What Matters to Me
Philosophy & Approach
A meaningful user experience can’t exist without clear, accessible, and intentional content. As a content design player-coach, I advocate for the value of leading design through content and breaking the mindset that content designers are simply copywriters.
Leading Through Content
Far too often, content design is treated as an afterthought in the design process, and I’ve built my career around challenging that.
Content is not decoration. When we wait until the end of the design process to “fill in the words,” we’re treating language as a finishing touch instead of something that should inform the structure of an experience. The design can’t exist without useful, guiding content and the language we use determines whether the experience creates trust or erodes it.
To be true partners, we need to show up early by speaking up and shaping the work from the start. That means owning working sessions, contributing to the strategy, and defining the deliverables that will move us toward our goals. Collaboration is strongest when multiple perspectives are involved, so by starting content design alongside visual design, we can reduce bias, align across UX disciplines, and deliver more meaningful customer experiences.
Kickoff
Understand the task at hand. Ask questions and stake our claim as equal partners. After kickoff, proactively set up time to align with your partners.
Asynchronous Prep
AKA ‘Writing the Design’
Take what you’ve gathered from the kickoff and pair it with your own research and expertise to plot out the content for the experience. Consider the right way to present it. How many screens should there be? What content elements should be used? What is the right sequence of information?
Co-Design
Meet with your design partners to co-design. Share your asynchronous work and find common ground in your approaches. Start to input your content into wireframes. It is essential to leave with an aligned vision, even if it’s only a first pass.
Deliver an Aligned Vision
Meet with your other stakeholders to share what you’ve put together. Collect feedback and allow them to influence the direction. Leave with actionable next steps and a timeline to keep the work moving. Repeat steps 2–4 as needed.
What People Say
Dan is everything you could wish for in a Lead. He always managed to keep the big picture in mind while being detail-oriented. His questions during brainstorms were insightful and inevitably led to a better product. Even while he was on multiple projects, his deliverables were consistently finished ahead of schedule.
What sets Dan apart is his relentless bias for action. Whether it's improving career progression frameworks, implementing AI tooling, refining team ceremonies, or driving talent recognition, Dan consistently goes beyond expectations to enhance processes for his team and the entire organization.
Dan has been such a huge help with not just with my projects, but for everyone. He didn't just build an amazing AI content tool, he's made sure we all know how to use it, taking time to walk people through it and answer questions, and setting up workshop time.
He's proven to be a true champion of content design. He's strengthened our craft through practical, informative share-outs on topics such as content-first design and AI. This has helped us develop the skills and confidence we need to feel empowered in our work, and I'm incredibly grateful for that.
When ideas come up in our conversations that seem fruitful or important, he always follows up quickly and thoroughly...he's got passion for engagement and wants to stay on top of whatever is on his plate.
Dan's ability to manage complexity and lead through ambiguity was crucial to our success, especially in high-stakes projects where we launched design sprints, A/B tests, and beta tests to learn and iterate while identifying new value propositions for our customers.