Coming soon:

• Button watch party, March 13: Hosting Creating error message templates by Haley Donoughe

• UX Lisbon, May 20-23: Leading the Product Voice workshop and speaking: Patterns for Faster, Cheaper, Better UX Text

Finds

The process is the point, writes Pavel Samsonov. Pavel argues that using generative AI to skip the messy process of iteration means that we’re also skipping the meaningful parts of design.

This is something that I reiterate to participants in my classes and workshops: Creating multiple iterations isn’t the point. Thinking through multiple iterations is. That thinking is what helps us make good recommendations, and what helps us to understand the results of user testing and A/B measurements. If we just generate multiple options without understanding the tradeoffs for the user, the customer, and the organization, then we don’t have a basis to learn from the outcomes.

Because that’s what we’re trying to do, right? For every design, I want to learn at least whether or not I’m designing in the right direction. As we make each new design, we’re investing in that user, in that experience, in that business, in our own expertise, and in the community in which the experience and all these people exist. If we’re investing minimally, with design solutions that we haven’t thought through, then we’re only going to reap minimal rewards—for all parties involved.

I hope you read this terrific article about the importance of designing the content as fundamental to the design process. I was cheering all the way through it.

Flexes and fumbles

I’m proud that I was able to offer a 6-week course in UX Writing for STC India. More than 20 students completed their certificate requirements, which included homework and a final test. That course is now completed.

I think that one of the big surprises for folks in the STC India course was how much of the work of UX writing isn’t writing. I’ve talked about that many times, and it’s the major reason I’m not worried about AI taking all the UX writing jobs. The words may be the deliverable, but they aren’t the work. The work is in designing the right experience, including the words, so that the organization that develops the experience and the person using the experience gets what they need out of it. To do that, you need to have a lot of writing techniques in your toolkit—but you also need to ask good questions, understand and conduct user research, anticipate and discern what the user might need, predict and react to technical constraints, and present your solutions believably.

As I work on writing the UX Skills for Business Strategy book, those skills that go beyond “deliver the deliverable” are top of mind. I returned recently from Santa Fe, where my co-authors and I gathered in person to work through some sticky problems in the information architecture of the book. Our next deadline is less than a month away. It’s thrilling to see how much we’ve drafted so far—and overwhelming to see how far we still have in front of us.

At the same time, I have another deadline I’m working toward: The final manuscript for the second edition of Strategic Writing for UX. I’ve gotten extensive feedback from technical reviewers (thanks to my O’Reilly editor and all of you, you know who you are)! I need to own up to the fact that I’ve only looked through the feedback so far, but haven’t started making changes. So that’s the fumble that’s wallowing around in my messier-than-usual office: Keeping up with everything is a messier-than-usual process right now.  

Philosophy

Keeping up has been harder, lately. It’s taking more energy, attention, and effort right now than I think it should.

I think to myself, uncharitably: Is it that I’m getting older? Have I gotten lazy? Complacent? Am I just afraid of hard work? What’s going on with me?

When I consider it rationally, I know that I’m better at being me than I’ve ever been. My history is full of successes and failures that I’ve learned a lot from. More than ever, I know how to learn new skills and keep myself curious about new ideas. I know where I need tools to make myself more effective, and I use them. I’m happier than I’ve ever been, and reasonably confident in my strengths.

So what the heck is going on?

I don’t want it to be related to the background radiation of the nuclear events in my country’s government, creating destruction and accelerating cancerous growth of oligarch strength. I have a list of news sources that I follow, and actions that I take, and I work to limit the time and attention that devolution steals from me.

Even while I try to limit the day-to-day effects, it’s important for me to recognize: the fear for civil rights, especially my trans, immigrant, female, and nonbinary friends, fear for my country’s crumbling alliances, for our crumbling bridges, for our crumbling healthcare systems, for the viability of small businesses like mine, for the continued validity of our constitution—these are eating away at me.

Frank Herbert wrote “fear is the mind-killer,” and there’s more truth in that than I want. Fear makes it harder to think clearly, and most of my work right now is thinking work: writing books, creating and teaching workshops, providing mentorship, creating content in my consulting.

The work I’m doing requires more intensive thinking per hour than ever.

All this means: My work costs more in energy than it costs in time. And when I’m doing that work in an increasingly uncertain time, it costs more energy than ever.

I’m going to work on giving myself what I need to recuperate from all this energy outlay. If any of this resonated with you, I hope you can take that energy for yourself, too.

Hire Catbird Content

When I can help you or your team, please get in touch.  

• Design consulting: Solve problems with adoption, onboarding, usage for products and services, and design process and skill alignment for teams.

• Training & facilitation: Keynotes and other presentations, plus hands-on workshops in UX content, visioning, naming, and team building.

• Mentoring: I work with individuals to focus their own career development, including navigating change, constraints, careers, and more.

• Open office hours (free!) I hold 2 hours a week open on my calendar to connect with people who don’t have business with me, but just want to talk.

I write these newsletters myself, and I stand by what’s in them. If you have kudos, concerns, or questions, please tell me. —Torrey