Hello! I’m Cate.
I make sound, scalable content decisions and solve workflow problems — including some that teams didn’t know they had.
I’ve worked with product teams at organizations big and small. My teams grappled with typical issues: unnecessary costs, usability issues, product performance. In my role of technical writer, I handled many problems that belonged — on the surface — to the writing.
My systems work by dissolving friction at touchpoints between engineering and other disciplines
But from my position on the ground with developers, designers, PMs, research, legal, localization, and accessibility, I could see that many product problems actually started upstream, in the systems, tools, and workflows that teams used. So I looked for solutions beyond content itself.
Over time, while collaborating with many talented colleagues, I created standards, templates, and tools. I earned a patent on a system for organizing and managing UX writing. And scores of teams now use those resources daily to make better software in less time.
These systems work by dissolving friction where engineering and other disciplines meet. Good UX and data modeling are built in because the systems reengineer the gears of collaboration across all the functions that influence content and data, from conception to check-in.
Other training and education that informs the value I offer my clients includes linguistics, cognitive psychology, and publishing process.