Yuval Keshtcher

Yuval Keshtcher is building a community around the new field of UX writing. 

He first discovered the need for UX writing as a product designer. Since then, Yuval has convened product writers in discussion forums and classes. He studies the field constantly and hosts a podcast on Writers in Tech. This fall, he'll host a UX writing conference.

Yuval and I talked about:

his background as a graphic designer, a soldier, a product designer, and an entrepreneur

how he discovered the need for UX writing in his work as a product designer

the growth in the interest in topics like microcopy, UI content, etc.

how his work developing a community around UX writing led to him launching courses on the subject

his ongoing work to keep his course content updated

the diverse backgrounds of UX writers: "if you put the ten UX writers in a room, all of them would probably have different backgrounds"

the skills set that you need to succeed as a UX writer: curiosity, research skills, empathy, and other UX skills

how the digital revolution has brought the need for UX writing skills to the fore

the arrival and growth of the UX profession

the difference between experience design and visual design

the business benefits of UX design

the importance of collaboration in UX work and how UX writers are often the bridge between teams and products

how the communication skills that UX writers bring to a team can improve the team experience

his new UX writing conference, UX Salon WORDS, happening in Tel Aviv November 2020

Links to resources that Yuval mentions in the interview:

Don Norman's book, The Design of Everyday Things

Don Norman's TED Talks

Steve Jobs' iPhone announcement presentation

Yuval's Bio

Yuval Keshtcher is the founder of the UX Writing Hub, an education platform for writers in tech from all over the world. Yuval and his team are working these days on a UX Writing conference in Tel Aviv.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/CdHI8mztVuc

Podcast Intro Transcript

The field of UX writing - sometimes called content design or product content strategy - has emerged over the past decade or so. As often happens with a new discipline, folks getting into the field can feel a bit lost as they look for resources and expertise. Yuval Keshtcher is building a community to help folks navigate this new profession. He runs discussion forums, offers online courses, hosts a UX writing podcast, and is organizing a new conference. If you want to understand this new field, Yuval can help.

Interview Transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to episode number 62 of the content strategy insights podcast. I'm really happy today to say that I have with us Yuval and I'm going to let Yuval pronounce his last name because I'm not a native Hebrew speaker. Yuval Welcome to the show. Tell the folks how to pronounce your last name . . .

Yuval:

The name is Yuval Keshtcher and thank you for having me. I must say that I'm a big fan and I'm really excited to be here.

Larry:

I'm super excited. It's very mutual because I think you're in the most exciting part of this field right now. My podcast courses about content strategy in general, but I think the hottest most interesting part of that field is this whole field of UX writing. The first thing I always like to ask people is how did you end up here? We all have different pathways into this field. How did you come to be interested in UX writing?

Yuval:

Okay. I started as a graphic designer. I was playing around with Photoshop when I was a teenager and went to the army when I was 18 because in Israel it's mandatory to g...

Yuval Keshtcher is building a community around the new field of UX writing. 

He first discovered the need for UX writing as a product designer. Since then, Yuval has convened product writers in discussion forums and classes. He studies the field constantly and hosts a podcast on Writers in Tech. This fall, he'll host a UX writing conference.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/yuval-keshtcher/

Forest Gibson

Forest Gibson and his colleagues at Pluto VR have an ambitious purpose: "to help humanity transcend physical location."

Even before they formed their company, Forest and his fellow founders did deep work to align on their purpose. That clarity helps them evaluate their ideas and make better decisions faster.

Their work aims to transform how people interact in virtual reality. By hacking human perception and behavior, they are creating experiences that feel more real than current prototypical VR experiences.

One crucial element in these new experiences will be content created specifically for virtual spaces. Just as movies became more immersive when directors moved away from stage-play esthetics, VR experiences will come of age when we master content practices that are native to the new medium.

Forest and I talked about:

the early work that their founder team undertook to clarify their purpose

the benefits of locking in vision and purpose early in the life of an enterprise

how his background in theater and film prepared him for his purposeful approach to business

how they melded two founder teams into one

how human visual perception systems drive some at-first counter-intuitive VR system decisions

the paradox of having a crisp, well-defined purpose but no specific product ideas

how their purpose helps them quickly evaluate how well an idea fits into their business

how having clarity of purpose works at any scale from a one-minute video up to large ventures

how they vet early ideas and prototypes against their purpose

how to manage content in virtual environments

how there are currently few obvious communication channels to illustrate VR content distribution

how physical devices anchor your experience in voice interactions

how it will be native content, content that is created specifically for the new medium, that will really make this new communication medium take off

Forest's Bio

Forest is a co-founder and the Director of Labs at Pluto VR. The company’s purpose is to help humanity transcend physical location so that everyone can more easily connect, communicate, and collaborate as if they were in person regardless of where they are. Before co-founding Pluto VR he was a creative innovations leader at Deloitte Digital, working with the largest brands in the world to help them stay competitive in the new digital landscape. He has a diverse background including VR, film, marketing, and crowdfunding. Other projects include: an automated brewing machine Kickstarter that makes beer at the press of a button, a new way to train employees through mobile gaming, and the web series Know Your Meme.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/A7HbxS6I4-Q

Podcast Intro Transcript

When movies were first introduced, producers and directors simply captured stage productions on film. Once they figured out that they could move their cameras around and add sound to their productions, the medium really came into its own. We're at a similar place with virtual reality right now. Forest Gibson and his colleagues at Pluto VR are building tools that mimic real human communication in virtual environments. As you might imagine, the implications of this for content strategists and content creators are huge.

Interview Transcript

Larry:

Hi everyone. Welcome to Episode Number 61 of the Content Strategy Insights Podcast. I'm really happy today to have with us Forest Gibson. Forest is a founder at Pluto VR, which is a really cool sounding startup here in Seattle. Well, first, welcome, Forest, and tell the folks a little bit about Pluto VR and your role there.

Forest:

Hey, Larry, thanks for having me on the show. So,

Forest Gibson and his colleagues at Pluto VR have an ambitious purpose: "to help humanity transcend physical location."

Even before they formed their company, Forest and his fellow founders did deep work to align on their purpose. That clarity helps them evaluate ideas and make better decisions faster.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/forest-gibson/

Amy Balliett

Amy Balliett grounds the power of images in strong narratives. Her visual stories deliver the kind of content that humans are hard-wired to crave.

Amy and her team pair word people with picture people. In her office, content strategists work side-by-side with visual-communication experts. This tandem creates strategically driven visual content that addresses the visceral human preference for images.

Amy and I talked about:

the origins of her original visual brand, Killer Infographics

the history of the rise of modern infographics - which first arose as a link-bait tactic for SEOs

the impact of the iPhone and social media on increasing the demand for visual media

how that demand worked in tandem with natural human wiring that favors visuals over text

the rise of visual media sharing

how her word staff interacts with her visual staff, and how most of her executives have a writing background

the importance of words in visual communication

how she once said, "text is dead," and was promptly and properly corrected

the emergence of Buzzfeed-like, headline-driven culture

the foundations of their research and practice methods - from font theory to color theory and illustration styling

the advantages of having been acquired by an insights-and-research firm and how that has helped them double down on their work to understand their audiences and their goals

how a project they did for Comic-Con shows the importance of adapting branded images to the immediate communication intention

the role of the content strategist at Killer Visual Strategies

the importance of having narrative drive the visual story, not design

how their process starts - right after the discovery process - with the content strategist crafting the narrative for the project

how she helps writers with long-form content backgrounds adapt to creating the concise, short-form content that is their specialty

their brand transition from Killer Infographics to Killer Visual Strategies

the differences between information visualization and visual storytelling

how she helps her Fortune 500 clients formulate and implement visual strategy

their discovery that in 2019 90% of marketers found that their most important content-marketing tactic was having a visual communication strategy

Amy's Bio

Amy Balliett is the CEO and founder of the visual content marketing and communications agency, Killer Visual Strategies (formerly Killer Infographics). She owned her first company, a candy store and ice cream parlor, at the age of 17 before heading off for college. She subsequently built a successful career in SEO and marketing, and has headed up SEO at several companies. In 2009, she and her then co-founder partnered to build lead-gen-based websites, but in the fall of 2010, the business pivoted to an entirely new model: visual communication design. In the years since, she has grown Killer Visual Strategies to become the industry leader, driving visual strategy and campaigns for global brands including Microsoft, Boeing, Adobe, Nikon, Starbucks, the National Endowment for the Arts, the United Nations, and more.

Considered an expert in her field, Balliett speaks at dozens of conferences each year including SXSW, Adobe MAX, SMX, and more. She is also a regular teacher at The School of Visual Concepts, a guest lecturer at the University of Washington, and a LinkedIn Learning instructor.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/JXszlNo1o_w

Podcast Intro Transcript

Human beings have always been hard-wired to prefer visual content. So, when smart phones and social media emerged about 10 years ago, the stage was set for a new wave of visual communication...

Amy Balliett grounds the power of images in strong narratives. Her visual stories deliver the kind of content that humans are hard-wired to crave.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/amy-balliett/

Tamara Adlin

Tamara Adlin uses the power of user personas to align teams and help them develop better products.

Tamara literally co-wrote the first book on how to develop and use personas. She has subsequently developed several practices that help teams align executives and other stakeholders on how to build genuinely customer-focused products and services.

Tamara and I talked about:

her discovery of the concept of personas in Alan Cooper's book The Inmates are Running the Asylum in 1999

the book that she and John Pruitt subsequently wrote together, The Persona Lifecycle, based on workshops that they had conducted

the problem back in 1999 that Cooper was trying to solve - engineers designing user interfaces and writing UI copy

how focusing on a small, specific segment of users with the persona methodology can - paradoxically - satisfy many other users as well - and how the example of the development of the roll-aboard suitcase illustrates this

her work at Amazon from 2002 to 2005 - she had a great team and access to voluminous data, but struggled to come up with personas based on that data

her work during the same time period on smaller teams with less data during which they developed "ad hoc" persona creation

how turn assumptions into hypotheses jumpstarts persona creation, which can then be validated with data

her insight that "the only assumptions that can hurt your products are the ones that you don't know about"

the importance of crafting personas that resonate with the assumptions that business leaders hold

the origin of the term "ad hoc persona" and its evolution in her practice to "alignment personas," a term that better describes the value that the concept delivers

how she elicits business goals from the executives she works with - a Mad Libs exercise and an approach that lets her feign being "the dumbest person in the room"

how she practices UX on her UX practice

early UX pioneers who helped launch the widespread acceptance of the discipline: Jakob Nielsen, Steve Krug, Don Norman, and many others

some of the antecedents to the persona concept - from marketing, human-centered design, etc.

how personas have taken their place alongside scenarios and use cases in the UX tool kit

how focusing on statements that start with the words "I want" or "I need" is a better approach than aggregating psychographic and demographic data and pondering pain points

how this approach can start a conversation between the persona and the product or service you're designing

the ultimate goal of her work: "help the persona happily do the things that make the business thrive"

how she is both "excited and totally intimidated by content strategy"

the importance in UX of making the transition "from thinking about users to thinking like users"

some lessons that content strategy as a discipline can learn from the UX profession

some connections between UX and content strategy

Tamara's Bio

Tamara Adlin is an author, speaker, and consultant in the fields of user experience, executive alignment, startup strategy, and career development for women, especially in technical fields. She co-authored the Persona Lifecycle books, which have become part of the User Experience canon. Since then, she has developed a new Alignment Persona methodology to bring alignment to executive and stakeholder teams and clarity and focus to entire organizations.

In her consulting work, she has worked with established companies from Apple to Zillow, dozens of startups, and international organizations like the United Nations. Before launching her own business, Tamara was a User Experience Lead at Amazon. She has a Master’s Degree in Human Centered Design and Engineering from the University of ...

Tamara Adlin uses the power of user personas to align teams and help them develop better products.

Tamara literally co-wrote the first book on how to develop and use personas. She has subsequently developed several practices that help teams align executives and other stakeholders on how to build genuinely customer-focused products and services.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/tamara-adlin/

Andy Welfle and Michael J. Metts are on a mission to empower word people. Specifically the people who craft words as part of product design teams.

Their new book, Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience, shows UX content creators how to apply design principles to their writing craft.

Andy Welfle

Michael J. Metts

We talked about:

their backgrounds at Facebook, Adobe, and Allstate

how their collaborations on workshops at Confab and other conferences led to their book

the book's origins as a voice-and-tone project and its quick evolution to a comprehensive UX writing book

their mission to to empower content people no matter where they come from to become accomplished UX writers

the importance of going beyond UX writing tasks to a broader interest in the user experience

the importance of having an owner of the content in any product or project

companies' tendency to underestimate the need for UX writing talent

the challenges of creating a smooth, consistent user experience when so many people are contributing writing to digital products

the need to be more intentional about the words in products, to not think of them as inconsequential things that anyone can write

how to work with teams by building relationships and contributing along with everyone else

the importance of seeing problems that arise as teaching moments, not errors to be fixed or an opportunity for rules to be applied

the use of words as design material

how pushing to integrate writers as early and as deeply as possible in design projects is a worthy struggle

how writers can contribute to design teams, but also how hard it is for writers who are new to the design world to feel like they can jump in

how older companies with legacy staffing issues may have more trouble adopting new practices like integrating writers in their design teams than newer startups

how writing can be practiced by anyone on a design team, not necessarily a dedicated writer

how writing is an important skill for any designer to develop

the importance of integrating writing into the design process, not treating it as an add-on

the benefits of valuing writing skills as much as visual design skills when hiring UX designers

how UX writing is a distinct type of writing, different from business correspondence

how the current role of the UX writer, while challenging, is uniquely rewarding

the importance of highlighting the differences between writing interface copy and other types of copy (marketing, advertising, technical, etc.)

Andy's Bio

When Andy was eight, he wanted to be a poet and a paleontologist. Twenty-seven years later, he is neither, but he uses those skills in his day job as a content strategist on Adobe’s product design team — writing under huge constraints, and uncovering artifacts from big, old software interfaces. When he’s not working, he’s creating podcasts and zines about one of his favorite topics: wooden pencils. Find him in San Francisco with his wife and two large cats, or online at andy.wtf.

Michael's Bio

Michael J. Metts helps teams build great products and services by putting people first. With a background in journalism, he frequently finds himself talking about the role words play in designing useful, usable experiences. He has given talks and taught workshops on the topic at industry conferences around the world. He lives with his wife, two children, and a very small dog just outside Chicago.

Video

Here’s the video version of our conversation:

https://youtu.be/C5u1GDOrcyU

Podcast Intro Transcript

We are finally coming to a point in the evolution of product design where writing skil...

Andy Welfle and Michael J. Metts are on a mission to empower word people. Specifically the people who craft words as part of product-design teams.

Their new book, Writing Is Designing: Words and the User Experience, shows UX content creators how to apply design principles to their writing craft.

https://ellessmedia.com/csi/writing-is-designing/