S3E5 Delighting Your Customers - How to Craft Meaningful UX as a Content Developer with Ellyn Hassell

Inside Tech Comm with Zohra Mutabanna

Ellyn Hassell says, "I want to delight the customer, I want to make sure that I'm doing everything that I can to make this a really amazing experience, help them get their job done, move through the task, and move on."
In this heart-to-heart conversation, Ellyn shares with us her experience and insights to create a delightful experience for the customer. She is continually striving to elevate our profession and earn a seat at the table with other disciplines. Learn the unique ways in which her efforts have contributed to product success in myriad ways, especially in user experience (UX).
Some questions we delve into:

• How do you collaborate with UX, Marketing, and other teams?
• What does "success" look like when you are partnering with other disciplines?
• How can you remove roadblocks and assert yourself as a writer in situations where you are challenged?
• How can you elevate your status as a tech writer?

Some common abbreviations and terms mentioned in this episode:

• RDO - Research, Delivery, and Operations (RDO) division
• SCD - Strategic Content Development
• SME - Subject Matter Experts
• UX - User Experience
• SKY UX - SKY UX is the next generation of Blackbaud's user experience framework that provides a consistent, cohesive user experience for Blackbaud products.
• UI - User Interface
• Triad - This is a scrum meeting. Triads may vary from organization to organization, but mostly the triad at Blackbaud consists of the Product Owner (or the Product Manager), the UX Designer, and the Dev team.

Guest Bio
Ellyn Hassell is a Sr. Principal Technical Writer at Blackbaud. She leads multiple efforts around UX writing and user assistance patterns that promote innovation and consistency. Supporting several development teams, Ellyn collaborates across disciplines to create a meaningful impact throughout Blackbaud. Other interests include internationalization, usability, syntax standards, and accessibility with the end goal of delighting Blackbaud customers.

Ellyn is a proud alumna of East Carolina University (Go Pirates!) where she holds a B.A. and M.A. in English with a concentration in technical writing. She’s presented at numerous local, district, and international conferences, and served as guest editor of User Experience and several other technical and creative publications. Ellyn lives with her husband and two children on the beautiful Chickahominy River in Williamsburg, VA. You can connect with Ellyn on LinkedIn.
Audio Engineer - RJ Basilio