Hi, I’m Lauren. I’m a UX writer and content designer.
I’ve been working with clients across the public and private sector since 2015. From travel brands and major retailers, to central government departments and local councils, there are few industries I haven’t created copy for.
I specialise in brand expression, tone of voice and writing for interfaces. My favourite projects are creative, brand-led projects and couple engaging copy with brilliant design. I’m also fascinated by design problems and love breaking apart complexity and turning it into something delightful to engage with.
Whether it’s a marketing strap-line, error message or onboarding flow, there’s never an excuse for bad copy. That’s why I’m committed to championing the user across every interaction and slice of microcopy within a product or digital experience.
I help clients shape, deliver and track the success of their content strategies. I collaborate with everyone, from senior leadership and practitioners to call centres operators, to deliver outcomes for the ones who really matter — your audience.
My process
1.
Understand
I may have ‘writer’ in my job title, but my main job is to build relationships. I start by listening to:
- stakeholders and product owners to understand their priorities and anxieties
- existing teams to unpick what went wrong before and find opportunities of what we can do next
- your users to identify what their needs are and where products can be improved
2.
Create
Whether it’s in a team, alongside stakeholders or alone at my desk with just my words, this is the stage I like best.
You should never have to sacrifice great copy because of character counts. So I start with insights from research and weave in business goals to write words that stand out. Words that matter.
I also like to use this stage to understand workflows, content ownership and governance to improve content moving forward.
3.
Collaborate
I work closely with product teams, practitioners and stakeholders to build products with users at their heart.
Content strategies aren’t delivered by updating a single page. And improvements to content creation can’t be fixed without people understanding the science behind good writing.
That’s why I believe in working in the open and bringing everyone along on the journey. I’m well-versed in delivering content training and advocating for my practice.
4.
Build
The work doesn’t stop once we hit ‘publish’. As I work closely with user researchers throughout the design process, I can help to set up iterative research practices and development backlogs.
I also use analytics, research and market insights to continually iterate and improve experiences. By integrating insights into the content creation cycle, we can learn, improve and innovate long after the launch date.
My experience
Private sector
I love working with creative brands with compelling tone of voices. And I’ve been lucky enough to write for brands like M&S, Virgin Media Ireland and David Lloyd Clubs.
Freelance work
Whether it’s brand ideation, tone of voice creation, crafting copy across user journeys or helping to set up a website, I’m always open to freelance projects, big or small.
Public sector
From being a part of Test and Trace during the pandemic to the Department for International Trade during Brexit, it’s safe to say I’ve worked with government during some fairly seismic times.
Skills and areas of expertise
Having worked in and collaborated with multidisciplinary teams throughout my career, my skillset extends beyond just writing.
Areas of expertise:
- Content strategy
- Brand ideation and tone of voice
- Content creation
- Content testing and analysis
- Content marketing
- Creating and hosting content training
- Content migrations
Additional skills:
- planning and running user interviews
- running and analysing user research tools like Tree Tests
- working closely with designers to generate wireframes
- testing and designing information architecture, taxonomy and tagging
- translating and incorporating data from Google Analytics and SEMRush
- working with sales teams to draft briefs, respond to opportunities and pitch for work
Thought leadership
I come from a content marketing background. That means I’m still a sucker for blogs, webinars and talks. Here’s a short run down of some of my recent thought leadership.
Talks and webinars:
- Designing content that empowers, includes and cares webinar
- Including all: Using language to go beyond WCAG at VirtuALLY Conference
- Designing for the Dead’ at Interact Virtual and Interact Amsterdam
- Content and collaboration with Nomensa’s CEO Simon Norris based on the whitepaper series we co-wrote, The Art of Collaboration
Featured writer on Medium for:
- Artificial intelligence
- Privacy after death
- Digital death
- contributed to UX Collective, UX Bootcamp and the Start Up
I’ve also written blogs for Nomensa on the importance of content design, content strategy, blending UX and content, microcopy, tone of voice and branding, digitising products and personas.
Lauren Ipsum 