A speech-language pathologist turning UX/UI designer.

My name is Jessica and I am transitioning from the world of Speech-Language pathology to User Experience and Interface design to combine my artistic abilities, organization savvy and practiced ability to understand how people think and approach situations.

My background is in medical Speech-Language Pathology, working on an interdisciplinary team to help patients with strokes and brain injuries. I am also a clinical educator, clinician liaison for our IT department, researcher, program developer and trainer.

As a clinician, I interview patients to understand their situation, assess their deficits that are causing pain points in approaching everyday situations and innovate solutions that will circumvent their pain points to meet their needs and allow them to engage in their preferred tasks.

In my other roles, I am tasked with identifying gaps in knowledge, clinical workflow issues and practice needs to address these through developing novel operating procedures, designing content for education and presenting and training users. These experiences have honed my abilities to:

• Interview users to understand their needs and create profiles

• Deeply empathize with users and identify pain points that they experience in a given scenario

• Think creatively to generate workflows through a task or process based on individual users

• Understand factors that can influence product usage and design and be highly attuned to accessibility needs for unbiased designs

• Determine, set and monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) of projects and metrics to identify return on investment (ROIs)

• Comfortably discuss progress and barriers with key stakeholders and team members

• Manage projects end-to-end, including development of materials for implementation and training

In addition to work experience, I am a highly organized person and quick learner that truly enjoys making information easier to understand and streamlining processes and workflows. I also have a passion for technology and learning new platforms, coding languages and software, such as SQL and python. I am also happiest when I am able to design and create, whether it be a form, a physical space, a website or an app.

As I thought about making a move out of clinical care, I was looking for a career that marries my passions and allows me to apply my experience to understanding people, identifying needs and creating inclusive designs. This has led me to the field of user experience and interface design, as well as healthcare technology, and I am excited to share that with you.