As the Bilingual Web Content Manager for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a lead science advocacy non-profit, I worked with climate scientists, engineers, developers, advocates, and designers to communicate science concepts to English and Spanish speakers in the US.
Understanding what motivates audiences and users was central to my communication work.
I relied on traffic stats, media monitoring, demographic analytics, messaging studies, user testing, outreach reports, and SEO best practices to produce resonant and impactful content.
And I collaborated closely with developers on the information architecture of the site to ensure that our users could find the content they were looking for.
Some examples of my work:
The organization wants to reach out to Latinos in the US.
I produced the website in Spanish, and I also managed it. My duties included:
- Designing, implementing, and summarizing remote user testing for the mini-site.
- Collaborating closely with developers to make and optimize the mini-site in Spanish.
- Producing culturally-sensitive, resonant content that showcased real people and real issues.
- Designing a content plan for the mini-site and for blogging in Spanish based on SEO best practices (I paid attention to things like Adwords, tags, summaries, and other features to ensure readability, etc).
The relationship between climate change and sea level rise can be complex and abstract. To unpack this relationship for our users and garner media attention, I worked with climate scientists to produce a tabbed storymap.
My role on the team was to remote test the initial prototypes with users.
The first round of tests showed that users understood the top-level messages, but got lost in the details of the analysis.
To address those issues within the constraints of the mapping platform, I recommended:
- Renaming the tabs.
- Reworking language in legends that were confusing users.
- Rewriting first sentences with more direct language.
After making those changes, we found that users in our second round of tests were able to describe our analysis in their own words.
In the first month after launch, the map was viewed 200k times, and major media outlets like CNN and Univision featured and linked to the analysis.