Writers of Silicon Valley

It’s crazy that digital conferences haven’t been a thing until now, but COVID really thrust this one upon us. Today, I’m speaking with some fantastic UX writers and content strategists: Duaa Osman from Google, Yael Ben-David from Fundbox, and Vicki Siolos from Kickstarter. The one thing we have in common? We all attended Button back in late October, probably the first major conference that’s completely dedicated to UX writing and product content strategy.

Christie Fremon is probably one of the most experienced UX writers in the industry. She started as a technical writer, working through companies like Yahoo and Cloud.com in the 2000s, before moving to Apple as a UI writer on iTunes, and then at Google. We dive into the differences between technical and UX writing, working at Apple, and writing for vehicles.

Mario Ferrer was a senior UX writer at King Games, now he’s a senior UX writer at Skyscanner. He’s also one of the cofounders of the UX Writers Meetup in Barcelona - and he’s perfectly placed to help us understand the UX writing community outside the United States.

This month Kristina Halvorson will launch Button - Brain Traffic’s first conference dedicated to product content strategy. In this chat, we talk about Button, why UX writers should be excited about it…but also, we pick up on something Scott Kubie and I discussed: what is the future of UX writing? Kristina makes the point that UX writers shouldn’t necessarily stay UX writers forever. They need to embrace content strategy if they want to move forward in their careers.

Scott Kubie is one of the most well-regarded voices in content strategy. Currently a free agent on contract at Mailchimp, Scott's worked previously as the Lead Content Strategist at Brain Traffic (alongside content strategy expert Kristina Halvorson). Before that, he worked as a content strategist and interface writer at Wolfram Research and a mobile app startup.

In this episode, I speak with Jessica and Jolena about their product Ditto, what it means for UX writers and content strategists, how they developed the product, what it’s like going through the Y Combinator process, and where they want to take it. If you’ve been on the search for a way to manage your copy within a full system, this interview is for you.

It's been just over a year since I started Writers of Silicon Valley. In that time I've interviewed 12 expert UX writers and content strategists from around the world. They've worked at companies like Google, Spotify, Facebook, Netflix, Uber, and more. I've gone through the past year's worth of episodes and combined what I think are among the 12 best pieces of advice for UX writers, both beginner and veteran alike.

This might be one of the most illuminating conversations I’ve had in a long time. Shayla has an extensive history, ranging from poetry to journalism. She joined Google to work on accessibility tools. In this episode, we talk about accessibility and diversity in UX writing, what it’s like to work as a Google UX writer, how UX writers can make sure their copy is truly accessible

Early Bird tickets for the UX Writing + Content Design Summit are now on sale! Buy now and save $100. Don’t miss out! Visit www.uxwcdsummit.com. In this conversation, we cover: what’s it like to work at Netflix? How do you succeed as a UX writer there? What are the specific design challenges you have when it comes to using words in an app like Netflix? And what is A/B testing like there?

There have been a few books on UX writing published, all of them very good, but I think this one might take the cake. Andy Welfle and Michael J Metts have written "Writing is Designing". I think it advances the conversation as it approaches writing as a design tool, and builds on the great work that has already been published by other UX writers.