WritingJuly 16, 2026·5 min read
Notes on editorial craft for product teams
OC
Owen Castellanos
Content design
Product copy fails in predictable ways: it explains the system instead of the situation, and it hedges when it should decide.
Write the empty state first. It forces you to say what the feature is for, in one sentence, before any pixels are committed.
Cut adverbs, cut 'simply', cut 'just'. If a step needs reassurance, the step is the problem.
Read it aloud. Anything you stumble over will be misread by thousands of people who never get to ask you what you meant.
“The test of a system is whether it still feels intentional after the people who designed it have moved on.”
