For my undergraduate degree I majored in English with minors in professional writing and graphic design. I knew I didn’t want to be a teacher, but that’s as far as my thinking had gone career-wise. When I was growing up, it was hard for me to imagine professions that besides doctors, lawyers, and teachers . I certainly didn’t know about interaction design and all it’s derivative flavors.
But as I continued studying English along side my design coursework, I saw how well the complimented each other. Or rather, how much studying English improved the way that I approach design. Studying literature is the study of people. As a student we learned to evaluate the characters in a story to understand the motives behind their actions and to draw out the intent of the author. I came to really internalize that from the story of an individual is a universal lesson.
I’ve always seen my work as communicative. Even working as a graphic designer, I was trying understand the audience and anticipate their needs if I was creating a static product. “Hey! Go to this event! I think you’d like it because X. It’s at Y o’clock at Z!”
As a freelance designer, I was doing more web design and mobile design. This was a really interesting challenge to me because there was suddenly a back and forth with my audience over time. The conversation was structured and planned, but it was there! The people I was interacting with were making decisions within a system I created. I could influence them through information architecture, hierarchy, calls-to-action, and even the colors I chose, but the choices they made would take them to different experiences.
Most recently, I have been involved in more product planning. If I continue this conversation metaphor, this has been like getting to design the whole event where this conversation takes place. Co-planning with the user about who’s invited, what we’re doing, and why.
To some this might be product design or service design or still another flavor of interaction design. But to me it feels like finally getting to capture all (as much as…) the context needed for a conversation to take place. This is the way design needs to happen. My master’s program at Carnegie Mellon was a joint program in with the department of English—on that I chose specifically to continue the connection with communication and design.
What was refreshing about the program was it’s definition of interaction design. We didn’t study how to design how to design for today’s technology (mostly fingertips on glass), but a way of thinking about how we interact with objects, other people, environments, and the systems around us.
The work I have been doing has been creatively challenging and something I want to continue leaning into, but for the next phase of my career, I’m really interested in designing the conversations that communities need to have, not the one company’s want to have.
I would like to help organizations that address social issues or support public services. If I believe I have ability to alleviate any pain or frustration people feel when dealing with technology or services, then I want to use those skills to help as many folks as I can.
