UX/UI Design Blog Articles for Octet Design Studio
I ran the blog for Octet Design Studio, a UX/UI design studio, from keyword research to published articles, and a couple of them brought in client leads.
Project snapshot
- Client
- Octet Design Studio
- Work type
- Blogs
- Industry
- UI UX Design
- Year
- Jun 2021 - Nov 2024
On this page
About Octet and its readers
Octet is a UX and UI design studio. Its blog has two kinds of readers. Some are deciding whether to hire a studio, and others are designers who notice when advice is thin. When I joined as the studio’s first digital marketing hire, many older articles on the site were out of date and shallow.
My role to lead their digital marketing
I owned the blog from start to finish. That covered keyword research, topic planning, long-form articles on UX and UI design, internal linking and rewrites of older pages. I also managed the studio’s social media.
The articles cover five areas. These are design systems, UX research, enterprise UX, the UX design process and design careers.
Keyword research and content strategy
Topic ideas came from keyword and competitor research. The founder approved each shortlist before I started writing.
Google Keyword Planner showed what founders, product teams and aspiring designers search for. Searches from people who might hire a studio got priority. Someone searching for “UX design audit” is usually weighing a hire, so audits got their own article.
On the competitor side, I studied every direct competitor, the category leaders and the popular UI and UX publications. For each one, I noted what it covered well, what was thin and where Octet could add something new.
That research steered the blog away from “UX trends” posts and toward the work a studio gets hired for, such as design systems, audits, user research and how an agency runs a project. Beginner guides sat alongside enterprise articles on the same subjects, so startup founders and larger product teams both had something to read.
How I learned the field
I’ve loved design since I was a kid. To learn UX properly, I read several books on UI and UX and talked with product designers and UI and UX designers every day to see how the work really happens. That reading is why the design systems guide starts from Nathan Curtis’s definition.
I also sat in on brainstorming sessions for a couple of UI and UX projects to check whether what I’d learned held up in practice.
The articles
| Topic | Article | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Design systems | A complete beginner’s guide to design systems | Starts from Nathan Curtis’s definition, breaks a design system into components, patterns and visual language, and compares Material, Atlassian, Carbon and Bootstrap. It also explains how a design system differs from a UI kit. |
| Design systems | A comprehensive guide to creating enterprise design systems | Seven benefits of an enterprise design system and tips for building one, from a design audit to a UI library. |
| UX research | A complete beginner’s guide to the UX research process | What UX research is and why it matters, followed by seven steps from setting goals to acting on findings. |
| UX research | 5 simple steps to conduct enterprise user research | How to plan research when the users aren’t the buyers, and five steps from a research plan to a strategy. |
| UX research | How to prepare effective UX research reports | How to structure a report, from goals and business value to recommendations. |
| Enterprise UX and audits | Everything you need to know about enterprise UX | What enterprise UX means, how it differs from consumer UX, who’s on the team and what a typical workflow looks like. |
| Enterprise UX and audits | UX design audit, meaning, importance and process | Why audits matter, what they deliver and the steps to run one. |
| UX process | How a UX agency follows the UX design process | Built around Octet’s own six steps (research, ideate, visual design, prototype, test and measure). Prospects see how the studio works before they book a call. |
| UX process | User flow vs user journey | What each term means, what it’s for and how the two compare. |
| Design careers | How to get a UI UX design job with no experience | The skills and tools you need, and seven steps from finding your interest to preparing for interviews. |
| Design careers | How to become a UX researcher | The skills, techniques and advice that industry experts share. |
| Design careers | UX researcher vs UX designer | The two roles, what each one does and where they differ. |
On Octet’s own website, the studio published articles under the founder’s and designers’ names. Every article on my Medium profile is mine.
Results
A couple of the articles brought in client leads. The founder confirmed it himself, because the prospects told him they found the studio through the content.
The design systems guide was one of them, especially for UI redesign projects. It starts with the exact question a client asks before commissioning a design system.
