Picture this: your company has been working on a big project for months, or possibly years. Development is nearly complete, which means it’s time to add the copy. However, when you go to do this, you find that the text doesn’t quite fit in with the product.

All too often, we think of the words in an app or website as separate and we only consider them at the end of the product development process. This can lead to language that’s inaccurate, ineffective or ill-suited to the overall experience.

We don’t have to work this way; In fact, my design team at The New York Times has found that we create better products when we incorporate writing into our processes. Having spent over six years at The Times as a technical writer, a UX writer and now a product designer, I’ve come to believe that language is one of the most powerful design tools we have.

I spent 2017 and 2018 embedded in a cross-functional team that was tasked with building a new account page for our subscribers and readers, who are located around the world and have very different needs. Initially, we approached copy in a fairly siloed way. When I saw that a design file called for a title, I wrote one. When an engineer requested a message for an error state, I provided one. Over time, I recognized that we could create better work (and do it more efficiently) if we rethought our process.

Rather than rely on lorem ipsum placeholder text, I began to draft titles, links and other messages as soon as we started work on a page or feature. This helped our small product and design team evaluate whether we were using the right components to deliver the right messages. We often found that a problem we thought could be solved with an informational message actually required more significant revisions to the structure of the feature or page. I discovered that we were able to create a stronger and more deliberate product when we considered the words we used.

These days, I split my time between multiple projects, which means I need to be more thoughtful about how I work with different groups. I’ve developed some strategies to help colleagues think about language earlier, more collaboratively and with more flexibility.

Consider language at the start of the design process

The earlier you consider language, the better. At the beginning of a project, the team is usually trying to understand and align on the problem that they’re tasked with solving. This may be a chance to consider who your users are and ask some of the following questions about them:

• Why might they use your product and what are their goals?
• How might they feel at the beginning of their interaction? How do you want them to feel at the end of the interaction?
• How might they want to be spoken to?

Thinking through questions like these can help you strike the right tone in your work. At The Times, this often means balancing our brand with user needs in a particular moment.

Workshop your content

As soon as your team has gotten to a place where you’re exploring design ideas, it’s worth including text in your mocks. This language doesn’t need to be polished; it’s there to help you identify what to say and the best way to say it. Think back to the questions you asked about your users and try to identify what you need to make clear to them in order to meet their needs. Once you have a general sense of this, you can start to fine-tune your word choices. If your team has regular design reviews or check-ins, these can be great venues for feedback.

However, it can also be useful to have dedicated time to work through specific messaging problems. Here are some exercises that I’ve found helpful, depending on the situation:

Prioritize what matters most

If you’re working through how to phrase a specific statement, try writing out every possible piece of information you could provide. Then, prioritize what’s most important to provide in the moment. This can be particularly effective for error messages or other instances where you need to deliver bad news.

Fill in the blanks

If you’re working on figuring out where in your interface to include specific information, try assembling a low-fidelity version with blank areas for language. Gather teammates or stakeholders together in a room and ask them to “fill in the blanks” in response to specific prompts. I’ve suggested drafting copy that addresses only the user need or only the business goal in order to eventually arrive at a hybrid, but you can get creative here. The point is to encourage participants to think critically about what needs to be said, and how.

Highlight and review

If you’re working to refine your tone across an experience, try printing out different messages and highlighting language that feels on or off-brand. By doing this, you can get a better sense of how you want to communicate with your users. This is also a good way to evaluate what might need to change depending on how you’re messaging users, whether via email, a pop-up or other channel.

Test the words you’re using, early and often

You’re likely to have gotten to a pretty good place by workshopping your content with your coworkers, but now it’s time to test out words with actual users.

At The Times, we conduct regular user research and usability studies. These are opportunities for us to assess what resonates with our users and what’s confusing for them. By paying attention to their reactions, we can feel more confident in our decisions or make updates as needed.

Research is a great time to evaluate the names and labels you’ve chosen for areas of your product, and to assess the instruction you’re providing to guide users. If participants don’t understand what a certain term means, or if they race through a series of screens without stopping to read necessary text, you may need to rethink the experience.

If you’ve been considering, workshopping and testing your content, you’ve probably come to some conclusions about the tone you want to strike and the words you want to use. I’d suggest documenting your decisions — for yourself, for your teammates and for anyone who might find themselves working on this or a related experience. By approaching words as vital elements of digital products, and by encouraging the people we work with to do the same, we can create experiences that are more empathetic, more inclusive and ultimately more effective.

Nina Feinberg is a senior product designer at The New York Times.