Guest lectures · Conference talks · Instructional video
Teaching people about the investment and value of content
Teaching accessibility fundamentals — University of north carolina chapel hill october 2024.
I've given guest lectures at UNC for university students entering the UX field, presented at Cisco to IT professionals looking to understand how content strengthens their workflows and products, and spoken on accessibility as a main-track speaker at Cisco's UX design conference, d.zone. The through-line: content is a design material, and most teams have never been shown how to work with it.
I teach the way I write — short sentences, real examples, and something you can use on Monday.
Where I’ve taught
Three audiences who need three different things from the same subject.
Students who will encounter a content eco-system
Guest lectures for university students entering the UX field. I teach the fundamentals — what a content designer does, where in the process we belong, and how to write an interface that survives being used under stress.
UX, Marketing, and Design courses
Professionals who inherited a content eco-system
Presentations to IT professionals who want content to strengthen their workflows and products. They are already writing — error messages, release notes, help articles — usually with no brief and no review. I teach the small set of rules that fixes most of it, and when to hand the rest to a writer.
Lunch-and-learns, enablement sessions, or workshops.
A design conference audience, on accessibility
A main-track speaking slot on accessibility at Cisco's d.Zone design conference — the same argument I make everywhere: accessible content is a writing discipline before it's a compliance checklist.
How People Read (2023)
What I teach
Four sessions I can run as a 45-minute talk or a half-day workshop, for designers, engineers, or a mixed room.
01
Content strategy, from scratch
What content is, where it sits in processes and enterprises, and the difference between writing copy and designing content.
02
Plain language under pressure
Writing for someone tired, interrupted, on a phone, or reading in a second language. The room rewrites real strings.
03
Accessibility is a writing job
Headings as structure, link text that stands alone, alt text that says something. WCAG in terms a writer can act on.
04
Making a standard people use
Terminology, patterns, and content standards that survive contact with a busy team.
How a session runs
Same shape every time, whether it's a lecture hall or six people on a call.
- Every example is real, not invented — I can use my own examples or you can use examples of tools and features your team works on.
- Hands-on time, not just a lecture — every session includes real practice, hands-on work, and some instruction/lecture.
- Leave with completed materials, not just notes — whatever you build together in the session goes home with attendees as a finished reference.
- A skill you can use again — attendees leave able to rewrite an error message, run a content critique, or apply a naming convention on their own.
Does your team or classroom need more content instruction?
Tell me who's in the room and what they're stuck on. I'll tell you which session fits and what I'd need from you.