8 products left, but today ditto
Hi friend 👋,
I've never had the opportunity to work in an environment where we have a free budget for product SaaS tools. When businesses buy software, they almost always look at the direct ROI. So, if the tool is useful for sales or marketing, the decision is simple. No one wants to deal with them when it comes to engineering. However, if it is useful to the product team, things may change because it is almost impossible to demonstrate ROI and practically everything can be done with Google Docs plus some manual effort. Despite this, I consider myself fortunate to have tested a wide range of tools for feedback gathering, roadmapping, creating diagrams, and knowledge hubs. But there is one thing I haven't explored yet: product copy.
If you are lucky enough to have a UX writer on your team, you probably tried and employed some tools related the product copy. If there is more than one product manager on the team, it is extremely challenging to ensure that the same tone is used throughout the entire product. Consider a popup that was designed at least a year ago and one that you designed today; the two are likely to have very different structures on the copy. And in this case, if you deal with an i18n work, you will be horrified on how sloppy the copies are.
Today, ditto is our product.
Ditto is an excellent solution for maintaining consistent product copies and dynamically controlling them. They have a Figma plugin that allows designers to enter the key, and editors can see the design and create copies from the dashboard. They also provide a CLI for engineering teams, so there will be no "what should I write to that popup?" questions. Ditto established an environment on their own toolset for designers, UX writers (or PMs, of course), and engineers, which is a fantastic idea. I've also included a shortened version of their product demo here.
I hope that one day I will be able to utilize ditto as much as we need, but the product appears to be adequate. However the reason I shared them is a little different. Instead of providing a single dashboard where you can generate keys, upload designs, and export copies in Json format, they provide different entry points for each of their user personas. Designers remain in Figma, while engineers remain in CLI or their IDE. This method saves them from having gatekeepers in their clients, which I'm sure is one of the key factors in their growth. It's usually a good idea to consider all of your user personas and consider how the experience can change for them.
We’ll talk again tomorrow.
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