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:
- The Jobs Management team at Indeed was developing features to let employers manually or automatically tag posted jobs and assign them to themselves or colleagues to manage. The separately built tagging and assignment tools needed to be smoothly integrated into a single workflow.
- Before testing the features on Indeed, we needed to understand and validate users’ priorities and mental models. Our team had a tight deadline to finalize questions for guided user sessions with the product prototype.
Approach:
- Work with product designers and a user researcher to prioritize features to explore in usability testing and create focused questions for the sessions.
- Review previous research on tagging and assignment to understand users’ existing mental models and wishes for new functionality.
My role:
- Collaborate with UX designers and UX researcher to prioritize features and key questions for usability research.
- Ensure clear, simple language throughout the prototype and identify ways to simplify the workflow.
- Join research sessions to observe users’ interactions with the prototype and learn more about their needs and perspective.
- Ensure prototype and product designs followed Indeed voice, tone, and branding guidelines.
Outcome:
- Research participants found the prototype clear and easy to use, and confirmed that the process flows we created met their needs for organizing and managing job candidates.
- Participants also shared feedback that helped us further simplify process steps and finalize a smoothly functioning product workflow within the product launch deadline.
Approved name library for Indeed UX designs
Problem:
- UX designers at Indeed needed placeholder names in product designs for usability research.
- Designers were accustomed to inserting names of friends and colleagues–with or without permission–or of celebrities who had not given approval. This was a legal risk, as product designs were regularly shared with research participants, and sometimes shown in public-facing marketing.
- Existing names didn’t reflect the global diversity of Indeed users. There was no clear process for generating new names to use.
Approach:
- Create a system for developing randomly generated names of individuals and businesses, along with company profiles and job descriptions.
- Create a process for adding new names and profiles with minimum requirements for legal review.
- Socialize the name list among UX designers to replace current unapproved names in product designs.
My role:
- Researched tech industry practices for generating and using placeholder names.
- Identified random name generation tools and created a new list of names from different nationalities, naming structures, and lengths to accommodate in designs.
- Worked with Indeed legal guidance to review and approve names and process for generating new ones.
Outcome:
- The new list provided approved names to make product designs look more realistic and reflect Indeed’s global markets.
- UX designers used a recurring design library cleanup to replace old names with new ones from the list.
- Product and marketing designers worked with content to generate project-specific names for new product initiatives and events.
Organize team knowledge share after company reoganization
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.
- 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)