Day in the Life: Erin Couse, Content Design Lead

Meet Erin Couse, Content Design Lead at HubSpot! Erin's career started out in marketing and social media, and led her all the way to a role in UX and content design. Learn more about what Erin's day-to-day role is like now, and the challenging projects she's working on...

Can you tell us a little about your background and journey to HubSpot?

I have a bachelor's degree in journalism and history. I didn't quite know what to do with that combination when I graduated, but I made my way into public television, where I worked on a communications team doing a lot of different writing and design projects. After five years of that, I went to a small startup, where I started off doing social media management. This quickly expanded into managing a blog and a small team of freelance writers, as well as creating content and working on various marketing campaigns.Through the startup job, I learned that marketing wasn't really for me. That's when I made the jump into UX and content design, first at an insurance company and now at HubSpot.

Describe a typical day in your role.

I think everyone probably says their day-to-day varies, but...my day-to-day varies! My role as a content design lead is a mix of design work and management. It's an incredibly collaborative job, so any given day usually has at least a few meetings. Today, for instance, I'm going to run a sprint planning meeting for my content design team, check in on upcoming team priorities with a senior design manager, work on a new integration design in Figma, and plan a workshop with another content designer.

What technical challenges are you currently working on?

I'm working on projects to customize HubSpot and make our tools more flexible, so I'm in the middle of a lot of really interesting technical projects right now. For developers, we're making HubSpot more flexible and easier to customize. On the CMS side, we just launched CMS Hub Free!

Are there any industry trends or topics that are exciting to you right now?

It seems like content design is really coming into its own as a UX discipline. There are a lot of emerging leaders in the field to learn from, and it's exciting to see how many companies are starting to establish and grow their own content design practices.

How are you solving for the customer?

As a member of the UX team, my job is to always advocate for the customer, and as a content designer, I'm especially focused on making our experiences clear, simple, and straightforward. Plain language, consistent terminology and phrasing, and intuitive interactions reduce cognitive load and make our product easier to use.

In your own words, what makes working in tech at HubSpot unique?

First, I am very rarely the only woman in the room, and I even report up through a line of women (all the way to our CEO!). I love that. Our leadership is also really approachable, especially in UX.  Second, my job is collaborative, but the pandemic showed me that I'm about a million times more productive when I can control my environment. I love that we can choose to be remote or flex without worrying about getting pulled back into the office full time. Third, I feel like my teams value my input and contributions as a UXer and as a content designer. This is not always a given, and it’s not something I take for granted.

Outside of work, what do you like to do in your free time?

I love to read. I have a goal to finish 55 books this year, and I'm just over halfway there with 30 read so far! I enjoy yoga and barre classes, which I'm just now getting back into after two years of half-heartedly exercising in my house. (Left to my own in-home devices, I take out my yoga mat and then lay down on it to read.) However, my biggest hobby by far is catering to my dog, Scamps. He runs the show.

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