Running Into UX Design For The First Time
I had my mind set on neuroscience and research opportunities for the summer of 2019. Back when I was in 9th grade entering 10th, I was certain my career would be a combination of neuroscience and software engineering.
My sister, who had graduated from college that spring, had landed an internship at Urban TxT — a technology nonprofit organization in downtown Los Angeles. After an 8 hour workday (not including the 2 hours it took to arrive there and 2 to come back), my sister was anything but tired. She always learned something new and was overflowing with ideas. She excitedly talked about how she was mentoring a group of teenagers on building an app that could solve a problem in their communities. I was always listening and very happy for her, but not as engaged since I was still fixated on research and neuroscience.
In early August, when the Summer Coding Leadership Academy (the name of the program), was coming to an end, she invited me to volunteer at demo day which would take place at the University of Southern California, so I could see others’ and her team’s work. Thinking I would learn more about software engineering, I accepted her offer.
I arrived in front of the Viterbi Department of Computer Science, where tables were organized and covered neatly with a white cloth. On top there were computers displaying each of the teams’ presentations for their app pitches. Since I was a volunteer, I had helped set up the tables and the food and was just chatting with my sister and other interns. It was finally the time for their teams to pitch their app so I went to each table to listen to them. I enjoyed learning about Recovery, an app that helped student athletes recover from their most common sports injuries, Qravings which offered an improved display of food at restaurants using augmented reality, and Safelight which allowed students and their parents to avoid crime-ridden paths to school by showing the locations near school where many crimes occur. When the teams presented, I was just so captivated by the way the app was able to get my attention. They were sensational and I immediately wanted to use the teams’ products. It was awesome to realize that ideas that seemed so simple, like being connected to your nearest ice cream truck, could seem so magical through apps. The interest in software engineering was still there, but now I was more inclined to discovering what made apps more desirable to use.
When I arrived back home after a tiring yet great day, I felt like I had discovered something more. I kept on talking how cool seeing all the apps were and I am sure my sister was able to detect my interest in how the user interacts with the app, because she mentioned a career I had never heard of before: UI/UX Design. She briefly described how it involved technology and creativity to make the app more attractive to the user. With her definition, I made learning about UX Design a priority in my life.
Little did I know that UX is not only about attracting users to apps and making the app look pretty. I would learn that UX is actually so much greater, and how without it — the greatest ideas in the world will fail to be understood by the rest of society.
