Erica Jorgensen is a content designer and content strategist who focuses on content research, analytics, and optimization. She’s a former journalist who’s written for global brands (Expedia and Microsoft), nonprofits (Premera Blue Cross), and startups (Amazon and Rover). Erica has taught at the University of Washington graduate program in Communication and Digital Media and mentors content designers through Hexagon UX and Ladies that UX.

How Well Do Your Words Work? How to Create and Sustain a Content-Focused Research Practice

Your content strategy team needs to be confident which specific words and phrases are resonating with your audience. And wouldn’t it be ideal to learn which words work before you launch your project or product, instead of relying on A/B testing? In this energizing, hands-on session, you’ll learn methods and tools for objectively evaluating how your customers are reacting to your content—and most importantly, why they’re responding the way they are. This is not “regular” usability research with prototypes of both content and visual design. It’s content-only research that helps you pinpoint the just-right words for successful, friction-free user experiences, happier customers, and stronger business results.

In this workshop you will learn:

• How to identify what specific content to evaluate using research.
• Nine types of content-focused research–preference, clarity, naming, comprehension, sentiment, likelihood of action, audience-specific, gap identification, and localization—and how to run research for each.
• How identifying effective words and phrases in your writing style guide and component library measurably improves the customer experience.
• The benefits of running content testing prior to or instead of A/B experiments.
• How creating a content research practice brings influence and power to your UX writing team.