Blog - kubie.co

Getting ready to ask for a raise or promotion in a UX content role

November 15, 2023November 7, 2023 by Scott Kubie

UX Content Careers - Getting ready to ask for a raise or promotion.

A year or so ago, I had a coaching call with a junior UX writer who was interested in getting a promotion and/or getting a raise in their current role … and perhaps feeling a bit conflated on whether and how those two ideas are connected, or if they should be connected, or … well, … Read more

The value of content design is built-in and self-evident. (the brick analogy)

November 15, 2023October 13, 2023 by Scott Kubie

Let’s imagine something together: Your digital product company has decided to build a new headquarters. The design of the building calls for a brick exterior. (Great choice, by the way.) Do you imagine you will hire bricklayers to lay those brick? Why bother, right? Who needs ’em? Everyone knows how blocks work. Stack stack stack. … Read more

Writing ain’t religion

November 15, 2023July 12, 2023 by Scott Kubie

be intentional about your team's approach to writing

Choose a writing method that works for your team, content, and audience. Writing ain’t religion, friends. It’s okay to attend more than one church. Let’s take content design, for instance. Content design is generally my top choice when: A) writing content that has to support as broad of an audience as possible, and/orB) making content … Read more

It’s a website, not a carnival.

November 15, 2023May 22, 2023 by Scott Kubie

If you’re a UX writer, content designer, or similar, you need to learn to resist the pressure to be clever, to be funny, to be creative, to “make it pop”, to “give it personality” — especially if you’re not sure that it’s appropriate for the experience. (It’s probably not.)

Who doesn’t want to wear the ribbon?

November 15, 2023May 8, 2023 by Scott Kubie

I’ve learned not to trust what I think I think, what I think I believe, what I think the answer is, right in the moment.

David Rakoff on writing

November 15, 2023April 12, 2023 by Scott Kubie

“[I]f seated at the computer, I check my email conservatively 30,000 times a day. When I am writing, I must have a snack, call a friend, or abuse myself every ten minutes. I used to think that this was nothing more than the difference between those things we do for love and those we do for money. But that can’t be the whole story. I didn’t always write for a living, and even back when it was my most fondly held dream to one day be able to do so, writing was always difficult. Writing is like pulling teeth. From my dick.”
David Rakoff, Don’t Get Too Comfortable

Writing for Designers in Tokyo

November 15, 2023April 10, 2023 by Scott Kubie

I had the great pleasure of visiting Tokyo recently, to speak at the long-running, COVID-interrupted UX Days event. From my perspective it was over 3 years in the making, from the initial invitation to actually being able to attend. Wild. The trip was a lot of firsts for me; my first time in Japan, my first … Read more

What the heck is content ecosystem mapping?

November 15, 2023March 28, 2023 by Scott Kubie

Excerpted screenshot of a larger diagram comprised of labeled bubbles connected by labeled lines, forming phrases like: Content Ecosystem Mapping - produces - Content Ecosystem Maps

Good question. To fully answer it, we have to explore a few related, but distinct, terms: Content ecosystem mapping is a sensemaking activity for digital strategy. Digital strategy projects could include: and so on. In a design and strategy context, sensemaking is something we do in order to better understand an environment, problem, or situation. … Read more

Live learning: Where to find UX content classes, workshops, and events

November 15, 2023March 24, 2023 by Scott Kubie

These are some of the places I check regularly to populate the weekly events list I publish through Content.Events, and places I would personally recommend to someone interested in taking a class or course.