Dropbox
As Head of Content Design, I was responsible for a team of 10+ individual contributors and 2 contractors. In addition, I hired interns and provided coaching to their acting-manager mentors.
I delivered impact personally through operating mechanisms and quality standards that contributed to team effectiveness, and through the content designers embedded in high priority business areas.
Content designers delivered statistically significant results in activation, retention, and CSAT scores.
Backup
By embedding a content designer with the backup team, we were able to ensure a consistent message for all things backup (emails, in-product content, help center, etc.). In addition, the content designer was a key contributor on the team, conducting research, influencing the roadmap, and leading design sprints.
This investment paid off: there was a 10% lift in qualitative metrics, backup became one of the most successful Dropbox products, and content-only experiments yielded a 3% lift in activation.
Engagement model
At Dropbox, content design was a horizontal function that worked in an embedded model. Content designers were allocated to specific areas where they partnered closely with product design, pm, engineering, research, and other cross-functional partners.
By creating a clear model for how we engage with teams, we were able to prioritize, allocate our time, and communicate to stakeholders.
Hiring process
Our hiring process had the potential to introduce bias into the process, and asked candidates to put in a lot of effort before they had an initial conversation. Our writing test and collaboration exercise were Dropbox-specific examples.
By qualifying candidates with a hiring manager screen before sending any exercise, changing exercises to fictional companies, and removing candidates information before exercises were graded, we were able to remove bias from our evaluations and improve the candidate experience. With these changes we had a 100% offer accept rate.
screenshot intentionally cropped
File provider
With the launch of macOS 12.3, Apple removed a system extension that supported opening online-only files. This changed the way people interacted with their Dropbox files.
By creating cohesive and transparent messaging, an embedded content designer was critical to work that mitigated a potential multi-million dollar revenue loss.
