Evangelyn Stephen — The heart-shaped storyteller in UX
We have a universal, eternal problem: it’s hard to come up with words.
As French musician Elli Robert Fitoussi, or better known by his stage alias as F. R. David best sang it in his 1982 European chart-topping single: “Words don’t come easy to me.” Ain’t that a kick in the head?
“Words” is the lead single and title track off of Fitoussi’s debut studio album, a synth-led song that has remained as one of pop radio’s most ear-wormy and endearingly catchy tunes. It is also perhaps the musician’s most recognisable song in a discography spanning five decades.
Today, the opening lyrics to that one-hit wonder is just as resonant as it is reflective of our current times. In the world we live in, words do come easy to us, perhaps almost too easily.
Where wordsmiths weave wisdom, storytellers mine meaning, and poets postulate on philosophies, the traditional pillars of writing are slowly eroding. And in its place, a sizzling pot of humdrum, tech-driven goulash.
The clickety-clack of keyboards. Drooling eyes waiting over ellipses converging on a screen. Mind-melting patience. All this as artificial intelligence demonstrates that it’s capable of piecing words together — the same words that writers were already using to tell life-changing stories for many, many lifetimes.
When the dizzying thoughts of an AI future and ChatGPT are constantly on the tip of everyone’s tongues, and content is no longer just about content, what do you do? How would one gifted with the ability to weld words make it in the modern world?
“Three simple things,” answered senior UX writer Evangelyn Stephen, better known as Eva. The same three things that she wished someone would have told her when she was younger:
“You need to know why you’re writing, who you’re writing it for, and how you should write it.”
The human experience is inclusive and diverse. Words don’t just carry weight, they are packed with genuine emotion, and Eva’s wealth of experience ensures that she knows all the right words to use. It’s in showing empathy, through storytelling, and in meeting the needs of the right users. That’s how we preserve our humanity in every word.
Her journey took a lot of heart and plenty of soul. And in equal measure, an abundance of self-taught lessons that she’s still applying today.
For Eva, words do come easy — not in a way where she talks a lot so that she has to tune herself out, no — but rather in uniquely human and positive ways.
To teach is to learn twice
When she was younger, Eva’s fascination for the spoken language ran deep. Raised by her Indian father and her Chinese mother, she garnered support and love in pursuing the learnings of language. That led her to participate in a Chinese-language contest in Beijing where she represented Singapore to a first-place finish back in 2008.
Eva then earned herself a government scholarship from China, enrolled in Shandong University in 2010, and completed her studies four years later. Armed with a degree specialising in journalism in Chinese, she thought that she knew exactly what to do. But in a much more real sense, she had no idea what to do.
Before she encountered the metaphorical crossroads in her career, Eva decided to take a hard left turn: she kick started her career as an English and Chinese language preschool teacher. From creating compelling curriculums for her students to managing administrative matters, Eva was helming it all.
During her full-time role as a preschool teacher, Eva was also pursuing her Masters in Arts, pouring love into her work while watering her skills on the side.
“Teaching was my first love,” she said with a smile. “I like the process of watching people grow, from zero to one, to be able to teach them what is right and what is wrong.”
In that time, Eva even had a name coined for her by her students: ‘Miss Evil’. “Not because I’m evil,” she clarified quickly, “but because they probably couldn’t pronounce my name correctly.” Perhaps Eva’s ambition of wanting people to be afraid of how much they loved her had been a dream come true.
Between her years of teaching, Eva did have second thoughts on whether or not she had made the right choice. In her formative years and at the start of what she thought would be a very fruitful career, she always felt a tinge of regret not making her mark in writing sooner.
When asked if she would do it all over again, the colour in her voice faded slightly. “I think I might not have started out as a teacher. I might have gone straight into writing. I only started writing as a job properly in 2016, and wrote something small here and there but not for business or work,” she said.
Eva admitted that her thoughts might have just been a generational concern and of growth, but looking back today, she had zero regrets on the time that she has spent teaching.
“The best writers are the ones with the best stories. My teaching has helped me with that as I get to meet different parents and kids, and they have the purest hearts. I think that’s what writing is all about.”
Since moving on from her momentous teaching path, Eva’s love and passion never withered. She fondly recalls from time-to-time how she’s impacted her students, how she’s able to interact and learn about them through their parents, and how she herself has changed too with every interaction.
One might say that Eva was a little stitious with her situation, but in life, no experience is wasted experience.
Driven by principles and personalities
After graduating with her Masters degree in 2017, Eva saw her paths and opportunities narrow before her eyes. That year, she joined a financial advisory firm as a bilingual copywriter, and used her strength of words to supercharge advertisements.
Thus, her newest love was born: creative writing. She could stretch her imagination across oceans, her expressiveness beyond the Eiffel Tower, and climb higher than the clouds. It wasn’t long until she fully became a creative copywriter, and moulded her craft as a full-stack creative.
“As a full stack creative, I bring a client through an end-to-end journey, such as discovery and understanding business needs — not just creative needs — to understand whether their needs are aligned or even articulated,” she explained. “It’s all about the end-to-end creative process.”
She first stepped foot into the role of advertising because she found that she always had a knack for words. “Advertising and copywriting is larger-than-life, and it’s very dynamic. I was trained in that mindset, to think about the big picture, and it has become a part of me in a way,” she said.
Many people might not be able to fully articulate the thoughts and meanings that are wandering in their minds. What Eva does is tie them together, assemble the letters and symbols, and make sure that she’s igniting them with the spirit of the person she’s writing it for.
By finding the throughline and helping others uncover their inner-meaning, Eva believes that she too can help businesses grow, and in turn her clients be heard around the world.
She also believes that anyone can be a writer, that anyone can find the right words, and most importantly, anyone can listen — and speak the same language as the person that they are talking to.
“You don’t have to be a good writer to write well. It’s all about having the best heart, not the best grammar, to hear people and to reach them. We should not sell ourselves so short.”
Eva’s role as a copywriter has also evolved and shaped her writing personality in many ways, even to the point of purging the word ‘editorial’ from her dictionary.
“I really hate editorial writing,” she said sharply. “I feel that editorial writing has a very niche audience due to it being narrative and expressive, but it’s not for me. I want to get straight to the point, so even if I write long-form content, it will always be short.”
That clash in personal principles has also seen her work with clients and stakeholders who are oftentimes not willing to go with a shorter content than they’d like to. After all, they’d spent so much time gathering their company’s offerings and their organisation’s unique selling points. How could they shorten it all down to five words, or fewer than five?
Eva explains that it’s not always about expounding on your message. It’s also about finding different ways to tell the same story. “Not everything has to be spelt out,” she said. “We can work with stakeholders to perhaps design content in a way that stands out more, like in the form of icons and infographics. More visual analytics than just word-for-word content.”
It wasn’t until 2021 when the world of user experience and product design came knocking, and Eva opened her doors with open arms. She moved on to become a lead content strategist, working with project managers and collaborating with designers, developers, and system engineers.
Whether it’s app development and web-based services or equipping her knowledge with skills in interaction design and responsive design, she’s always picking up something new everyday.
You could say that it was like turning the next page on a bright and new chapter of life.
Designing content for products
The terms ‘user experience writer,’ ‘UX writer’ and ‘content designer’ are commonly hot-swappable like a pair of Christmas themed socks. And yet, when confronted with the question of ‘What do you do?’ Eva realised that the terms are just as helpful as an empty tooltip.
“I’ll usually just say that I’m a writer,” she said in response to questions about her role. “That’s easier to understand. And when they follow up with what kind of writer, I’ll start to explain it to them.”
Everyone’s mountainous climb into user experience is different. Some might walk the thousand foot journey, others might just hop into a taxi. For Eva, her beginnings were laced with learnings. Some from thunderously good work, and other times from mistakes.
“When I first started, it was very instructional. Do my bosses and seniors need something now? I’ll just do it, and I’ll just test it,” she said. “Sometimes you hit and sometimes you miss. Not everyone can give you the context, so in my experience, you just have to try.”
Two words ring true for Eva in her role as a senior UX writer: iteration and feedback. “Sometimes you won’t have time to ask questions, you need to figure out the needs at the moment, so it’s better to have the end in mind. Asking questions like ‘What is it used for?’ and ‘What are the intentions?’ helps me to come up with something that works.”
Stresses and challenges are part and parcel of working life, and this is no different for a UX writer. That means managing tight timelines and keeping a lookout on her deluge of work so that she doesn’t get swamped before she heads out for lunch. But where most people would probably find crevices in their long working hours to take a quick break, she chooses instead to power through it.
“I think it works for me, because most people in the face of discomfort will give up or use distractions,” she said. “I am well-known for working non-stop and long nights to make sure that I can finish my task and go away.”
And Eva is right. The licence to power through it, in which we forsake perfection and give ourselves permission to fail, then allows us more time to refine it and make it better. She calls this first roadblock “the hardest”, listing other common examples such as going to the gym and a career transition to be similar, where powering through it has been extremely effective for her.
Since making the jump into UX writing, Eva also found that there weren’t many transferable skills in copywriting that she could count on when it came to delivering quality work.
“In UX, you have to cut through the fluff and write in a very guiding, and conversational way. If you need to use more words, that’s okay,” she explained. “You have to be very particular with every single word you use. Even today, I have to go into that headspace of not being so abstract, not conceptual, but more grounded and guiding as compared to a copywriting narrative. I have to get straight to the point.”
How did she do it, you might ask? In the words of her favourite philosopher: “Why waste time say lot word when few word do trick?”
When asked if she could compare the two, Eva said that her preference is not as easy to answer, even if her heart might still be with creative writing. “I want to do product design because it forces me to challenge myself, to go through iterations, the rigorous exercise of user journeys, decisions, drop-offs, and so much more.”
Being conscious of how a product has changed over research, design, and development is another rigorous part of the process of being in UX. As changes come and go quicker than a conveyor belt laden with sweet sushi and problems have to be solved while bearing in mind an impending deadline, Eva feels that the solutions proposed are often myopic in nature.
“Why are there business needs from three months ago that are not communicated to the creatives who are at the bottom of the food chain? Not everyone needs or wants to know, but it can help with a designer’s maturity instead of simply doing implementation work.”
Now a senior UX writer, Eva’s roles and responsibilities have expanded significantly. She not only considers the technical aspects of how her work integrates within projects but also looks beyond the product, contemplating content longevity. As a versatile professional, Eva seamlessly wears multiple hats, embodying the skills of a storyteller, UX writer, copywriter, UX copywriter and a CX writer (customer experience writer). This diverse skillset allows her to effectively contribute to the overarching goals of Total Experience.
“You need to ask questions like where is the product going, and what are the opportunities that we can create in the next few months,” she said about her mindset shift as she stepped into her senior role. “It’s no longer just your project, but all projects. It’s no longer just about you, it’s also about your team, and your people. Are the projects doing well? Are the people doing well?”
That is where the big picture thinking happens — where one no longer just becomes ‘a creative’, but as a creative that shows up, thinks more, plans ahead, and does more than what they can. As a creative engineer blending human-centric focus and using words laced with impact, this is her superpower.
Eva the Enabler
A content strategist that wields an empathetic heart and a bountiful knack for storytelling, Eva’s infused her caring nature into her work without distilling any of the points that make her direct or firm — and she’s not easy to manage.
Eva’s streak of uplifting others and pushing her teammates has been well-documented by many in close proximity to her. When probed on what she would want to be known for, she said that she wanted to be “known for how I make people feel.”
She recalled her proudest moment in her career, when she first saw one of her projects go live. An SME, an organisation with not a lot of resources, was trying to bring a new product into the market. “They didn’t have much funds, but they had a good story,” Eva said.
It was the entire process of first discovering, sitting down with the owner, and learning about how they gave back to the community. And eventually when the organisation made their first sale during a festive period, Eva felt it: how she had helped her customers reach their customers, and in turn, achieve their dreams.
“I want to help people reach their dreams, help them become happy because of the aspirations that they have. That for me is very powerful.”
That proud moment is one that she will carry with her forever, a story that reminds her that her work is worth it, and that her efforts can have a positive and profound impact no matter what she does. She’s always one step ahead in showing empathy, just like a carpenter that makes stairs.
The anecdotes that poured in from her teammates repeat that very defining truth too. From giving gifts and igniting conversations, to motivating her team and reassuring them in both good and bad times, Eva’s growing repertoire of user-centred skills are eclipsed by none.
She is always the first to the frontline in every crisis situation. She disarms and provides perspectives to every scenario, defusing blame for all parties, and helps everyone to regroup and focus on the task ahead. She wears her positivity like a good luck charm, exuding ineradicable confidence, bolstered by her sincerity to be unabashedly relatable and human.
This year, Eva has made it her personal resolution not to get more attention, but to uphold her ability to enable others beyond their limits. It’s more than just her bubbly nature, more than just being the last-minute replacement battery pack to a socialising event, but also about seeing the value in others and listening intently as they tell their side of the story.
Even as she’s embarked on her concurrent journey as a UX writer, Eva also tries to find time to return to her roots, to her passions, and to her love. She’s taking time out of her very busy schedule to continue teaching English to primary school students, all the while making sure that she’s empowering her work and others around her.
Very few are as steeled, passionate, and enchantingly warm as they are deeply genuine. And where the sun shines brightest, Eva’s infectious and balmy personality shines even brighter.
Special thanks to Evangelyn Stephen for sharing her story and to Syasya Nur Nasriyah for interviewing.
