Writing for UXmatters
If you are an expert in user experience (UX) strategy, any aspect of UX design, or usability who has strong writing skills, we welcome you to contribute to UXmatters. We want to work with authors who are innovating in their fields, have new ideas to share, and want to engender discussion within the user experience community. You can
- write a column about a particular aspect of user experience
- write feature articles about a broad spectrum of topics relating to user experience
- interview pioneers and innovators in user experience
- review products that are of interest to user experience professionals, including hardware, software, Web sites, books, services, conferences, and tutorials
Thanks for your interest in writing for UXmatters!
Topics for Columns
Possible topics for additional columns include
- interaction design
- industrial design
- information architecture
- information design
- visual design
- brand experience
- UX for new technologies
Topics for Features
Topics of interest for features include
- user experience specialties or professions
- the business of user experience
- digital product design
- the process and techniques of user-centered design
- user experience work products, or deliverables
- patterns, principles, and guidelines
- design philosophy
- how to’s for performing specific user-centered design or usability tasks
- research findings that have practical applications in user experience design
- profiles of people in user experience
Submitting a Column Proposal
To regularly contribute a column to UXmatters, focusing on a specific area of expertise in user experience, please submit a proposal that
- describes your ideas for the focus, theme, and branding for your column
- tells us about your expertise in its subject matter
- demonstrates your writing ability
- explains why you think your column should appear in UXmatters
- describes why your column will be of interest to the UX community
Please provide the following in the body of a plain-text email message:
- your column proposal
- if this is your first time writing for UXmatters, your profile
- your complete contact information—including your mailing address, email address, instant messenger user names, and telephone numbers
Do not include any attachments. Send your column proposal to .
Once our editors have reviewed your proposal for a column, they will decide whether to publish your column in UXmatters and inform you of their decision. If our editors accept your proposal, they will work with you to develop the concept and branding for your column, refining its focus to ensure that it fits within the context of UXmatters and meets the needs of our audience. Together, you and our editors will determine the frequency of your column.
Submitting an Article Proposal
To contribute an article to UXmatters, please submit a proposal, briefly outlining your idea for a feature, interview, or product review. If UXmatters accepts your article proposal, you will work with one of our editors to develop your article concept, so do not send a complete draft of your article initially. Your proposal should
- inform us about the expertise you bring to your subject matter
- clearly summarize your article’s content, covering the key points you want to communicate
- demonstrate your writing ability
- explain why you think your article should appear in UXmatters
- describe why your article’s content will be of interest to the UX community
Please provide the following in the body of a plain-text email message:
- your article proposal
- if this is your first time writing for UXmatters, your profile
- your complete contact information—including your mailing address, email address, instant messenger user names, and telephone numbers
Do not include any attachments. Send your article proposal to .
Once our editors have reviewed your proposal, they will decide whether to publish your article in UXmatters and inform you of their decision.
Note—UXmatters does not accept submissions of content that has previously been published elsewhere.
Working with UXmatters Editors
Once our editors accept your proposal, they will work with you to establish the deadlines that you must meet and schedule your column or article for publication in UXmatters. Your column or article will go through several cycles of editing and revision. Before you begin writing, you’ll work with a developmental editor to refine your proposal. Once you’ve completed a draft, it may undergo further developmental editing. Your column or article will also go through one or more cycles of copyediting and revision before publication. Our editors will work collaboratively with you to ensure that your column or article is clear, coherent, and cogent.
UXmatters columns and articles typically range between 800 and 3000 words in length. UXmatters content uses clear, accessible language and is in English. Column and articles should have neither an academic nor an overly conversational tone. When writing for UXmatters, you must follow the guidelines in UXmatters Author Guidelines and UXmatters Guidelines for Style and Usage.
What UXmatters Will Do for You
While contributing authors receive no compensation for the articles they submit to UXmatters, each author will have a Web page on the UXmatters site that includes a photo and a detailed profile of the author, a directory of the author’s columns and articles on UXmatters, and links to the author’s Web sites and publications. UXmatters will make updates to the Web pages of all active authors at the authors’ request. For authors who are principals in UX consultancies, UXmatters will run advertisements for their consultancies on the pages on which their feature articles appear for a period of four months from their date of publication.
Copyrights & Republication
For each feature, interview, or review that an author contributes to UXmatters, the author and UXmatters hold a joint copyright, with all rights reserved. The author agrees not to publish the content elsewhere for one month, following its date of publication on the UXmatters Web site. Subsequently, without approval, the author may republish the content on only his or her own personal or professional Web site. Republication elsewhere requires the approval of the Editor in Chief or Executive Editor. When republishing content from UXmatters in English, the author or publisher must provide a link to the UXmatters home page in the following format:
Originally published on UXmatters, [Month DD, YYYY]
Republication in languages other than English requires that the publisher provide a link to the original article on the UXmatters Web site, translated into the language in which the article appears in the publication, following this format:
Originally published as “[Title in English],” by [Author’s Name], on UXmatters, [Month DD, YYYY]