Hi, I’m Dirk.
I’m a content designer, poet, and accordion hobbyist who believes in the power of language to create more accessible and inclusive digital experiences. I thrive on connecting my love of learning, commitment to mentorship, and passion for storytelling in every workday, and I’ve been honored to do so at CallRail, Dropbox, Volvo Cars, and Intuit.
Wanna chat content or favorite sandstone formations? Let’s connect!
Experience and work
In my first content design role, as an agency content designer with Wordland Design, I had the pleasure of being a fully embedded member of the UX teams at Volvo Cars and Dropbox and a lead content contributor to projects at Intuit.
From agency life, I moved in-house at CallRail, a marketing analytics software company, where, in addition to deepening my craft as the UX content lead, I was able to lean into my passion for mentorship and operations as a UX “Craft Lead” and member of UX leadership.
In these roles, I’ve been involved in every facet of content design, from the small (crafting one-off marketing copy) to the large (defining storytelling for complex, end-to-end user flows), and from the discipline-foundational (creating content guidelines) to the organization-operational (defining design partnerships and ways of working).
Prior to becoming a content designer, I worked as a data editor and QA/QC specialist for Apple Maps and as a user experience research coordinator for Google. The user-insights focus I gained from these roles informs my design practice daily.
A trio of content design projects
Bulk integration for Google Ads
Previously, our customers with multiple Google Ads integrations had to set up, edit, or restore their integrations in a mind-numbing, one-by-one process. We wanted to alleviate their pain by creating a bulk functionality. This complex, up-market enhancement to our highest-value integration also served as a precedent-setting opportunity for cross-functional collaboration and mentorship.
CallRail, 2023
A new homepage for the CallRail web app
CallRail, 2023
CallRail’s previous landing page, the Call Log, was getting overloaded and causing latency issues for our largest accounts. This new landing page offered a way to reduce load on the Call Log while also giving us the opportunity to surface more immediate value for our customers.
Permanent paid-plan onboarding for mobile app users
Dropbox, 2022
This onboarding experience replaced the previous dismissible onboarding experience and drove higher feature usage, trial conversion, and retention of mobile users of Dropbox Plus.
A dash of content guidelines work
Applied content guidelines: integrations content quick wins
CallRail, 2023
Using the UX content guidelines I had created as a heuristic evaluation tool, I worked with CallRail’s Principal Product Manager to identify, prioritize, and deliver a series of usability enhancements to our standard integrations content. These slides come from my presentation to our executive leadership team.
UX content guidelines for cross-functional partners
CallRail, 2023
In early 2022, CallRail was looking to deepen the practice of UX content design at the company, and I was hired to help lead that effort. After drafting UX content guidelines for internal content team alignment, I created this condensed version to help our cross-functional partners understand our new content approach.
Have thoughts on words, coffee, content design, accordions, UX, or mules?
I’d love to chat.