Hi, I'm Cate

Welcome to my portfolio.

My 10+ years of experience in content design, systems, and UX includes:

  • Content design consulting and freelance work with Stripe, Hinge, Cruise, Coinbase, Bubble, and Opendoor through my business Signs and Systems LLC

  • Full-time content design roles on product design teams at Dropbox and Expedia

  • UX content strategy client work for Amazon, Microsoft, Adidas, Hitachi, Unity, and others

  • Instructor and curriculum designer for the class Strategic Content: Designing for the User Experience in the "Storytelling & Content Strategy" certificate program at the University of Washington

  • Master’s graduate of the University of Washington Human Centered Design and Engineering program

  • Pro-bono usability consulting for non-profits The Vera Project, NARAL Washington, and Geeking Out Kids of Color

  • Founding co-editor of the email newsletter Atmospheric River, covering underground electronic music in Seattle

This site collects my case studies, thought leadership, and personal projects.View my resume

Case studies

Outcome-oriented

Dropbox
Surfacing writing guidance in the design system

What was the problem?We couldn't incorporate the outdated UX writing guidance into the updated design system.
The solution?I led a team of 4 content designers to update our UX writing guidance to match the new system components. Then I transposed the documentation to Figma to host in our design system.
When?Sep 2020 - Apr 2021

Outcomes:

  • UX writing guidance added to DIG for all 11 content-driven components (buttons, tooltips, controls, menus, text fields, modals, snackbars, tabs, tooltips, badges, banners)

  • Writing guidance developed for 2 net-new components

  • Obsolete guidance sunset for 3 defunct components

  • Systems consultant Nathan Curtis assessed DIG’s documentation as “among the best he’d ever seen"

  • Improved user satisfaction metrics from the Q2 2021 design systems user survey: +8.8% for “Meets my needs” and +5.4% for “Easy to use”

  • 417 pageviews meant we achieved broad awareness

  • Updated writing guidelines defined lesson plans for 3 team training modules

Dropbox
Enabling account switching across surfaces

What was the problem?Incoherent design, functionality, and terminology made account switching confusing, rare, and nearly impossible.
The solution?I led content design for the cross-platform redesign of the account menu and switching logic.
When?Jan 2020 - Oct 2020

Outcomes:

  • 21% increase in newly-connected (“linked”) accounts and 9% lift in linking activity on web

  • 22 help center articles consolidated into 2

  • First simultaneous launch across surfaces ever

  • Netted $4.1m ARR from storage display and upgrade messaging

Process-oriented

Dropbox
Crafting an inclusive system of metadata for illustrations of people

Dropbox needed guidelines for describing different races, genders, and ages in the alt text of 132 new life-like illustrations.In addition to defining a system of metadata for tagging, I defined a system for describing illustrated people that honors their diverse identities.

  • Inclusive design

  • Internal systems and guidance

View Paper Doc

Nintex
Bringing familiar architecture to an overgrown B2B software site

Nintex (a B2B workflow automation software company) was a client of mine at Portent when they overhauled their content strategy and site architecture.After a bespoke audit of 475 site pages, I ran user interviews with existing clients to create personas and a journey map. Then I defined a new sitemap and IA to better serve existing and potential customers.

  • Full-site content strategy

  • Research leadership

View Paper Doc

Expedia
Defining local IA for an intuitive member account experience

Expedia was transitioning to a new design system, and a "lift and shift" wouldn't cut it for the deeply outdated Member Profile.Leveraging analytics, card sort, tree test, survey, and usability testing data, I redefined the architecture of the member account space.

  • IA expertise

  • Research data synthesis

View Paper Doc

Travelocity
Onboarding users to an augmented reality app

Travelocity was developing a native Augmented Reality (AR) app to help travelers ensure their carry-on bags met the airline's size criteria.I worked with design and engineering partners to quickly, clearly, and accurately describe motion and physical space in a 5-screen onboarding flow.

  • Emerging technology

  • Cross-functional teamwork

View Paper Doc

Content design gallery

Samples from my consulting work

Thought leadership

Speaking
UX Writer Conference

Winter 2021
A brief talk on qualitative user research for UX writing: Generative and Evaluative Techniques.

Speaking
UX Wizards - Bay Area

Summer 2020
A talk explaining the craft of UX writing on a product team: Demystified: UX Writing.Viewed almost 19k times!

Writing
Figma for Non-designers

Release of a Figma training session I ran with designer Cheechee Lin.View on dropbox.design

Writing
Cross-functional Team Collaboration Kit

A Figma template to help facilitate cross-functional collaboration in a virtual-first world.View on dropbox.design

Speaking
Substantial

Spring 2018
A talk for the Seattle design firm Substantial: Defining Content Strategy.

Personal projects

Freelance arts journalism

I've written about books and music for the following publications:

JOOSED

Along with my friend Andi aka Goop, I curate and organize the monthly dance night JOOSED.It's every 3rd Thursday at Afterlife and gives a platform to emerging and under-represented DJ talent in Seattle.

For JOOSED, I…

  • Coordinate communication and timelines between artists, venue, and creative team

  • Direct collaboration between our graphic designer and illustrator

  • Co-manage social media promotion strategy

Atmospheric River

I’m a founding co-editor of the email newsletter Atmospheric River about underground electronic music in Seattle (along with Kelsea Dill and Hans Anderson).Each issue contains features, profiles, album reviews, DJ mixes, upcoming events, community submissions, memes, and more.I write the artist interview series, “The method and the madness.”

I also...

  • Coordinate our tasks and timelines

  • Edit and manage contributor content

  • Collaborate closely on design direction

  • Currently managing our website migration

Somi

Somi was my Master’s thesis project in the UW HCDE program.My teammate Sudipti Singh Garvey and I designed a movement-based card game to help people get in touch with their intuition.

Our process involved:

  • A diary study where we learned that people struggle to access the content they care about most: feelings, memories, and experiences

  • “Somatic expert” interviews with a yoga instructor, neuroscientist, and dancer

  • Persona development of the “cognitive processor”

  • Prototyping, testing, and refinement of deck and instruction booklet

Thanks for visiting.

Questions? You can reach me at [email protected]