The onboarding brief: what I ask before joining a small product team
Are you a UX writer or team lead who loves smooth kick-offs? Keep reading — this list of discovery questions might come in handy.
I enjoy working with startups. There’s this feeling that we’ll build something beautiful together that makes an actual impact. As a writer, I usually get to connect with the C-level folks from the very beginning, as well as the dev team and fellow designers.
Since I get to work so closely with the key stakeholders, there are A LOT of questions I want to ask – especially when I’m the first UX writer to join the team!
I started drafting the following list of discovery questions back in 2021, right before getting my first fully remote job as a digital product writer for a startup in the e-commerce space.
I’ve been tweaking the list here and there over time, and this is the result so far.
Sometimes, the team will answer my questions in writing; other times, we’ll go over them on a video call, and I’ll send a written recap afterwards. It really depends on their time and needs. Sometimes we’ll skip certain questions altogether, if they’re not relevant to the project.
Are you a writer or team lead who loves smooth kick-offs? Keep reading – this list might come in handy.
What problem does your product solve?
We’ve talked briefly and it sounds like we might enjoy working together. Now it’s time for our very first meeting, and I want to learn as much as possible about your brand and what your team is trying to bring to the world.
I want to know how you identified your users and their problem, and how you created a solution that meets them where they are. Let’s get into the humble beginnings and the sleepless nights.
What makes you different?
Here, we’ll go beyond creating a smooth and intuitive experience for the user. That’s what good UX should be all about! 😉
Why you? We’ll talk about how you’re uniquely qualified to put this product on the market now. Sometimes, that starts with a personal story. Maybe you know your industry inside out, or you’ve experienced the problem you’re solving first-hand.
I want to get as excited as you about what you’re offering.
Who are your customers?
You understand who your prospects are and which of them would be willing to pay for your product. You know where they hang out and what they’re saying.
Perhaps it’s more of a general idea than a deep understanding; if that’s the case, we’ll work on that together (through conversation mining, user research and content testing).
If you know who your competitors are and what your prospects know about them, this is a good time to share the data you have. At this stage, we may also discuss trends and changes affecting your industry.
What do you want to achieve with this project?
We’ll agree on what the short- and long-term goals are for your project. For example, if you want to build brand awareness before relaunching your app, we might decide to focus on your user flows and app microcopy first.
After the core product is taken care of, we might continue to pursue the same goal of building brand awareness by creating help content, a marketing deck for potential investors or lifecycle emails for different audience segments.
We’ll also address how we’ll measure whether we’ve reached your goals or not. What does success look like? Let me know how you’d describe the finished project in an ideal situation.
What content do you have, and what content do you need?
Do you need app flows? A landing page? Product descriptions? Scripts for video tutorials? An SMS sequence?
Let’s discuss what needs to be written (from ‘urgent’ to ‘nice-to-have’). I’ll gather resources and do my research to ensure each piece of content fits the bigger picture.
Chances are you have quite a lot of content already and you want to know how it can be improved. It might take a little while for me to map and audit everything, but we’ll get there.
If this sounds overwhelming, we can start with 1–3 goals (or channels, or content types) you want to prioritize. I’ll start there and provide feedback on what can be optimized.
What tone of voice feels close to your brand?
You might not know what you want your brand voice to sound like just yet. If that’s the case, it might be useful to start with what you don’t like. Exclude the traits that don’t feel like you first.
You can mention products and influencers who inspire you and whose style you admire so I can get a better sense of the direction you want to go in. If you have any links or examples of content you like, or documentation that will help me do a better job, share away!
After getting my hands on your existing content and listening to both users and internal stakeholders, I’ll be able to start drafting content guidelines to help your writers stay consistent and on brand.
Do you have deadlines?
Once we have all the information above, we can start defining a project timeline and breaking down our deliverables into checkpoints and milestones. We’ll stay in regular communication to make sure we’re on the right track and you’re satisfied with the results. This way, if there’s something you want changed, we’ll have enough time to iterate.
What’s your budget?
I still haven’t figured out whether I want to ask the uncomfortable question at the very beginning of the process (so that neither party wastes their time) or towards the end (once the scope is clear, we feel there’s a mutual fit and we’ve established the value UX writing can add to your product). But if we’re still talking at this point, chances are we’re both interested in reaching an agreement. 😉
I hope you found this post helpful.
If you’re a UX writer, what does your onboarding brief look like? And if you’re a team lead, what questions do you usually ask?
I look forward to hearing from you!
