Interview with UX Designer Jen Macias
Specializing within the field of UX design
There has been chatter about this “great divide” or specialization happening within the world of front-end development — the need to specify what type of development a position needs and with what specific skills. It makes sense. This is happening in UX too.
The field of User Experience as a career is starting to diversify — there are position descriptions for UX research, UI (user interface) designer, UX designer, UX developer. Each will have different skills depending on the job you are applying for. I believe that the user experience extends beyond products — such as to the field of education and curriculum design, although much of the field of UX is currently focused on product development.
Along the way of consuming all the design around me, I met Jen Macias, a designer who came to the profession via coffee. I was immediately taken with her sharp, keen eye for design and was (and still am) captivated with any career path that starts with coffee! Jen has folded education and the user experience into her work in interesting ways and I wanted to share our conversation.
How did you get started in UX design?
By accident. It was by no means a chosen career path. This article [about how I got started in my career] might be a little more helpful if you would like more insight on that front.
I think it started when I became the director of education for a specialty coffee roaster in Arizona. By day, I was in class learning about organic chemistry and illustration, by night, I was developing training programs to help fellow baristas and consumers understand basic water chemistry to improve their brewing methods. This forced me to understand the value of perspective and how to meet people where they are in their knowledge and design a path to get them where they want to be. I believe this idea to be a fundamental aspect of UX design, along with empathy, of course.
In a way, I feel that UX design and the scientific process overlap. Isle Crawford says it best:
“In our process, we interrogate the place, the client, and then empathize — because empathy is the cornerstone of design.”
How can design impact student success when designing learning experiences?
In my experience, design has a significant, direct impact on student success, especially in terms of accessibility.
When I worked at NWEA I was blown away by some of the simplest things that can get overlooked in the classroom. The example that always stays close to me involves something as simple as a computer mouse.
I remember being in meeting discussing how to improve the assessment experience for 3rd graders. One of the questions pitched to the room was why the performance was suffering for these kids, specifically, why was it taking them so long to answer their questions? Is it an accuracy issue or were the wrong questions being put in front of them? The answer was surprising to me. It turned out the issue was the most schools had to give them computer mice that were made for adults. A typical 3rd grader’s hand is tiny! They were struggling with a mouse made for adult hands — no wonder why it took them such a long time to click on the answer!
This was eye opening to me. As designers, we have to be careful not to design for the most ideal experience…we need to design for the realistic experience. In my professional experience, therein lies the border between success and failure. In education, are we designing for the ideal or reality? Are we really designing to solve the problem or are we exacerbating it?
Concerning a students ability to learn, what do you see as the most important factor/variable affecting the user experience?
Accessibility. I’m not solely referring to students who might have a disability. I’m also talking about how we present information. I think that if you have valuable information and make no effort to make it digestible, it’s inaccessible.
Are we making this information accessible?
In general — no. Simply dumping all the information in one place doesn’t inherently make information accessible — it makes it available, but not accessible.
How do you self-reflect or reassess who you’re designing for?
Recognize that you’re probably not the end user. I think it can be as simple as removing yourself from the equation and put the design in front of a real end user.
Jen’s words about herself as a designer:
My life’s journey has taken me to many places and put me in many different roles. Before moving to Portland, I studied molecular biosciences and illustration at ASU. During that time, I worked in Tanzania, Africa, educating community groups on the transmission and prevention of infectious diseases. It was during this challenging and inspiring experience that I came to realize the power of educating through illustration.
Today, it’s my passion to create visual designs that educate and help people make informed decisions. My clients are as varied as my interests. Businesses like Coava, Prince Coffee, Teardrop Lounge and Industrial Strength Gym tie me to the community that I love and I help larger organizations like Travel Oregon, Carbon Group, and NWEA to communicate a bigger vision. Overall, I hope to never be too big to help small businesses and never too small to help bigger businesses.
Check out Jen’s work Duende.design
