Integration of worlds: my career journey
Question: Why did I pursue UX research given I already have a career in speech pathology? I am often asked this question!
Methods: Experience-based insights
Summary: In notable ways, UX professionals are the "speech therapists" of the product world, with the added ability to impact technological progress.
Detailed Story: See below!
As a licensed speech-language therapist with years of healthcare expertise, I am often asked what got me interested in the field of user experience enough to master an entirely different industry. Since tech professionals constitute incredibly varied backgrounds, lifestyles, and stories, everyone's path is markedly unique. Here is my attempt at sharing an abridged version of my own non-linear journey, in hopes that someone out there might glean inspiration:
After obtaining Bachelor's degrees in music performance and linguistics back in 2014, a natural next step for me was to pursue graduate school in a related subject. I thrived in collegiate settings, and I wanted to study an intellectually-stimulating profession where I could improve people's lives while exercising my natural talents in (and passion for) communication. So, I selected speech and hearing sciences, a research-heavy, academically-rigorous, human-centered specialization that smoothly blended my skills and goals, preparing me for a career in clinical speech pathology.
After graduating with my Master's and obtaining my licenses, I spent numerous years working in fast-paced medical settings that demanded a rare combination of courage, compassion, and deep knowledge. I reaped many personal rewards - for example, I helped a lot of people regain or acquire communication and swallowing skills, and I witnessed first-hand the beauty and power of human resilience. I learned how to make critical, life-impacting decisions while under pressure, as I was usually the sole speech pathologist on site, and consequently the only professional present who could treat certain conditions. I developed lasting friendships with many of my patients. To my surprise, I garnered respect and even esteem from colleagues and caregivers for being a specialized, autonomous clinician. People looked up to me, and I was frequently aware of my professional value and the essential nature of my services.
Despite the gratifying aspects of my job, something within me still craved acknowledgment throughout these years. For a long time, I suppressed it - I had chosen to enter a helping profession that was in great need of practitioners, so there was an element of guilt that accompanied my yearning for a different type of stimulation. However, self-judgment and fear-based avoidance rarely resolve in peace or wellbeing, and I eventually had to face myself and the ever-surfacing desire that begged for fulfillment: the longing to innovate and contribute to the creative advancement of humanity.
When the pandemic hit in 2020 and my speech pathology hours were drastically cut for a while, I finally had the time and energy to address this desire. After much planning, I selected an online bootcamp in pursuit of a field that I had been fascinated by since moving to the Bay Area in 2017: UX design. I knew people who worked in the tech industry, including fellow healthcare professionals, and I had identified many broad parallels between UX and speech therapy methods, processes, and responsibilities that excited and motivated me:
1. Patient-centered healthcare = User-centered research
2. Speech therapy assessments = In-depth interviews, A/B testing, card sorts, surveys
3. Speech therapy treatment = Moderating, usability testing, diary studies, benchmarking
4. Patient & caregiver education = Stakeholder management, presentation of findings
5. Insurance-billing = Report-writing, presentation decks
6. Collaboration with allied health professionals = Collaboration with cross-functional product teams
I loved bootcamp and took my time to master the material, exercise my creativity, and learn as much as I could from very inspiring mentors. Ultimately, I finished bootcamp with two unique, well-received UX/UI case studies that helped me land a stimulating, full-time UX research job working on Google projects within two months of graduation - a feat I had never even dreamed I could achieve. I owe this success not only to my scholastic talents and commitment to user experience, but to my background in a field that also emphasizes skillful communication, person-centered insights, and continuous problem-solving. One of my bootcamp case studies, a high-fidelity, interactive prototype of a one-of-a-kind app that I conceptualized and created using end-to-end, iterative UX design, was directly inspired by my speech therapy expertise (see Voiceful project if you are interested in learning more). Creating this app highlighted a fascinating discovery:
In notable ways, user experience professionals are the "speech therapists" of the product world.
As a UX researcher, I find I am still a therapist and communication-medium privileged with delving deeply into the minds and hearts of humans, a task commanding mutual trust and the following familiar duties:
- Empathizing and establishing rapport with people across a spectrum of backgrounds and ages
- Uncovering people's needs, motivators, behaviors, and pain points through evidence-based methodologies
- Telling stories of diverse human experiences to promote empathy, yield functional change, and educate cross-functional teams
- Identifying practical opportunities for improvement in response to data-backed human needs while supporting business outcomes
- Communicating and presenting my knowledge to diverse audiences, ultimately viewing tangible, innovative, sometimes immediate change in response to my expertise
In my exciting career as a UX researcher, I have been trusted to lead and conduct incredibly creative, groundbreaking studies involving products and concepts at the forefront of technological advancement, contributing to decisions that could ultimately play a significant role in humanity's societal evolution. Through many of these projects, I have discovered that I am absolutely enticed by innovation in the artificial intelligence sector - in fact, I truly believe that artificial intelligence is the missing puzzle-piece to saving our world, with its countless applications across industries and unmatched potential for easing the hurdles of human existence (including communication disorders). I am amazed and often in disbelief that I have played even a small part in understanding user experiences with GenAI products in particular, and I am proud of the ways in which my background in linguistics, therapy, and communication may have facilitated the impact I made on these projects. But, I digress a bit...
While I remain grateful for my privilege as a speech therapist to ameliorate human suffering, being a UX researcher affords me an additional opportunity to express my skills and talents in a unique, innovative way. Interestingly, in a feedback loop of joyful satisfaction, each field strengthens my mastery and expertise in the other; I am a more thoughtful and ingenious clinician now than I was before entering UX bootcamp, and the empathy and critical-thinking I have perfected as a clinician greatly enhance the originality and impact of my UX work.
Most fulfillingly, I can now make a meaningful contribution to the creative advancement of humanity while continuing to making people's lives better - a dream come true and a holistic integration of my worlds.