Content-first design is back on the agenda

Writing real UI copy before wireframing — rather than dropping in lorem ipsum — is being re-emphasised as a core method, not a nice add-on. It's an old idea getting fresh attention.

The advice keeps recurring: draft actual button labels, error states and headlines before you lock a layout, because real content breaks assumptions lorem ipsum never will. This isn't a new method — it's decades old — but it's worth flagging as established rather than trending, because plenty of junior workflows still skip it and pay for it later in review. If you're building a portfolio piece, showing you wrote real content before wireframing is a small but visible signal of process maturity to reviewers.

Related in UCD methods

Established

Nielsen's 10 heuristics are still your fastest critique tool

Jakob Nielsen's 10 usability heuristics, first published in 1994, remain the quickest way to sanity-check a screen before user testing. They're not glamorous, but they still catch real problems fast.

nngroup.com1 Jan

Established

Usability heuristics are still the fastest self-review

Nielsen Norman Group's decades-old heuristic evaluation method remains the quickest sanity check before you spend money on user testing. It's unglamorous but still standard practice across the industry.

nngroup.com1 Feb

Adoption

Redesigning workflows beats bolting on AI

A controlled field study found startups that redesigned their whole workflow around AI generated 90% more revenue than teams that just used AI to speed up individual tasks. Piecemeal AI use barely moves the needle by comparison.

uxtigers.com6 Jan