Ginny Redish: Content, Usability, and UX Pioneer – Episode 159

Content Strategy Insights

Ginny Redish There are a lot of pioneers in the field of content strategy. One of them can make a strong case for being a true original. Ginny Redish was among the cadre of usability-testing professionals who founded the discipline of UX design. She was making government content usable, readable, and accessible decades before the famous GOV.UK makeover. She was talking about content as conversation years before chatbots and voice assistants became common. Her book, Letting Go of the Words, guided content practitioners and UX designers in the decade before the second wave of UX writing and content design books arrived. It's truly difficult to find an aspect of modern content practice that Ginny hasn't influenced or informed. We talked about: her pioneering role working in content and usability since the 1970s the origins of modern documentation and plain-language advocacy in the Carter administration her role in creating documentation for the first personal computers, including the first docs to take task-oriented approach her take on content as conversation her insight that we have mistaken the web for a giant filing cabinet when in fact it's a replacement for the telephone the origin of the title of her book, Letting Go of the Words the three legs of the stool that support content in her book: effective navigation and search, clear and usable design, and tech that works the origins of the UX profession in technical communication, cognitive psychology, and design the origins of service design, customer experience, and user experience in usability testing the importance of the personal-computer developments of the 1980s in setting the stage for the arrival of the web her delight at the growth of content strategy, content design, UX writing, and UX design Ginny's bio Janice (Ginny) Redish has been a passionate evangelist for clear content, plain language, and usability for more than 40 years. In her numerous papers, book chapters, and webinars, Ginny has given insights and guidance on content strategy, content as conversation, user experience design, writing for the web, and other relevant topics. Reviewers have called Ginny's most recent book, Letting Go of the Words — Writing Web Content that Works, "amazingly helpful," "the best book," "the definitive book for web writing." Of her many awards, Ginny is particularly proud to have been one of the first people whom Kristina Halvorson inducted into the Content Strategy Hall of Fame (Confab 2023). Connect with Ginny online email [e-mail] redish.net LinkedIn Some of Ginny's other books and articles A Practical Guide to Usability Testing User and Task Analysis for Interface Design Overlap, Influence, Intertwining: The Interplay of UX and Technical Communication How to Test the Usability of Documents Readability Formulas: 7 Reasons to Avoid Them and What to Do Instead Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/lzgVmmCTu9A Podcast intro transcript This is the Content Strategy Insights podcast, episode number 159. Content strategy, content design, and UX writing can all trace their roots back to user experience design. And UX design can trace its origins back to early technical documentation and usability testing. Ginny Redish pioneered all of these practices and shared them in her book, Letting Go of the Words. The principles and techniques that Ginny set out in her book more than a decade ago continue to guide content and design practitioners today. Interview transcript Larry: Hi everyone, welcome to episode number 159 of The Content Strategy Insights podcast. I am super extra delighted today to welcome to the show Ginny Redish. Ginny is a legend in the field of writing for the web and usability, and she's one of the true pioneers of UX practice. I could go on forever, but welcome Ginny. Tell the folks a little bit more about how you ended up be...