Karen McGrane is a content strategist and website accessibility advocate, who wrote a book called Content Strategy for Mobile.[1]

McGrane teaches Design Management at School of Visual Arts in New York.[2] Her design philosophy is "every company is a technology company" and "every business is in the user experience business."[3] McGrane was an early proponent of designing web content for mobile devices and is a frequent speaker at technology conferences.[4][5][6][7][8] She was also the co-executive producer, with Jared Spool, of the UX Advantage Conference and cohost of the UX Advantage podcast.[9] She co-hosted the Responsive Web Design podcast from 2014-2018 with Ethan Marcotte.[10]

McGrane has done user experience design work for many major media companies including Condé Nast, Disney, and Citibank; in her position at Razorfish she was the design lead on the New York Times' 2006 redesign.[11][12] Prior to that she was Vice President and National Lead for User Experience at Razorfish where she was their first information architect hire in 1998.[13] In August 2020 she co-founded the consultancy Autogram with Ethan Marcotte and Jeff Eaton.[14]

Content Strategy for Mobile

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Content Strategy for Mobile was published in 2012 by A Book Apart.[15] It has been called an essential guide for people publishing serial content online, one that has a clear "plan of action."[16][17] McGrane advocates for "adaptive content," small chunks of content that can appear on different platforms and in different contexts.[18] For this to happen, content needs to have good metadata and exist within a content management system which is itself easy to use.[18] Companies also need to do research into both their audience needs and the approaches of their competition in order to do this effectively.[17] If done correctly, web content will "work everywhere, all the time."[19]

She published her second book, Going Responsive, with A Book Apart in 2015.[20]

Early life and education

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McGrane has a BA in American Studies and Philosophy from the University of Minnesota and a Master's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Human Computer interaction.[21]

Personal life

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McGrane married the journalist Tim Carmody on November 4, 2022.[22][23]

References

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  1. ^ Benton, Joshua (2013-01-16). "Press Publish 2: Karen McGrane on building a strategy for mobile". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  2. ^ "Karen McGrane". SVA MFA Interaction Design. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  3. ^ Mulligan, Miranda; Gordon, Rich; Gallo, Meredith; Charalambous, Styli (2013-05-03). "Karen McGrane on mobile, content strategy, fixing technology and the media culture". Northwestern University Knight Lab. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  4. ^ "Keynote Interview: Karen McGrane". Ingeniux. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  5. ^ "LavaCon Keynote Speaker Preview: Karen McGrane on Content in a Zombie Apocalypse". The LavaCon Content Strategy Blog. 2018-07-28. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  6. ^ "Karen McGrane selected to Keynote DrupalCon Portland!". DrupalCon Portland 2013. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  7. ^ "Karen McGrane #DevLearn Keynote Mindmap : Learnlets". Learnlets. 2016-11-18. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  8. ^ Allsopp, John (2017-02-23). "Video of the Week: Karen McGrane - Adaptive Content, Context, and Controversy". Web Directions. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  9. ^ "UX Advantage". UIE.fm. 2017-08-15. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  10. ^ "A Responsive Web Design Podcast". Responsive Web Design. 2017-10-16. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  11. ^ Owen, Laura Hazard (2015-07-29). "Two out of two news organizations recommend user research". Nieman Lab. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  12. ^ "Karen McGrane". The Web Ahead. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  13. ^ "two weeks out". Star Tribune. Minneapolis Minnesota. July 17, 2006. p. D2. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  14. ^ Larry Swanson (September 30, 2020). "Content and Design Systems for Enterprises – Episode 84". Content Strategy Insights (Podcast). Elless Media. Retrieved December 19, 2020.
  15. ^ "Content Strategy for Mobile by Karen McGrane". A Book Apart. 2019-01-07. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  16. ^ Apfelbaum, S.; Cezzar, J. (2014). Designing the Editorial Experience: A Primer for Print, Web, and Mobile. Rockport Publishers. p. 212. ISBN 978-1-59253-895-9. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  17. ^ a b Udell, C. (2014). Mastering Mobile Learning (in Italian). Wiley. p. 74. ISBN 978-1-118-88491-1. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  18. ^ a b albert.costill (2015-04-13). "5 Ways to Use Adaptive Content". Search Engine Journal. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  19. ^ "Book Review: "Content Strategy For Mobile" by Karen McGrane". Marketing Land. 2013-02-28. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  20. ^ "Going Responsive by Karen McGrane". A Book Apart. 2019-01-07. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  21. ^ Goggin, Maureen Daly; Young, Richard E. (2020-06-10). Inventing a discipline : rhetoric scholarship in honor of Richard E. Young. National Council of Teachers of English. ISBN 9780814123751. Retrieved 2020-12-20.
  22. ^ "Two Songs from The Muppet Movie". Kottke.org. 2013-11-03. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
  23. ^ "My Sabbatical Media Diet". Kottke.org. 2012-12-02. Retrieved 2023-12-30.
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