UX content design, writing, editing,
content strategy, and so much more
Let's have fun with words
I've worked in writing, editing, revision, content strategy, and UX content design. My experience includes tech product development, public relations, marketing, website content writing and updating, writing instruction, and webinar planning and emceeing. Scroll down to see some samples of my work.
Indeed employer tools for job management: Tagging and assignment
Problem:
- Indeed was developing a new employer feature for manually or automatically tagging posted jobs. Employers could sort and prioritize jobs by location or job attributes and assign them to themselves or colleagues to manage.
- We needed user feedback on both the basic usability of the tools and how well they fit users' mental models for managing the hiring process.
Approach:
- Review previous research on tagging and assignment to understand users’ existing mental models and needs for new functionality.
- With UX designers and a UX researcher, prioritize features to explore and questions to ask in user sessions.
My role:
- Simplify language and workflows throughout the prototype.
- Join moderated user research sessions to see how people responded to the prototype and explained their needs.
- Ensure designs followed Indeed voice, tone, and branding guidelines.
Outcome:
- Research participants found the prototype clear and easy to use. Our process flows met their needs for organizing and assigning jobs within a team.
Approved name library for Indeed UX designs
Problem:
- UX designers at Indeed had gotten used to populating product designs with names of friends and colleagues–with or without permission–or of celebrities. Since product designs were shared externally in research and marketing, this posed a legal risk.
- Existing names also didn’t reflect the global diversity of Indeed users.
Approach:
- Create a new set of fake names for individuals and businesses, along with company profiles and job descriptions.
- Create a standard process for adding new names and other fake content.
- Socialize the name list among UX designers and work with them to update product designs.
My role:
- Researched tech industry practices for generating and using fake names.
- Identified random name generation tools and created a new list of names reflecting different nationalities and naming structures.
- Reviewed new names and a new naming process with Indeed legal.
Outcome:
- Product designs look more realistic and reflective of Indeed’s global markets.
- Designers worked with content to generate additional names for specific projects..
Organize team knowledge share after company reorganization
Problem:
- Indeed’s UX team was reorganized to align with the company’s top priorities and key initiatives. A new group, Activation, brought together UX Research, UX Content Design, and Design Technology. While members of many of these teams had worked together, the newly unified group lacked a clear sense of their mission and understanding of one another’s work.
Approach:
- A small committee organized a knowledge sharing event to brief team members on one another’s work. We created an agenda, recruited speakers, prepared slide templates and collaboration resources, and hosted five three-hour sessions staggered to accommodate different time zones–all within a two-week period.
Role:
- Write and update the event hosting script
- Host three of the five sessions and manage speaker time for another
- Coordinate real-time Q&A and capture questions from Zoom chat on the event’s FigJam board
- Facilitate two post-event review sessions to identify opportunities for collaboration and issues to escalate to team leadership
Outcome:
- The event drew strong attendance from a globally distributed team. Participants said the sessions helped them find colleagues working in similar or related product areas so they could collaborate. Participants in post-event reviews described a new sense of camaraderie and purpose, reducing the uncertainty that typically follows a large reoganization.
I also write blog posts and customer success stories
I have experience writing bylined, commissioned, and uncredited client blogs and customer success stories. Here are just a few examples from more than 100 I've written over the past nine years.
- Seattle Children's uses Smartsheet to expand 3D printing for custom surgical care (for Smartsheet, published 2021)
- Busey Bank drives 10 times the projects while saving hundreds of thousands of dollars while using Smartsheet (for Smartsheet, published 2021)
- Arc’teryx Streamlines Efforts to Do Right for Business and the World (for Smartsheet, published 2019)
- Motion graphic: Microsoft and R3 partnership on blockchain (for Microsoft, published April 5, 2016)
- Foreclosed: MoMA Exhibition Re-Thinks Suburban American Life (for Microsoft, published April 6, 2012)
- BMW Guggenheim Lab explores contemporary urban life in New York (for Microsoft, published Oct. 10, 2011)