Project overview
Bloomberg traders are busy, overburdened, and always seeking ways to meet their client’s needs yesterday. To serve this busy user base, product communications needed to be easily discoverable, punchy, and concise- immediately conveying the value of tools and features before a user clicked away. To meet this need, the product documentation team at Bloomberg created onboarding and new feature tours that were launched from a very visible banner in the product. I was able to contribute to the project by crafting tours that quickly got straight to the heart of what new features and tools could offer, meeting Bloomberg’s strict editorial and style requirements.
Skills
UX writing
Web & microcopy
User-centered content
The Process
Gathering information
Each tour at Bloomberg was unique, spanning features as complex as algorithmic trading workflows to those as fundamental as curated lists of news stories. I started each tour by meeting the product manager for each feature or new product (as well as other stakeholders like legal or UX if relevant) to gain a deep understanding of what was built, why, and the strongest selling points for it. During this phase, I also test the product extensively, really kicking the tires on everything and exploring the values presented to me. If there are any hiccups in the workflow or usability improvements, I would also provide feedback to the product team at this stage.
Drafting the tour
The writing style for these tours was strong, clear, and value-driven. To make sure that I caught the audience’s attention, I would use powerful verbs and headlines that hooked the reader, but also substantive enough that they made the value of the feature explicit. The goal was to ensure that when these tours were viewed, the reader would walk away with a sense of what the updates were even if they clicked away quickly.
Editing Process
Since these tours were so high visibility, they went through several rounds of edits, so I gained valuable experience implementing various levels of feedback, often up until the deadline for release. They were reviewed by peers, senior writers, and then the department head to ensure they met the stringent style and editorial standards of the department.
Final publishing and validation
Once through all rounds of review, I would publish them live to their respective products and ensure all aspects of the tour were working correctly. We then tracked engagement metrics for the tours and were able to demonstrate their impact by comparing them to product engagement metrics. These tours increased adoption of new features by 20% and allowed for a significant reduction in support needs.
See the samples
Bloomberg samples are proprietary, but I can provide them upon request. Please contact me to request a sample.