THE PROFESSIONALS
Continued
THE NEXT: CAITLIN CAMBRON Caitlin Cambron’s passion for User Experience (UX) design was sparked at a young age — whether she realized it or not. After seeing her mother lose pieces of her jewelry, Caitlin developed a solution by creating a jewelry box to house her jewelry.
“THIS WAS A BIG MOMENT FOR ME,” SHE SAYS. “IT WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT I REMEMBER USING ART TO SOLVE A PROBLEM. I WAS DOING SOMETHING I ENJOYED WHILE MAKING SOMETHING USEFUL FOR SOMEONE ELSE. LATER I LEARNED THAT THIS IS CALLED USER EXPERIENCE DESIGN.”
After changing majors twice, Caitlin ultimately decided to focus on graphic design. She graduated from Ball State University with a bachelor’s degree in visual communication and Spanish. She joined the Interapt team in 2015 as a visual and UX intern. Fast forward to 2018, and several promotions later, she now serves as the director of design and UX at Interapt. As a UX designer Caitlin works to create web apps, mobile apps, progressive web apps, desktop apps, and websites that work intuitively creating a streamlined user experience. Through discovery meetings, in-depth research, prototype development, and product testing, Caitlin and her team are able to create products that change the way the world interacts with technology. Were you always interested in software development, design and UX? “Art and design are what really led me to technology. I am a very organized, analytical person, but my mind also functions better when I’m doing art. Through my web design class, I realized that I can make pretty websites all day, but if people can’t use them then there’s no point. At the time I didn’t realize that was called UX.” What is your favorite thing about your job and UX? “I love the people I work with, mentoring those who are more junior than me, and learning from management staff who have more experience than me. As for UX in general, I feel like I’m serving people because I have to listen to the users, and translate what they want into a set of data to implement in an app, product, or website that solves their problem. I get to see well-designed results that people like based on data.” What is your proudest accomplishment? “There are a couple of products for two large healthcare companies that are some of my proudest career moments because I was working with a great team, and I know that we did good work. We took surveys to collect qualitative and quantitative data before, during, and after development, and we determined that we empirically improved people’s lives.” What is your ultimate career goal? “That’s hard to answer because three years ago I was an intern and now I’m a director, so it’s all moving pretty fast. What I would really like to do is make the UX team at Interapt super successful. I have several goals for us in 2019, and if we hit those goals our work will have a huge impact on the whole UX community.” What advice do you have for other young women interested in entering the technology field? “If children, especially girls, were encouraged to get involved with math and science at a younger age I think we would see more women in technology,” she says. “Talk to me because that is something I’m passionate about. Also talk to other people in the field who are in positions that you want and buy them coffee.” Today’s Woman / March 2019
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