Jenn Lee: excellence in user experience
“The heart of UX design is understanding and solving needs,” says Jenn Lee (B.F.A., user experience design, 2019). “The simplicity of the task combined with the complexity of the technical process is what I love about my career.”
A senior product designer at C3.ai in Redwood City, California, Lee works to facilitate small companies interfacing with artificial intelligence. She previously worked on UX projects with Google, IBM Watson, and Ford Motor Company, focusing on improvements to mobility assistance and IoT data visualization platforms. Chair of the SCAD UX design department BC Hwang praised Jenn as “one of the most promising UX designers this century.”
Jenn Lee:
I grew up in the Bay area, the daughter of an engineer, surrounded by technology. At the same time, I enjoyed expressing myself through art. When I found SCAD, I knew I found a place where I could blend these disciplines together.
I took Human/Computer Interaction (IACT 315) with professor BC Hwang my sophomore year. The class was my first exposure to the full depth of the UX process. We had ten weeks to “create something humanity needs.”
I worked to understand each step of the UX design process. Beginning with the initial research phase, then iterating the design, and finally creating a prototype, I did it all. Professor Hwang helped me understand how to research an idea and improve the concept, empowering me to present something I was proud of.
That’s when it clicked. The work was iterative, collaborative, and incorporated hands-on design components. This was the type of career I wanted.
I participated in a SCADpro partnership with Ford Motor Company my junior year. My team researched and developed a personal voice assistant. The assistant would, over time, provide a multimodal mobility experience, unique to the individual user.
Senior year, I worked on a project for Google Maps. The team at Google asked us to reimagine the experience for 18-to-24-year-olds, specifically urban users. We conducted a lot of interviews and worked closely with the development team to get the final results. Google loved our ideas, and you can see components of our project on your phone now.
Those experiences prepared me for life after graduation. When I got to IBM, I knew how data shaped an initial idea, and how that idea needed to be tested, and tested again. SCAD taught me how to present my ideas and how to shape and tell the story of the product.
I entered the workforce with a solid foundation and transferable skills. Today, I am senior product designer at C3.ai. focused on democratizing AI. I want to empower people to do things that traditionally only very technically savvy individuals could do. I am taking complex concepts and making them more accessible for people who may not have STEM related backgrounds.
I want to make sure that I make decisions that connect my passions and aspirations. I went to SCAD to combine my interests into a career. Now that I’m living that reality, I’m determined to make a positive difference in this industry.
Visit Jenn Lee.
In 2015 SCAD, in collaboration with Google, launched the first UX design degree program at the university level. Learn more about the program here.
By Robert Almand
