We’re in the Age of The User. Sweet! Because I recently spent two years making very little money so I could attend school full time to become a Usability Engineer. There are a lot of reasons I went back to school: I was bored doing what I was doing, it was a good time in my life to make a change, and I had a good support system. But the real reason I went back is because I love people, their stories, their interests and motivations, and I love making technology work for them. I wanted to understand how to do this, and do it well.

I got my first inkling that I wanted to do this while volunteering an hour a week with the “Special Class”– a preschool class for kids with mental disabilities like Downs Syndrome. I had no idea how technology could make a difference in these kids lives but I knew the potential was there. I guess I have always been a champion for the underdog.

When you really think about it, the user is the underdog is most situations that where technology and humans interact. At its most basic level, the notion of “usability” is preposterous to me. If you’re going to make a product for people to use, why on earth would you want it to be hard for them to use it?! Things should be usable by their very nature. But they’re not. Turns out it’s much easier to make things hard than make them easy. Or rather, it’s easier to let them be hard than strive to make them easy.

I remember the time growing up when it dawned on me that everyone else was just like me: their lives were as intricate, complicated, and important to them as mine was to me. It was fascinating to me that everyone around me had a story. Some were more compelling than mine and I was curious to find out what their stories were. I think that’s why I love fiction, and listening to NPR, where most of the features involve vignettes into peoples’ lives. I’ve been known to sit in my car listening to StoryCorps on Friday morning before going in to work. That’s my favorite part of this job – learning about what people do, and why they do it.

Another reason I like this line of work is that it, in itself, is not easy. It’s challenging to combine the art and science of it. I can never predict what users are going to say, or what’s going to work until I try it. But once I talk to people, and test things out, and iterate, iterate, iterate I feel confident that the process yields results.

Look for more later on why I love the research part of things, and some interesting stories I’ve heard lately.