UX writing is an important and fashionable sub-discipline in the world of content strategy. I remember when we called it “microcopy” and relegated it to the realm of forms and error messages. Marginalizing the importance of copy in a digital product can hurt the experience and damage the bottom line. With so much at stake,…
Author: Ethan Machado
Welcome to TapCool, the personal website of Ethan Machado. I’m a former Missouri Journalism award-winning writer turned UX designer (but you can call me a content designer or UX writer if it makes you feel better), who loves working at the intersection of technology, design, and content. If you’re looking for a strategic and dependable creative leader, I am the human you seek.
A Double D for Marketing
You can’t be a designer without encountering the Double Diamond Innovation Model. The model goes something like this: It’s a great way to think about the design process, even if I prefer the design squiggle, where everything upfront is a chaotic, swirling squiggly line of the unknown that gradually morphs and straightens into a line…
Just Enough to Start
Back when we still had offices in downtown buildings, a panicked freelancer pulled me aside and said, “you’re asking us to build a plane in mid-air. It’s just not possible.” Good UX designers know the power of discovery and upfront research. They know that only through interviews, observations, and mining available data can they begin…
The Role of Content on a Website
Content sets the tenor and tone for how a brand communicates with customers, prospects, and search engines. The top three things it must do are: 1. Establish Foundational Domain Authority Allow customers to learn about the brand and product offerings with accurate, clear, and informative product content, related content, and proof points. 2. Deepen Emotional…
Living the Stream: NewFronts 2021
In a world of cable cord-cutters and vertical video viewers, NewFronts is now the new normal By the time Disney finally found its way with the “Star Wars” spinoff hit, “The Mandalorian”, consumer preference for streaming video content had become too powerful a force to ignore. At this year’s annual NewFronts, held virtually on May…
The Many Colors of Apple’s Dominance
To become the world’s second-most profitable public company – trailing only Saudi Arabia’s state-owned oil giant Saudi Aramco – while simultaneously being recognized as the world’s most beloved and relevant brand, requires a special kind of marketing jujitsu that only Apple can pull off. Such mastery and long-term commitment allow the company to position itself…
Transformation Nation
Indoors and unbound, a restless nation begins to imagine its digital future Our collective anxieties, heightened by both the real and imagined threats of the pandemic, helped accelerate a year of business digital transformation so historic that the long-term impacts are still being unpacked. For nearly a year since the pandemic began, people have had…
Prime Day Revelations
The annual sales event offered marketers a treasure trove of data to observe a nation at nest Prime Day aka “Black Friday in July” began six years ago as a way to reward Amazon Prime subscribers with a day of deals. For 2020, a year with more horrifying twists than HBO’s new science fiction hit…