Total Word Domination

About Paula

I’m a fun Creative who takes the job of talking directly to your demographic very seriously. Often my words are the first contact someone has with a company or product.

7.2016 – I’m super delighted to join Google’s payments platform team as the UX writer. I write the UI, emails (external & internal), help center articles, notifications, content strategy, and more for the platform and our internal tools. I work closely with my ENG and PM partners to ensure the best possible global payments experience for our customers and internal users.

I’m also a member of the Scribbler team that writes for Google’s Doodle blog. I’ve participated (and loved) 3 different design sprints on different features and tools. I work closely with my amazing team of writers within my vertical and with writers across the org.

This is an amazing adventure and having the opportunity to help touch millions of people and help them pay and get paid around the world is an honor.

2.2016 – I was the Sr. Content Manager in UX for the almost not-a-startup, Clover Network. They never had a content department before, and I worked to build a nimble and collaborative Content Team. I created the content, as well as the process, and guides for designing, writing, and governance of it and training the jr. writer. I wrote for the web, android apps, release notes, help articles, service emails, newsletters, error messages, and more. I created a UX library for the entire company to use.

2015  – I was a Sr. Content Strategist in UX at Bank of the West. Our UX team operated as an internal agency and handled all the projects for Digital Sales across all channels. I worked closely with everyone (no, seriously, – Product owners, Product Managers, Compliance/Legal, Dev, and QA). Our team worked hard to deliver clear, consistent, concise content that was on brand. We stood for our users and pushed back when necessary for the best possible customer experience.

In addition to all the regular projects, I was the Content Strategist for a new mobile optimized website. I created the strategy that took the desktop content into a mobile experience and collaborated closely with the IX designer to create the templates for the mobile site. We came through Usability testing with a fairly high score (88%, 20 points above average) and learned a great deal about both our users and our design.

As part of the CX team, I help create content guidelines, do peer reviews, and present on current projects.

2014 – I was a Global Content Designer with PayPal in the User Experience department. I was on the merchant onboarding team; our aim was to give merchants of all size, all around the world, the best possible introduction to PayPal. Our motto – “We eat, breath, and sleep the merchant experience.” We worked all hours (no really!) to collaborate with our global co-workers to ensure that our customers feel like they have a trusted Partner in PayPal.

I worked on multiple merchant flows including our Partner experience and the radical re-design of the PayPal Payments Pro experience. I loved knowing that my words are helping people all around the world have a great experience with PayPal. I had an amazing time, my team members and co-workers collaborated and brainstormed on a regular basis in Design Studio sessions.
I loved being in the Usability lab and seeing how my content tests with actual customers and being able to write new content on the fly with the developers to see how it tests.And I never looked forward to going to work so much before!

2013 – I was the sole copywriter at VUDU, a Walmart company, for most of this year. In addition to writing for the web and crafting content strategy, I wrote sales collateral and headlines for VUDU’s partners, weekly blog posts, emails, XboxOne help text, and UI copy for multiple mobile apps, and the desktop application. I also worked on the new brand and editorial guidelines for their brand refresh, as well as the UI and web copy for the website refresh.It’s been so much fun working in this little section of the entertainment industry.

2012 – Rosetta, formerly LEVEL Studios asked me to come back and work on a special project for one of their biggest clients for four months. However, due to the NDA, I’m not at liberty to mention details. We worked in an Agile environment with daily Scrums.

I had a great time in the six months I spent at Yahoo! with the Small Business Department for the first half the year. It was only supposed to be a short contract starting in June, but they kept extending me. I really enjoyed working with my team and the work we did. I wrote emails, blog posts, web content and guides for SEO, SEM, and more!

2011 – I was lucky to spend half a year working at LEVEL Studios, a Rosetta Company, a truly great ad agency in Bay Area.  I wrote a new website for Skype’s (now defunct) business division, refreshed their Connect product pages and wrote a dozen email templates for Skype customers. This was my first experience working in an Agile environment doing sprints. I also re-vamped a micro-site for Cisco/Linksys’ Wireless Home product line which was a lot of fun. And then I was the copyeditor for Steven Soderbergh‘s film, Contagion’s website. The people at LEVEL really made going to work a joy.

2010 – Monster Cable Products was focused on becoming a dynamic lifestyle brand with a variety of consumer electronic products that year.Using my background as a gamer and Sci-fi fan I wrote the majority of the product copy for the TRON family of products for an amazing micro-site. I also supported the initiative to pitch a fuller set of SKUs to Walmart.

As a “copymonster” I got to write manuals, packaging, web copy, point of purchase sales collateral, instruction sheets, and random short bits of copy for the web team as needed (sometimes with a 2-hour turn-around). I was always excited to see my copy on Monster’s front page.

And almost a year later I was invited back to help out with to write more micro-sites and sales collateral.

I’ve had two separate contracts with The Men’s Wearhouse to support bringing a brick and mortar store online. I helped develop the brand’s voice and tone. It was a blast to work in the photo studio while the clothes were being prepped and shot while we were writing.

2008 – At Logitech, I was part of the team that revamped the change in brand voice. We wrote copy and packaging for current and legacy products in the new voice. I worked closely with different international business units (hello 7 am conference calls to Asia!) to support a variety of new products that included headphones, keyboards, and laptop sleeves.

I enjoyed getting to write in-depth copy briefs that would get used in a variety of places during the lifespan of a product.

2007 – My 18 months at Walmart e-commerce started with an initial contract to support a push (to the website) of a select set of consumer electronics. Being a gadget geek I really enjoyed crafting web copy for products that ranged from computers, cameras, TVs, and MP3 players.

By the time I left my contract had been renewed 3 times and I was the writer for the Baby Department (I wrote the majority of my copy straight from the samples. My office was often full of racks of baby clothes and merchandise) and I often got to step in to help out in other departments (Gifts, Juniors, Electronics). The department had instituted a daily quota and I received multiple kudos from managers and VPs for exceeding that number on a daily basis.