Shay Perez
I'm a Vancouver gal living in Montreal with my cat Bunny. I write docs at Shopify, and I'm driven by curiosity (and a lot of coffee!). I like to read dystopians, and take nature walks. Let's chat!
Location Montreal
Activity
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Shay Perez made a comment
So great to learn more about the gov.uk design systems and design language, which I've been looking into a little as inspiration for a content strategy guide I'm developing on my technical writing team.
We have a layered system that starts with our company (Shopify)'s design system and style, called Polaris: https://polaris.shopify.com. There's guidance...
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Shay Perez made a comment
LOVE this model of capturing user sentiment, I'm always really interested in the impact my content has on users. I think browser prototyping is the right level of fidelity for the level of information we'd have at this stage, and to gain useful feedback. The paper prototyping stage is too early and would be difficult for users to conceptualize (plus doesn't...
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Shay Perez made a comment
SO much better
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Shay Perez made a comment
We do a lot of what's been discussed here so far, and I'm currently working on a content strategy project to standardize the way we write types of content and how we organize them. This way, a user always knows what to expect when they see a steps heading, for instance — or can tell the difference between a task page and a conceptual or reference page, and can...
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Shay Perez made a comment
Love this data and user informed approach. The right words are the ones that people will understand.
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Shay Perez made a comment
User need/story: As a person in the UK, I need to find out the bank holidays for this year so that I can plan my work and life around my days off.
I much prefer the second option because I know whenever I look up statutory holidays I'm checking for the next one we have off, usually to confirm the date. My next go-to is looking over the year as I often plan...
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Shay Perez made a comment
Looking forward to week 3, especially prototyping!
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Shay Perez made a comment
We don't have a digital inclusion scale, and I find this scale really illuminating. We do have a range based on research that plots out different types of users, and we do focus on accessibility and access needs as well. I'd love to see what we can do to outreach to users who are below the level required because currently we focus on the 80%, and assume a...
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Shay Perez made a comment
Our users run businesses and in this last year, financial hardship and transitioning to either running their business online for the first time, or adapting to curbside pickup and other new methods while dealing with the stress and hardship of just living in this pandemic has been front and centre.
One that surprised me to learn is that many of our users...
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Shay Perez made a comment
Yhup! I love looking at various data sources that we have available for our content (help docs). None are perfect, but we have a 'helpfulness' rating, and a few that can show me if people contacted support after reading a doc (indicating they still needed help completing their task), and what kinds of search terms they used and what they were expecting to find...
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Shay Perez made a comment
I don't work in product yet so I haven't done this type of user research recently, but I have tested out surveys and content that was intended for internal audiences with a group of internal testers and gotten feedback through forms before. I've also done focus groups, roundtables, and fresh eyes.
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Shay Perez made a comment
Often before we kick-off a project, we add supporting research to a project brief. At this stage, I often lean on support tickets and what we call "merchant frustrations" which are user wants and needs for features that have been logged. It's good to look at trends, volume, the journey (what people did before and after they called us), and the workarounds that...
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Agree! I'd never heard that term before, actually.
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Shay Perez made a comment
Did anyone else give a little laugh that the answers spell out CBA (Can't be arsed)? which is of course the opposite of how I feel about UXR :)
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Shay Perez made a comment
## Driving rules
You might need an International Driving Permit (IDP) to drive in some countries. If you’re visiting another European country, then you might also need to buy extra equipment before you visit. For example, you might need the following:
• headlight converter stickers
• a Great Britain (GB) sticker
• a reflective jacket
• a warning... -
Shay Perez made a comment
I write technical documentation, so keeping task steps short and focused is also important. We try to keep steps to 5 or less, and match the UI for consistency. We also aim to write for grade 7 or under reading levels.
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Shay Perez made a comment
I think it is perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust but I'd like to test with assistive technologies to better understand where there might be gaps. I also think we probably have legacy content not up to standards that we haven't updated yet (with screenshots, or poorly formatted HTML tables, etc).
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Shay Perez made a comment
I really like the focus on accessibility/a11y in this course. I'd considered temporary and situational impairments before, but I haven't encountered them discussed under the term accessibility. I also haven't encountered anxiety called out before, and as a person who has experienced anxiety I appreciate reviewing it from this lens. Looking forward to learning...
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Shay Perez made a comment
1. Who is the service for? People who want to report or respond to a copyright or trademark infringement notice.
2. Who else might use the service? People who want to learn more about copyright or trademark, especially those who want to find out if infringement might be occurring (but it doesn't appear it be).
3. Who is the service not for? People who need... -
Shay Perez made a comment
I've only done user journey mapping in a workshop before as a group activity, so I'm excited to get to create one during this course :)
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Shay Perez made a comment
• Water is boiled
• Tea bag or tea ball with loose leaf tea is in the mug
• Boiled water is added to the mug
• Tea has finished steeping(if you drink your tea black like moi)
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Shay Perez made a comment
As a person living in lockdown/curfew, I need to order groceries online this evening so that I have food for the coming week.
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Shay Perez made a comment
I write for a few different product lines so it varies. This week, I'm focused on helping people who need to report or respond to a particular kind of legal notice. It's extra important to make the information findable, accurate, and concise/easy to understand in this case.
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Shay Perez replied to Shay Perez
Oh that's cool — hi to a fellow technical writer then, Annie!
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Shay Perez made a comment
I work for a commerce platform/software as a service that people use to power their businesses. This ranges from a pop-up shop seller to large enterprise business. Depending on the topic I'm writing help docs about, I serve a different audience (first-time user/intro, perhaps not much experience using tech or running a business — someone who has used our...
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Shay Perez made a comment
My users are people starting or running a business, who range from not having any technical experience to being fairly tech-savvy and comfortable with SAAS. They want to accomplish their tasks and goals in the most efficient way possible, and sometimes also want some background or conceptual information (eg about legal implications or taxes).
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Shay Perez made a comment
I would imagine that many other government services including those that set budgets would need this information, as do charities and foundations.
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Shay Perez made a comment
I write for people who are starting or already own their own business. For instance, I recently wrote about creating permissions for your store's staff for them to access your online admin/back-office. One offline aspect involved (in a not digital by default world) is hiring and training your staff, perhaps in a retail environment, and these staff will be...
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Shay Perez made a comment
Relationship building 100% — I can't imagine doing my work without being able to gather context and collaborate with other people and teams.
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Shay Perez made a comment
I'm a Technical Writer at a tech/SAAS company and I collaborate closely with UX and Content Design especially. Our product/project teams are multi-disciplinary, so Content Designers will work closely with Designers, Devs, Product Managers, Product Researchers, and Marketing/Comms folx.
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Shay Perez made a comment
I think it would be good to add that it's also about the organization of the information, and which information is emphasized. For instance, the IA, and also deciding which tasks are primary and secondary, and surfacing those first and second with emphasis.
ETA: though these aren't content but part of content design. Perhaps we are building to a later...
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Shay Perez replied to Chris Cain
Sorry to hear about your last role. That can be so tough! Hope you enjoy the course, and land a gig you enjoy!
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Shay Perez made a comment
Hey! I'm a Technical Writer based in Montreal. I've heard great things about the gov.uk team from a friend who used to work for GDS, and others in the tech industry. I want to move into Content Design eventually, so I'm hoping to learn foundational principles and skills that build on the ones I already have, like putting users needs first, and writing...
