Adam Connor posted yesterday that he doesn’t believe in UX design. Steve Baty responded that much of UX design isn’t design, and pointed me to an article by Jonas Löwgren that contrasts what UX designers do and what “big-D” designers do. I think I understand the contrasts that are being made between UX and “big-D” [...]
I want to learn more about how writing skills can best support the product development life cycle. I’m starting with this survey, which is intended for folks who do not provide technical communication or other writing services as their core offering or job responsibilities. So, I’m hoping to hear from project and product managers, business [...]
“Text instructs, guides, confirms, communicates, connects.”—Kristina Halvorson, Content Strategy for the Web Content strategy isn’t just about web content for your customers. It’s also about learning from your experiences to reduce process loss and plan your next iteration. It was supposed to be simple. I pictured three steps. I sketched a few versions, and ended [...]
Often teams request documentation long after work has begun on the product, leaving just enough time to fill their order, whether or not it’s actually the best type of documentation for the users. This happens to in-house writing teams and outside consultants. How do you avoid this? When is the right time in the project [...]
“what happened in this story and what is this story about?” – Sugar Have you read the Dear Sugar column on The Rumpus? The Rumpus is a literary blog, and Dear Sugar is an advice column by an established author writing anonymously as “Sugar.” On Feb. 14, Sugar will reveal her identity. Whoever she is, [...]
By “encouraged to,” I mean by their employers. And maybe I mean “required to.” I’m talking about having some sort of online communication with readers, customers, or users. Being able to find books by that person, or websites geared towards selling his or her products, or links to academic articles published by other content providers, [...]
For two weeks, I have been riding the train downtown to the Institute of Design at IIT. Last week I had a Creative Suite bootcamp taught by graduate students, and this week I had orientation. Yep, I am going back to school. I am pursuing dual degrees: a Masters in Design and a Masters in [...]
This weekend I was a guest teacher for a joint venture of the Chicago chapter of STC and Northern Illinois University, “Technical Communication in a Digital Age“: I was talking about usability and content testing. I gave an overview of usability, user experience, and interaction design. Then we wrote testing scenarios for the STC Usability [...]
I met Brad Nunnally when we both presented at the STC annual conference in Sacramento in May. He lives in St. Louis, and my family is from St. Louis. Since I’ll be in town this summer to see old family farms and graveyards, Brad set up a lunch meetup at Shlafly Tap Room. He’s nice, [...]
During our workshop about grassroots content testing at the STC Summit in Sacramento, the participants listed difficulties and barriers to testing enterprise content—particularly when we haven’t been asked to do so! This series of posts is intended to let us generate some solutions to those difficulties. I’ve decided to straight-up post the Post-its and let [...]
Hi, I’m Kristi Leach.
I’m a writer, content strategist, and designer in Chicago.
I have working knowledge and experience in the following: technical writing, website planning, user experience, and design thinking.
My core skill is all things content. That means I bring a content-centric view to UX roles, and it means I know how to collaborate with folks in all those fields on content projects.
Current obsession: how approaching project communication with design thinking can support product development. Here, take my survey.
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