From one question to the next: how a P.I. became a UX content strategist
On a Monday morning in 2017, I walked across the busy four-lane street, past the family-run washer and dryer seller, and entered an unassuming brown house with tall, plain bushes.
Inside, in a windowless room, five twenty-somethings sat around a large table. They were busily clicking on past-their-prime desktops; eyes glued to court documents and Facebook albums of people they’d never meet. I was about to fire up my computer and do the same.
I was an online private investigator.
Backstory
When I was in fifth grade, my teacher, Mrs. Jones, used to call me “Miss Questions.” I didn’t necessarily have a lot to say, but I had a lot to ask. All I knew was that I liked to write and always ended up being the leader in group projects.
Fast-forward to graduating college with no defined plans. I did some clerical work for my family’s property management business and created mini websites for condo communities. To do that, I asked questions. “What are the top needs of the condo owners?” helped me lay out the page navigation. “What do people call the monthly fee?” determined a button’s label. Back then, I didn’t know that these were the questions and decisions of a content strategist.
The plot thickens
However, there wasn’t enough work. Through a friend of a friend of the family, I landed a job as an online private investigator. We provided in-person and digital investigating to insurance companies for possible workman’s compensation fraud. For example, if a subject claimed they couldn’t work because their ankle was injured, the insurance companies wanted us to find a recent picture of the subject dancing in heels or going on a hike.
For every case, I’d get a name, current and past addresses, family member information, and maybe a picture. From there, it was time to ask the internet questions in order to find evidence.
Searching high and low
I’d start googling the basics, like the subject’s name with their current town or workplace, but sometimes that wouldn’t generate any meaningful findings. From there, I’d start exploring connections. Could I find the subject in their aunt’s Facebook albums? Their alma mater’s LinkedIn? Their abandoned Pinterest account?
Investigation is about constant adaptation; the facts were all I had to lead me to conclusions.
There’s a thrill to finding a subject’s public social media account, but it’s short-lived. Many cases required hours of taking screenshots. Spending an afternoon reading a stranger’s Twitter lunch updates from ten years ago was not an ideal way of making a living. The writing and group work I loved at school had slipped away.
A year and a half into the job, I asked myself: How can I be creative again?
I didn’t know anything about the UX field until a recruiter on LinkedIn asked me about my website work for the condo communities. Suddenly, I was a writer at Vanguard and immersed in the world of UX. I made sense of content management and microcopy by asking my new colleagues a lot of questions. In time, as I developed my professional point of view and understanding, I got promoted to UX content strategist.
Let the evidence tell the story
One project I worked on was rolling out a new way of managing client investment accounts. This introduced a huge mindset shift for our clients. As a content strategist, I worked closely with the UX team to answer big questions: How can we explain a complex financial concept in such a way that all of our users can understand it? What are our user’s biggest concerns? How do we keep our messaging consistent throughout the site?
The answers could only be found through user testing and research. It took months of continuous experimentation and feedback to create the initial launch of the experience. And here I was, just a former online PI! But my past had prepared me.
Online investigation and UX content strategy have very little in common. However, both are driven by data and consistent curiosity.
In an investigation, I didn’t construct the subject’s story — I found it. In UX, I don’t create the client’s expectations — I understand them.
And I’m not done asking questions.
This article is part of the “Chart a Course” series, which features Vanguard crew telling the story of the different career pathways to becoming a UX professional.
