Breaking into UX Content Strategy: Shape Your Own Career
How to break into UX content strategy, even when your UX org has no content strategists.
By Kat Vetrano, Content Strategist, Workday
Two years ago, I didn’t know what a content strategist was, much less that I could be one. I was writing technical documentation, aka help manuals, and I didn’t hate it, but it wasn’t my passion. One year later, I have a new role in content strategy, an armload of allies, and a beloved subject that I get to nerd out on daily. Here’s what I’ve gathered since then that might help you with breaking into UX content strategy.
1. Look Beyond Your Traditional Job Title
As a technical writer, my favorite part of the job was when I would get pulled into a room with designers who wanted my opinion on their UI copy. Aside from my daily tasks of writing help manuals and creating videos, I reveled in any opportunity to hem and haw over tone, capitalization and word placement. I genuinely loved working with a design team, learning more about the UX world, and mutually obsessing about a user’s goals. Little did I know, I was slowly learning to how to become a UX writer.
When I learned from a coworker that there was a career where I could do my favorite part of the job all the time, I was elated. If you’re looking to change careers or even just to learn new skills, paying attention to what parts of your daily job you feel energy toward can really pay off. In my case, it meant I could switch roles at Workday without even leaving the company.
We’re often told that our careers should be linear — even as early as college, we’re taught that you must study one thing, get degrees in it, and then stay put in that field. Remember the early days in college where you had the chance to just be “undeclared”? You could take electives in Pottery or Anthropology or Linguistics, just to see what stuck. Why not do that at your job? Just like in college, work can be an opportunity to try new things and pay attention to what fuels you. I’d suggest continuously digging for moments that pique your interest; places where you think, yes, this is where I’m the most confident. Even the smallest tasks or moments that energize you can be signs pointing toward a bigger job function or area of interest.
2. Be Persistent and Become Essential
Workday didn’t always have a Content Strategy role, and on an already-small and very busy UX Design team, not everyone was initially receptive. “I don’t think we need one right now, sorry,” was something I was constantly told. My coworkers weren’t cold, but no one was falling out of their chairs to hire me.
Instead, I jumped on what I thought was a one-off project, working with one of the designers to create a UX Content Style Guide that the Design team could refer to. From there, we kept going and developed a workshop where we could teach designers about UI copy and why it was important to their designs. My one-off project turned into a semi-regular thing, and soon enough, I was carving my own content strategist career path.
Soon, I was working from the Design team offices once a week, offering my services whenever I could (while spending the rest of my week in my original Technical Writing role in another Workday office). I made friends with so many inspiring, creative, innovative people, and I had oodles of meetings so I could help them even more. I went to happy hours, posted articles about content strategy on our Slack channels, and told everyone in passing, “I love this stuff! Reach out to me whenever!” I wanted everyone to associate content strategy and UI writing with me, and know that I was always willing to help.
Finally, another, more major project opened up (the awesome Workday Design Site that happens to house an updated version of the Style Guide that started my journey), and it needed a writer attached to it. “We should just hire you to do it!” a coworker offered. And suddenly, a door opened.
This project opened my eyes to aspects of content strategy that went beyond UI writing. I aided in the content wrangling, editing, and organization for Workday’s first public design system. I encouraged our designers to write about our patterns and guidelines, edited their articles and offered input on our Information Architecture. Content management for a design system wasn’t something I knew would be included in a content strategy role. Neither was writing Markdown code to style the text on our site or learning how to use Github to approve, edit and maintain content written by our designers, but I was happy to do it all.
Instead of waiting around for someone to create the role I wanted to be in, I showed my colleagues the value of having content strategy at Workday. That way, by the time I came around and asked to formally switch positions, I could point to some of the work I’d already done.
If you’re looking for a shift in your career, you can expand your skills and demonstrate value in a new role by taking classes outside work, passing along new knowledge to your team, or volunteering in your company as a way to build experience. Teams like to hire folks who are enthusiastic and interested.
3. Keep Growing, Keep Learning
In my new role, I still get to help people with copy choices (I’ve had more than a few 30 minute conversations about a single button), and while I knew that UI writing can be incredibly complex, I’ve also learned that my job goes far beyond copy.
As my role grows, I’ve learned how essential it is to have consistent processes for developing content, and how helpful it is to get people in multiple roles (designers, documentation writers, project managers) involved and armed with their own writing skills so that they, too, are invested in the content’s quality. I’ve figured out how crucial it is to have key decision makers, like design leadership and stakeholders, invested in creating and enforcing content guidelines. And, of course, I know to always consider the substance and messaging behind any content that appears in our UI. (The Brain Traffic Diagram below helps me wrap my head around the content design and systems design sides of content strategy).
I love reading books like Kinneret Yifrah’s Microcopy: The Complete Guide, and pretty much any Medium post from John Saito or Amy Thibodeau to keep me fresh on what’s important in my new industry. I try to attend content strategy meetups where I live (a recent one on chatbots led me to a new project at work), and I attended Confab last year, where I learned even more ways to flex my content strategy skills.
Educating yourself on a desired role can provide new perspectives and help you grow. When you go out into the UX community and talk to other people, you might hear stories of their roundabout path to their job, or even learn about some skills you hadn’t realized you needed. Focus on growth can also be beneficial in a role you already have: sharing stories (or reading them on Medium and other blogs) can help breathe new life and lessons into something you thought you’d already figured out.
Looking Ahead
It’s now been a year since I’ve moved into content strategy full-time. Workday now has three (!) superstar content strategists. We team up with UX Design, technical writers, translators, project managers, engineers and everyone in between to spread the word about why content strategy is important. I can’t wait to see what I learn next year.
Did you carve your own path to a UX career? Tell us your story in the comments below!
