Who AM I?

Good question. If you’re here, you’re either nosey because you saw me link to this website somewhere, or you are actually genuinely interested in working with me. Either way, you probably want to know…

WHERE I’VE WORKED and my job titles

  • Content writer for a small web agency

  • Content designer at The Co-operative Bank

  • Content designer at cinch

  • Senior content designer at Bumble

  • Staff content designer at eBay

  • Leading and mentoring junior designers

  • Setting up a design culture and maintaining it long-term (2+ years)

  • Engaging stakeholders, delivering comms and getting leadership buy-in

  • Designing content for new regulations in banking

  • Designing onboarding flows, using content-first methods

  • UX writing in UK and US English, and for translation across EU countries

  • Pair-writing with product marketing to get more brand voice into a dull product journey

  • Preparing for a brand new global app launch with cross-functional teams, including localisation and privacy

  • Leading discovery for emerging product spaces, including sustainability in fashion and NFT marketplaces (the former was more my speed than the latter)

THE TYPES OF THINGS I’VE WORKED ON

Me, a white woman in her late 20s, presenting at a UX meet-up. I'm looking at a laptop for notes, while the audience watches. Behind me is a screen that says "What is content-first design?"

IF YOU CAME TO ME AND SAID…

  • Let’s get everyone on a kick-off call that needs to be there. Who’s responsible for which bit? I’ll audit the website content in a format that suits the team – it could be a spreadsheet or a FigJam board.

    Then we’ll go through and identify areas where we need to update content to meet new regulations, and where we need to remove content that won’t work. If there’s a desire for a new feature or journey to meet regulations, let’s workshop that as a group. I’d invite designers, compliance/risk experts, product people, researchers and engineers.

    Once we’ve got some ideas, I’ll quickly spin up wireframes from the outputs and work with a product designer to bring the feature to life. And of course, work with Product to get it signed off by compliance. I’ll compromise on stuff as we go, because regulations are important, and perfect content design ain’t gonna happen.

  • Have you had a professional audit, or do you intrinsically know it’s not accessible? That will help us work out what’s needed. With a professional audit, I can work with a team to address issues in an agile way through tickets and regular check-ins. If it’s a more general issue, let’s chat through your concerns. I can create an accessibility handbook especially for your website, pointing out key areas to focus on, quick wins to do now, and bigger pieces we can do together that might take some time.

    All is not lost! You can always make stuff more accessible, bit by bit.

  • More fool you! Only joking. It’s good that you’ve recognised the need. But before you hire a content designer, make sure you know exactly what you expect of them.

    Are you looking for someone to edit copy in ready-made designs? Or for a more strategic thinker who can create wireframes and lead design ideation? Either are acceptable, but make sure the person you’re interviewing knows that from the outset.

    And for the love of God, please don’t hire a content designer and then make them present “Why content design matters”. Give them space to do the work, and watch the wins happen in front of you. They should absolutely present examples of their work, but they shouldn’t have to explain why they are there.

What other people say

“Emma is without a doubt one of the best content designers I've worked with. She's able to work in super complex, high visibility product spaces and work constructively with loads of different people that often have different perspectives and different goals. How does she do that? She cares. She does the deep work to understand customers and she excels because she's uncynical and curious, and she cares about her craft. It's a bonus that she's really fun to work with, humble and always open to feedback.”

— PETE KOWALCZYK

“Emma is also an incredibly detail-focused UXer. She uses nuanced content design practices to transform clunky, heavily regulated parts of our experience into slick, simple flows that drive real business value. It's no surprise her features are some of the most regularly shouted out in company-wide sessions!

Above all though, Emma is kind and caring - always looking out for you and making sure you feel heard. I can think of no better trait than that for the work we do..”

— JESS WILLIAMS, SAGE

"You’d struggle to find someone in the design team who doesn’t say they work in a content-first approach now. We are content-maximalists, and we all know intuitively now that’s how we get to the strongest outcomes, and obviously it helps when you have an amazing content designer to take you on that journey, but I also know that wherever I end up in the future, it’s a skill I feel equipped to carry with me, which says a lot about Emma’s ability to share content-first thinking”

— CHARLIE WITTER, EBAY

GET IN TOUCH

I’m not looking for work right now, but I’d always love to chat to like-minded souls about design and writing. You can find me on LinkedIn and drop me a message any time!