Ten years ago, I had a conversation with someone who was attending a very specific graduate school focused on water management and sustainable development. I said something about how I was trying to find work that had positive social impact, but I hadn’t found it yet. I had an industrial design degree from an expensive design school, and I was questioning that choice – maybe I could have gotten a graduate degree in international development or sustainability instead. She said she used to think that doing social impact work required a specific educational background, but she realized that it didn’t – with most professions, one can find a way to do the work in a way that aligns with their values.
A few years later, thanks to the efforts of early US Digital Service and 18F pioneers, I was able to do user experience work with government agencies and help Veterans get access to benefits, help hospitals and medical clinics understand and navigate federal quality incentive programs designed to improve their practices, and allow more Medicare enrollees to make use of their data in third-party apps. The public benefit in this work was pretty clear.
Now I’m doing work in the private sector again and longing for that social impact. Recently, I was co-facilitating a user research session with a front line employee who uses the company-owned software I’m working on. When planning the research, we were struggling to find participants since the population that uses this software in this way was small. This participant caught me and my colleague off guard when she said, emphatically,
Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for actually being a company that listens to the small fries. I’ve never wanted to go up the corporate ladder. I’ve always wanted to stay in the field, but the fact that you guys actually listen to us, because we’re here constantly, just shows that you actually genuinely care about what we do and what we’re all about.
She reminded me that In user experience, we get to amplify the voices of those who are not always heard by decision makers in their organizations. And we get to make the software they have to use every day work better for them.