Content Pattern Guidelines Creation
My role: Project owner
Type of project: Content guidelines
Project overview
Before I became the Head of UX Writing, we had no content pattern guidelines. We had a voice and tone, and a loose style guide. But we didn't have any guidelines for the most commonly used content patterns. This was causing our writers to spend lots of time figuring out how to write the same kinds of messages over and over again. It also hurt quality and our overall professionalism.
My first big project as Head of UX Writing was to come up with a method for creating these guidelines, and then execute it.
Today, we have guidelines for nearly 40 different content patterns. Writers tell us that they use these guidelines on a daily basis, and that they are helpful when having disagreements with other stakeholders.
Now, as we are working on building AI assistants and agents for our writers, these content pattern guidelines have been invaluable. We have a pre-defined body of knowledge that we can feed various LLMs; without them, it would have taken us ages to train AI to write like a Wix UX writer.
The process
Timeline and logistics
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I broke it down into 6 milestones of 10 weeks each. Within each milestone were 3-4 groups, each with 3-4 people. Every group had 1-2 content patterns to research.
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There was also a facilitator for every group, who was responsible for leading the group through the milestone, meeting deadline and presenting the guidelines at end. Being a facilitator was also a growth opportunity for people.
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Groups were a mix of junior and senior writers, so there were diverse perspectives.
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A localization writer was also included in every group, to make sure we were creating guidelines that worked in other languages as well.
Visuals
Guideline creation process
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Internal and external research - Writers collected examples from across Wix, as well as examples from direct and indirect competitors. They also looked at community resources like blogs, books, etc. to see current best practices.
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Decide as a group on suggested guidelines - The groups met and debated about what the guidelines should be. Then, they worked on writing them up in the clearest way possible.
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Finalize guidelines with committee - The facilitators presented on behalf of their group to a Standardization Committee, a group of UX writers from across Wix representing all platforms (editors, business manager, mobile, Premium, etc.). Then, they met with me individually to make sure the guidelines were clear and concise.
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Present final guidelines to all UX writers - To ensure buy-in, each group presented the finalized guidelines to the rest of the UX writers. The guidelines also went live in our Writers Guild Hub, for people to start using immediately.