About Me
nice to meet you!
My name is Joseph (Jachowski) Apau. Thank you for visiting!
I am a creative and technical professional with over seven years of writing and editorial experience as well as a foundation in a variety of industries: journalism, commercial book publishing, video game development, and education technology.
Specifically, I have spent many years developing commercial products through end-to-end production workflows while keeping the audience and end users in mind. I also have a degree in communication from Stanford University and have a deep passion for story and narrative—and how those integral pieces of the human experience reach users, readers, and audiences of all kinds.
After a recent sabbatical from the workforce, I have focused my work into the field of UX Writing and UX Design, pulling theoretical foundations from product design philosophy and practical application in the technology space. I bring a variety of applicable commercial and production experiences to this field, and I look forward to connecting about work opportunities for designing great user experiences.
a work history
Journalism
Quality newspapers, magazines, news articles, and journalistic/communications content all require research, real-world connections, and a keen eye for the target audience. I’ve aligned this paradigm with the UX research aspect of design thinking and am grateful that my career has always been rooted in using evidence about the facts, users, audience, and technical constraints while proceeding with any sort of content production.
I have worked for a variety of publications in the world of journalism and communications from 2010 to 2018, including the Fairfax Connection, Ferndale Enterprise, Chicago Reader, Stanford Magazine, and special issue inserts seen within nationally syndicated newspapers via the publishing company Mediaplanet. In these roles I have played multiple roles—from copyediting and fact-checking to authoring original articles and content.
Design Principles in Practice
Looking back at my career—going all the way back to my college focus in journalism and moving forward through the last decade—I have found so much value in creating, designing, and editing with the audience and user in mind. Who are we trying to reach? Are we taking their needs and wants into account as we work on our content and products? How can iteration help us polish and refine our deliverables along the way?
Below, I trace a quick path through previous work experiences and place them into a relevant UX writing and design context, setting my background right alongside the modern considerations within today’s technology industry.
Commercial Book Publishing
The traditional world of book publishing may seem far removed from the technology innovations of today, but in my experience, it is a great case study for ideation and iteration of ideas that merge multidisciplinary teams and specialties.
My career through the end of my college years from 2009 and onward through 2016 was defined almost exclusively by workflows that involved creative iteration, team collaboration, and practical production limitations of the commercial trade book publishing industry. I believe this foundation has led to a unique, proven experience in creating products and content at a high level of quality while keeping the readers (or users) always front of mind, as well as how products provide unique value compared to the current market.
My book publishing industry background spans agency work for Folio Literary Management as well as true in-house publishing work for The Overlook Press, Clarion Books/HMH Books for Young Readers, and HarperCollins Publishers (HarperCollins Children’s Books/HarperTeen). Having worked at the pinnacle of big businesses in the industry—at one of the Big Five, HarperCollins—I am proud to be able to bring a special type of business and creative production acumen to any team to which I contribute.
Educational Technology (EdTech)
The realms of technology and writing have a large overlap when we consider how the written word has continued to evolve to keep up with new products and forms of content delivery. My time within EdTech, or education technology, as a freelance writer and editor allowed me to bring both my technical experience and editorial experience to bear within Agile environments that revolved around common technology development methodology.
The skills I have honed within EdTech, from 2017 to 2021, as an editor, writer, producer, and contributor give me great confidence in working with distributed, diverse, and nimble team environments that strive to reach specific target demographics while meeting needs critical to the user. This technology company experience covered extended, multi-year contract work and includes companies such as Education.com (now part of IXL), Zinc Learning Labs, and a digital initiative within the world-renowned International Baccalaureate organization.
This experience working in nimble tech/content teams all serves as a great springboard for future UX writing and design roles.
Video Game Development
On the technical yet creative side of my career, I found my way into the video game industry from 2017 to 2020 through a mix of independent, small teamwork and contract work for larger studios working on AAA game titles.
As someone with over four years of formal computer science and programming course education from high school and college together, I was able to support my teams as both a creative producer and a technical, goal-oriented team member. These experiences were yet another lens through which to design user-centric products from a fresh new perspective.
On the indie team I helped create, Word of Mouth Indie Games, I was the producer and technical designer/engineer who worked on the organization of the team and the implementation of the product. Our resources were very limited, as there were only six of us with a handful of specialties and thus we catered our games to an audience interested in short, replayable experiences.
In the AAA environment of games, I worked at both Naughty Dog (a Sony studio) as a multiplayer quality Assurance tester/development support and at Deviation Games (a then third-party AAA studio) as an associate producer.
These teams and offices were much more corporate in feel but continued to be driven by a user-first/player-first mentality and gave me valuable experience with the culture of live iteration and testing inherent to these large, multi-year projects. This emphasis on iteration and testing is pivotal within the UX design framework and my practical takeaways from this part of my work history fits well as a foundation for my UX career.
