November uProfile 2020 - Ingrid van Beek

Favorite Umbraco moment or achievement?

The same thing for both actually! I enjoy attending DUUGfest (basically the Dutch Codegarden) each year. This year I was excited I got to be a part of a roundtable discussion there about the Umbraco Ecosystem, with inspiring people from some really cool companies. I love events like these where you get to learn new things, gain new insights, and meet new people who all work with Umbraco.

What in your Umbraco career are you most proud of?

I'm very proud of the uPersonal package that we've launched this year, which makes it possible to personalize Umbraco websites for individual end-users. The personalizations are based on their behavior on the website. From an optimization and UX perspective, I really think this is the future of websites. From a content editor/admin perspective, I'm glad Umbraco allowed us to seamlessly integrate the package into the CMS, so our clients don't need to learn to work with any new programs.

What about Umbraco keeps you coming back for more?

That it is an easy-to-use CMS for both content editors and developers. It has a fast learning curve when you first start working with it. Our clients usually get the hang of it pretty quickly.  

What are you currently working on?

Various websites in Umbraco 8, optimizations, and better UX for uPersonal, implementing uPersonal in various websites, helping clients with their personalization strategies.

What are your top 3 best tips for an Umbraco newbie?

In my work, I have a lot of direct contact with the clients of our agency. Some tips I usually give them when we build them a new Umbraco site are:

• To use content templates, so they don't have to start from scratch every time they make a new page.
• To start early when it comes to creating content for the launch of their new website. That's something people often underestimate. Also to preview the content in the actual design of the website, to see if it all fits and if everything works well together.
• To work with user personas and to know who their users are before we start working on the website together. In the end, Umbraco is a tool - a very flexible one, fortunately - to create the best websites for our users.

Any aspirations for your future?

I firmly believe that personalized websites are the future. Users nowadays have simply come to expect personalized experiences. And of course, I hope the Umbraco community will embrace uPersonal to get there 😉

For me personally, I hope I can contribute to awareness about Umbraco outside of the developer community. Everyone knows WordPress, but sometimes it's better to have the exact features you need for your website like Umbraco does than to have a whole range of features you won't ever use. In our roundtable discussion at DUUGfest, we also found that developers sometimes struggle when it comes to building good UX within Umbraco, simply because they don't know enough about UX. So I would love to help out there.

What is on your desk at work?

Books, cookies, super sticky post-its, fancy shoes (for meetings)… What isn't on my desk?

What's on top of your bucket list?

Going back to New Zealand. I've lived and worked there for a year and I'd love to go back one day.

What’s playing on repeat on your headset?

I have quite a number of guilty pleasures in my playlist that my coworkers can only appreciate for so long 😊

Are you on Social Media? 

Yes! Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn and Twitter 👋

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