Ep 201: UX writing & UX design Decreases Churn and Increases Income For Your SaaS Company with Yuval Keshtcher

Jaryd Krause (0:00)

Your SaaS company can make more money with better UX writing. What is UX writing? Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause, host of the buying online businesses podcast and today I'm speaking with Yuval Keshtcher who is a tech entrepreneur with a background in UX design. Now today he hosts the writers in tech podcast and runs the UX writing hub and UX writing Academy, which is an extensive program and the world's first and only UX writing boot camp.

UX writing company has helped hundreds of professional professional’s transition to UX writing and content designed to increase the performance and the revenue of SaaS companies and apps. In his podcast episode, you've all and I specifically talk about what UX writing is and what UX design is, and how some of it's similar to copywriting. But also what are the key differences between that and copywriting. You've all also gives us some examples of how good UX writing and design is used to SaaS companies and apps to increase the value for the user, allowing that user to stay longer, and also push those users to upgrade and earn the business more money.

So UX writing and UX design is so imperative for a good SaaS company. We're also going to talk about some simple UX design strategies that can make your app or your software much more intuitive, much more easy to use fun for your users, thus keeping users for longer, which equals more money for your business as well. This is a great episode, if you're looking to improve your SaaS business or your app to ensure you can decrease churn increase retention, and make more money. Enjoy. You’ve all thanks for coming on.

Yuval Keshtcher (1:47)

Thank you for having me. Joey. That was very excited to be invited here today.

Jaryd Krause (1:52)

I'm excited for this chat. Because UX content, user experience abbreviation UX. When talking about UX content, today, we're going to talk about UX writing, UX design. And before I hit record buttons, I asked you a question. A lot of people listening to this podcast episode are going to think about like, hang on user UX content, they get the UX design, I guess we could probably talk a little bit to that, we'll probably be diving in some more UX content, and people probably thinking how, what is UX content?

What are some examples of how UX content has evolved? And how has that helped people grow their revenue, that's what people listening to this are wanting to do? They're wanting to buy a business and then then grow the income of that business. So let's kind of start with what is UX writing? Like? What is that? What even is that?

Yuval Keshtcher (2:43)

All right. So that's a really good question. I would say that UX writing is if we have the umbrella that we can call user experience. So when UX writing will be a niche, it would be something that will sit under that umbrella. We have user experience, which is okay, so you bought an app, you bought a website, and there is a whole experience that your customers are facing, there is the customer support aspect, which is also part of the experience, there is the visual aspects, which is okay, what is like how the screens are organized. And there is also the communication aspect of your website and your app.

And that would consider to be the UX writing means that, let's say right now that you just sign up to a new app, and you need to do some kind of an onboarding for that app, because you need to know how to use it. So the people that creating that app will not only design but also write copy that will teach you how to use that app during the onboarding experience. And that copy would also consider to be a UX writing. Now, the reason it's really, really important for your business is because, okay, let's say that you've built this SaaS app software as a service. And this is an app that helps you to schedule meetings like Calendly, for example. so you sign up to Calendly, the mission of the people that's creating candidates that obviously you'll pay them and maybe buy more and more seats.

And on a monthly basis, recurring revenue, this is what they're looking for. And they figured out that the best on their data, people that finish the onboarding, have 20% more likelihood to actually end up paying to the app. So then you would like to focus your energy to communicate and also design the experience of that onboarding. So eventually, people will end up paying to you so you will increase the amount of people that end up finishing the onboarding. Because of the thing that you just learned from the data, I hope that makes sense.

But basically, that's what the username is all about. And you can omit it with a lot of different parts of your app, you can make it when you have an error message that is not communicated or communicated in a good way you committed with confirmation messages, notifications, and basically everywhere in your app or website, wherever you communicate yourself to your end user or client. So that's more or less what you experience. What about.

Jaryd Krause (5:35)

okay, so UX writing is, is basically good copywriting that gets people to, I guess, take an action or further action towards either sale or engagement and create on I guess it's going to create more engagement. So how, what why the term UX for example, user design, user experience, writing is it is a based on connecting with people's emotions more or based on them understanding more about the product or the service, like just, I want to, I just don't get it. Like, I want to understand it a bit more.

Yuval Keshtcher (6:12)

Perfect. Those are great questions. So let's start with the term a UX writing some people and some companies call it content design. And some companies, as you said, call it UX content. Some companies call it product writing, like Netflix. But at the end of the day, these are the people that are in charge of communicating the app. And there is a lot of overlap between what the UX designer is doing and what the UX writer is doing.

And to those of you that are not familiar with the work of the UX folks, the UX designer and the UX writer, there's a lot of psychological aspects to that work, a lot of people coming to these fields from psychology and the other and writing industries. Again, so prior to the writing, like 90% of the work is not about writing. It's about research, writing, research, learning, your users talking to users understanding their pain points, which is very similar to copywriting. Right, it's no different than copywriting.

What's is a bit different than copywriting is the context of your word, there's a very big difference. If you were to write a sentence or phrase in a very specific part of the app, or with the way that you name a feature, in an app, then writing, for example, converting email or converting product page. There is a difference, though. Why? Because your user has different type of mindsets. When they're using different types of apps. For example, give me for example, your favorite app that is not a social media platform.

Jaryd Krause (8:02)

I don't use social media platform.

Yuval Keshtcher (8:03)

That's, that's perfect.

Jaryd Krause (8:07)

Probably it's a surfing app where you can watch live surfing competitions.

Yuval Keshtcher (8:13)

That's amazing. So you have this surfing app, and which is some kind of a small digital media company, I'd say. There are a lot of features in that app. And the way also that you consume and use this app is varying between different things that you're doing, for example, you can watch it in the bathroom, or you can watch it while you commute.

Or you can watch it in your office. And I'm not familiar with this specific app, and I don't know exactly what kind of features do they have, except from just doing the live stream? I don't know if there is like communicational aspect in that. And whatnot. So they have like, they have different things where you can read article, like on the blog section they have like, where you can watch recorded videos, they also have a section where you can play fantasy, a fantasy surfing League, and a bunch of moving on the app. So yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot in it.

And do you pay them? Or do some users pay for it? No, it's a free app. And they're doing money out of ads, I believe. Yeah. Okay, cool. So their goal is to create traffic that will be so engaging, so that there are people that pay them to promote their ads, probably surfing related ads, I assume. They try to create some kind of a golf and retention so people would stay so they mostly in charge of mostly the content of the app should be really, really good if it's a surfing link, or if it's like the live stream. And they probably build some kind of a community around that.

And I would take another example of let's say that Were using some kind of a b2b dashboard, if it's like an email marketing tool, or this HR tool or invoicing tool, so those tools could be very complicated to you. Okay, you need to learn how to use them, it takes some time, there is some kind of a learning curve, and better writing it. And they help you to educate you through these type of products.

And eventually make sure that you'll be hooked to use them not tucked in the way that you will be, you know, addicted to it, but hooked in a way that like that will be your only solution for your business. And the better the education that they will have for you, the more effective it will be for their business. And the more seats you'll end up bank, and the more the better their business basically is going to be.

Jaryd Krause (10:45)

Okay, so it sounds like UX design and user writing is best for an app or a software where people are already paying already using a free version, or a paid version and getting them to pay more or stay longer, rather than getting people to make an initial purchase. Is that what you were you specialize in? is in that area?

Yuval Keshtcher (11:12)

Yes. So it's not necessarily means that it's only about retention, and so on. Because you have a lot of overlap between UX writing and marketing writing, and you could find yourself writing also ecommerce and helping people to make you know, a purchase you can see very clearly in website also like booking.com that they have fantastic team of UX writers.

Jaryd Krause (11:37)

So what's the difference between UX writing and copywriting? I don't, I don't understand the difference.

Yuval Keshtcher (11:44)

You mentioned that you have a surfing store, like a real surfing store. So you're going to the store. And then you end up talking to a salesperson. And that salesperson knows everything about the board is like, you know how to tell you, Hey, this is the features of the search, and you should have it if you're that kind of person that looking for that kind of experience, they will sell you basically the product. right? Okay. But then you got the product, and it's laying in your bedroom. But now we you need to use it, okay.

And then you go to this surfing instructor, or like surfing school, and those people take you to the ocean, they teach you how to surf surfer. They teach you how to balance yourself, they teach you how to take the product that you just got, and make the best out of it. Okay. So that would be the difference between a UX writer and a copywriter, the copywriter would be the salesperson that will explain you pretty much aggressively, not aggressively, but more aggressively with their tone, how to use it. And the user would be the instructor that will that will help you to make the best out of your product.

Jaryd Krause (13:06)

Okay, I get it. So it sounds like UX writing is a tool to retain customers longer on software on a SaaS company or app.

Yuval Keshtcher (13:18)

user experience in general, just let's say that you're using this, you're a customer for a bank and you this bank have an app and you're using this app. From one from some reason, you're looking for a very specific feature in that banking app. And like taking a loan or sending money to your friend, it's not clear to you as a user how to do it.

It's a bit complicated. So because it's complicated, it takes some cognitive load, it makes you think, and people don't like to think anymore. People like seamless experience where everything goes smoothly. Yeah. And then your friend is telling you about this other bank that everything's digital, and everything is seamless, everything is simple. And then you're like, Okay, fuck it.

I'm going to move to another bank now and to the bank that give me the better experience with their app. So you move to another app. Okay, so that's a case for better business for the bank that created the better app. Got you. Because at the end of the day, people are looking for the fastest way seamless way, the most convenient way to do stuff. And most of the stuff we do is online.

Jaryd Krause (14:29)

Got you. I love that that's really good example, how a business can earn more money and retain clients and generate more users via good UX writing and user design.

You know, what are the top three things that like if somebody was to had an app or had a sort of software, so they got a software as a service business, right, so the SaaS business, what are some of the top three things that people can do? With their UX writing to improve their connection and communication with their members.

Yuval Keshtcher (15:09)

Alright, so first of all you exciting goes really well with UX design, as I said before, because it's not only about the words, it's the user journey. And the way that journeys organized means that the you excited, and also the UX designer, but also the UX writer, will be in charge of how things are organized around your app. So it would be the easiest as possible for the user to perform a task. So one of the most important things would be to design an actual use sweaters or designers, and to design a flow that would make sure that the user would perform tests that user business would like them to do.

Okay, so that's one, designing the experience. So it would make sense then the user and be clear to them. Another effective thing that you could do to an app is to delight the user. Okay, so let's say that we have some kind of, there are things that I like to call them epi moments in an app. So if we talked about like a banking app. So there are some not so happy moments where you just understood that you own money or have like shortage of money, which is, okay, now, we need to create empathy with the end user, because we need to be clear and on point.

And people can be very sensitive about money, right? So, yeah, as your extractors, we need to be extremely sensitive. And be clear in this specific scenario. On the contrary, I just said before, about delighting user users, let's say that you just got a large sum of money to your bank, or let's say that you, and the bank approved a loan to you, which was something that you were expecting and anticipating. So that's a really good opportunity to celebrate and delight the user. Got you.

So understanding the contexts of your users, if they're happy, if they're sad, if it's neutral, and so about just performing a test, it's also something very important for you expecting, because then you have an opportunity to delight the user, or to, on the contrary, to take a very bad situation and make it slightly better. Okay, all of us know, this Windows, like old windows by Microsoft, like error messages when you know, I remember when I was a child, I didn't know how to operate, it was like, oh, X for one to delete, confirm, cancel, like it wasn't clear.

And today, you can see already in a lot of apps that with companies that hired content designers, UX writers, you could see that it's all about helping the user, if there is an arrow. First of all, they don't blame the user with the way that they write the app, they are very helpful. And they give you solutions that help you to solve that problem. So that's one more thing.

Jaryd Krause (18:08)

it sounds like the biggest thing is understanding the user of your SaaS product. And knowing where they're at different stages in their growth or different stages that they use your product or tool, and understanding how they would feel at each of those certain stages. And then making their job or task or whatever, they're trying to do a lot simpler, a lot easier, and understanding their frustrations and helping remove those frustrations.

So it's a lot of tasks without having to use their brain too much. So it sounds like there's so much work that goes into r&d research and development, like what a copywriter would do. How do you get that information? Like what is a like before you go away and start tinkering with things inside a, you know, software insider product, start a membership? How do you go away and get that data that can equip you to confidently know what you need to change and make better?

Yuval Keshtcher (19:10)

Alright, so that's a great question. So now we're going to the fantastic field of user research, UX research. Under the umbrella of UX you have also UX researchers, people that work in companies, it's UX researchers. But we don't always have the luxury to have a UX researcher. So we need to do and perform some research methodologies. Obviously, we could look at the data as it is like check out the funnels and look on the user flows.

If it's even if it's an e commerce Store, we can look on Google Analytics and see on every step of the way, what was the dropout rate and try to learn? form it even though it's a bit more complicated, the type of users that are the type of research that I support heavily would be Talking to people. So talking to users talking to your customers, listening to their pain points, but most importantly, pay attention to the way that they describe their problems. So they would like people that.

Jaryd Krause (20:17)

gives in certain words that you would actually be able to use in your language and copy when you are explaining a task to them. Right? Definitely, definitely.

Yuval Keshtcher (20:30)

There's this term that we've coined that the UK's wedding hub, we call it conversation mining. So we analyze the way our users talk, not only to us, but to each other. So let's say that we're building this surfing app right now. And I'm not a surfer myself, but I'm the UX writer of this company that building a surfing app. So we'd like to learn how you, Jerry, talk to your, you know, to your surfing buddies. And how do you talk about surfing?

When you talk about equipments? And the type of I don't know tricks that you can perform? How do you talk about basically everything? And what are your pain points? When, for example, even watching live streams? What like, what are you looking for? Or when you're playing? Because we just would know straight away that this is not created by surfers, and it's not for surfers, and it's not worth being on. Whereas if you can connect use the same language as people, then you feel like a part of it, which I think is super important, right 100%.

So that's one thing to communicate with your users in a way that would make sense to them and wouldn't feel like it's attached, you know, from what they're already used to. There's also one thing, something in user experience called Jacob's Law, people would perform better with experience that they already used to, for example, the tinder swipe is a very good example of like, a design pattern that people really find useful. So for example, in the US wedding hub would help this company to connect with parents of children with special needs. By the way, it's an Australian based company, their name is country, for example, parents wanted to find other parents in their location.

So that company used also the exact design pattern that Tinder has in order to find people around them. So people are really comfortable with using experience that they feel familiar with. So one very important research methodology is competitor analysis. Yeah, for example, if I was building this streaming surfing app right now, I was looking on maybe Twitch, which is a live stream for gamers, I will analyze like the design pattern that works really well like the rating and you know, all of those to see like what makes sense for the Twitch user?

And then I would see like, Okay, is there a design pattern for this like billion-dollar company that might work for my small surfing? I'm not sure it's that small. But you know, it's probably smaller than Twitch so competitor analysis, basically, and looking not only on your direct competitors, which is like other surfing app, but comparing yourself to other streaming services, looking at Ditsy plus q2, and the other place and social media and yet Netflix and try to build some kind of idea about like, what would work well, for your base of users. It's not specific for UX writing, but it's important to do these kinds of things.

Jaryd Krause (23:58)

awesome. So, uh, you you're saying a UX writer is also a UX designer? Is that right? So does the person who does all the research, competitive analysis competitive research into the language the lingo, how that particular market or niche would communicate? Do they do that person do all of the tasks? Or is there people in the department that do different parts of the task tasks?

Yuval Keshtcher (23:58)

So the product team have usually a product manager that is in charge of probably taking business ideas and, and building features Is with their product teams in that product team. We have also developers, people that are techies building code and so on software, front end, back end, full stack, and so on. You have the UX designer that is the owner of the user experience in the visual.

And you have the UX writer, which is the owner also have like the whole experience of the app. And but he's in charge of, or she in charge of the wards and communication. And some things have the luxury to have a UX researcher or a research team. And that could help them out with their research tasks. Now, every person in that product team have different type of specific research that they need to do.

The developers need to do research that related to you like r&d, what language dish should they use? What coding language, the designers also will do their own research and out of time, and that might have overlap with the UX writers research, like the competitor analysis and the user interviews, but they will probably ask different questions, they wouldn't care much about the linguistics aspects of it and type of words they should use, because that's the responsibility of the UX writer.

So let's say that you work for Google as a UX writer. Yes, you have plenty of data of research teams that will do the research for you. And you could submit them specific research tests that related to the writing. And if you don't have the luxury to work for a company such as Google, you would probably have to perform that research. And yourself.

Jaryd Krause (26:42)

Love it. Awesome. That's cool. Where if people are interested in learning how to do some UX writing and UX design, you help people do that. Where should we send people to find out more about what you do there and where they can find you on social media. Yuval Keshtcher (26:58)

All right, so you can just look the UX wedding hub on Google or check the explaining hub.com, we have a free course. And we've built a very big community for UX writers. We've been there, the very beginning of this interesting industry few years ago. So one of our agendas is to create a lot of free content for anyone that is interested in UX writing.

So check out the free UX writing course that we have on our website, but also a very active blog to update on a weekly basis. And a podcast named writers in Tech where I interview all of the leaders of this industry, from the biggest companies in the world, a weekly newsletter, where we update what whatever going on in this industry and how it's evolving.

and create a lot of you know, content for a community like salary surveys and giving people more ideas and data about where we're heading. So check it out. And you can find me on LinkedIn, you're welcome to just add it to the show notes. And I'd love to answer your questions if you have any.

Jaryd Krause (28:06)

thanks so much. There'll be links to that in the show note, guys. Very interesting. Thank you for listening, and I'll see you on the next podcast.

Yuval Keshtcher (28:12)

Thank you.