that’s still clear and useful. Other languages, however, like Vietnamese and Thai, tend to need more space for their translations.

Here’s a button on Klook’s homepage, for example. Vietnamese uses more characters to say the same thing in English.

15:00 I do what I was hired to do

Okay, it’s midafternoon, and it's finally time to start the job I was hired for: UX writing! I'll see what tasks are in the inbox and start with the most urgent.

Today, I’ll write for a new feature on the hotel page that lets users search weekends, so if they’re not bothered about what weekend they can pick the cheapest for wherever they want to stay.

There are some other tasks, but they’re mostly just requests for changing existing copywriting. I plow through these before I wind down for the day.

18:00 It’s data time

I cut my teeth as a copywriter before I got into UX writing. There’s a lot of overlap between the two jobs, but copywriters tend to see themselves as poets — writing clever words that will spur the reader into action.

Of course, any decent UX writer needs to spur people into action, too. But we can’t just write poetry — we have to be scientists, too. That means we don’t just write down some pretty words, call it a day and go home for dinner. We have to make sure that our words are measurable for success.

Otherwise, how else can we improve our craft?

To give you an overly simplified example, if I write “Check availability” for a button under a hotel package rather than “Book now,” will more people click? And what about conversions? Or will the opposite happen?

Data analysis has always been a weakness of mine. So, I try to use this last hour of the day to do some research, see what tools are available, and even ask other Klookers what data they have already available for me to examine.

19:00 Home!

And that’s how I end my day at Klook. I’m already thinking about tomorrow’s coffee.