Tips for a UX writer #1
Today’s article is predominantly written for UX writers. However, anyone who is involved in writing a copy, even if it is just for an email, will benefit from today’s analysis of digital writing assistants.
Due to outstanding marketing efforts from Grammarly Inc., pretty much anyone who belongs to their target audience has heard about them. Their advertising strategy included mostly online efforts and went after students, entrepreneurs and creative professionals such as copy writers and marketeers. The result is about 20 million users, and 60 million website visits a month.
They are an undeniable leader in the market. Basic Grammarly subscription is available for free. It includes spelling, grammar, and punctuation checker. The premium version is available for $29.99 a month or $139.99 a year (an attractive offer to someone who regularly writes copy), and includes clarity-focused sentence rewrites, tone adjustments, plagiarism detection, word choice, formality level, fluency, and inclusive language suggestions.
Grammarly is a plug-in. You can download it from the http://grammarly.com website. It will automatically plug in to your search engine and start supervising your copy on selected websites. Those mainly include emails and messaging apps, documents and projects and social media websites. There is a separate extension for Microsoft Office package.
While composing your text in an editor, you will see recommendations popping up automatically. You can click on the recommendation and agree to change it, or ignore it. The major disadvantage of Grammarly is that it was coded in favour of Microsoft. It doesn’t run spotlessly on iOS. The App Store rating is 3.4 and complaints revolve around incompatibility with Safari. Also, it is worth adding that you will still need a good knowledge of English to know when the recommendations are not accurate. I have had many examples of Grammarly trying to change a verb or add an article where it was not needed.
One competitor that addresses the rivalry with Grammarly quite openly is Outwrite (previously GradeProof). They have an entire landing page devoted to the subject of outperforming Grammarly. You can take a look at it here https://www.outwrite.com/outwrite-vs-grammarly?utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=may_general&utm_content=final&gclid=CjwKCAjw3MSHBhB3EiwAxcaEu4_Fy2798w0zL3MKSxuXN1rHB1GmiP7ks9oL-xhQ1WBW5ZKV5BsorhoCTMIQAvD_BwE
First look at the Outwrite website makes a very good impression. The home page is very informative and intuitive to use. It provides a great view of what functionalities are available with basic and pro subscriptions. It also has a very well built blog library devoted to copywriting. They make an impression of a brand that is genuinely passionate about the industry.
The question is: How do they compare against Grammarly? Outwrite works just as Grammarly, with exception of a few added features such as sentence paraphrasing, rewriting goals, and the option to enable or disable suggestions which will improve the flow and organisation of your article. It also provides extra information such as readability score, grade level, reading time and speaking time. Oh, have I mentioned it is also cheaper?
Another popular alternative is http://sentencecheckup.com . This website-based software checks spelling, grammar and punctuation mistakes in a sentence, or a longer fragment. It can also make suggestions to improve writing style. It is an entirely free, web based software that doesn’t require installation. It operates on a very simple and user-friendly web interface. The only downside is that you will have to copy and paste the text to get it checked.
I ran a test to compare the algorithm efficiency of these three website apps. Out 15 grammar mistakes I made, all softwares caught 14 of them.
If you are a professional writer who is looking for AI text checker, but not necessarily with the web check feature, then you could look into ProWritingAid. Its algorithm works great with long copy, and premium members ($20 a month) can enjoy the Microsoft and Google Docs service, too. It is recommended by multiple sources on the market.
All in all, using an AI-text checker has become a useful aid when writing long copy. In situations where it is not possible to get a pair of fresh eyes to proof-read for you, such a tool can save the embarrassment and an accusation of unprofessionalism. It is also a fantastic aid for dyslexic office employees who want to make sure their emails are error-free. All of the brands we discussed are fit for purpose, although some may find that one outperform the other. It is best to test-run them all and see which one works best for you.
