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The Dash: $500 million lesson in UI design

This week's Dash includes why you should become a hybrid technical & UX writer and a mistake that cost Citibank $500 million dollars.

This is the published edition of our weekly UX writer and UX writing newsletter, The Dash. Sign up to The Dash to have these updates sent straight to your inbox!

Don’t you just hate it when you accidentally Venmo your friend $900M dollars? Looking at you, Citibank. And in other news, we’ve got a brand new course fresh off the presses: UX Writing for Technical Writers! Are you a tech writer? Do you know a tech writer? It’s time technical audiences got some user experience writing love.

Why you should become a hybrid technical & UX writer. We could go on and on in this blurb, but we think you’ll enjoy our upcoming webinar a bit more. Join us next week for a sneak peek of our new course: UX Writing for Technical Writers. Course author Dave Connis, Sr. Documentation & UX Writer, will share his experience as a hybrid writer, benefits of applying UX best practices to documentation, and going beyond docs and manuals to write for UI components. Register now!

Getting started with growth content design. So what is growth content anyways? In this beginner’s guide, Jason Fox at Atlassian outlines the core principles, frameworks, and craft-level considerations to act on growth content opportunities. 

Citibank’s $500 million lesson in the importance of UI design. Considered one of the “biggest blunders in banking history,” they were trying to make $7.8M in interest payments. They sent $900M instead. Woops! If anyone ever questions the value of clear, concise content, just send them this article. 

Submit your Button pitch. Ready to share your content gifts with people all over the world? Now’s your chance to take the virtual stage. The call for Button 2021 speakers is officially open! You have until March 5, so get to it. 

The content strategy Clubhouse. We decided to give Zoom a timeout and hop on the audio-only bandwagon. While Clubhouse has a long way to go to make their platform accessible for all users, we’re interested to see how it unites content strategists and UX writers. Most recently, Patrick Stafford joined a Designers Club with other leaders in the space to chat about what content strategy leaders look for in lead content strategists. This thread from Marissa Louie on Twitter captures the essence of the convo. 

Career reflection and advice with Michael J. Metts. This very, very thorough post over on Working in Content covers UX, content, conversational AI, and Michael’s career to date. He also shares advice for those navigating content careers. A fabulous resource to keep handy.

How to find and keep a valuable mentor. Respect their time. Keep it enjoyable. Show appreciation. Here’s a quick etiquette guide for the driven, yet considerate, mentee. Thanks to Jasmine Rosen for this reminder. 

Join the Lunchclub. Speaking of networking… you might find this tool valuable. Enter your background, goals, interests and then Lunchclub’s AI will match you with someone in your field for a 1:1 video meeting. Pretty cool. FYI: This is not a paid sponsorship. We’ve just heard good things from fellow UXWC students and wanted to share the networking love.


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