<aside> 👩‍💻 Daisy Gollis is a senior majoring in Behavioral Economics and minoring in HCI. She had a UX design research internship at Ford Motor Company with the D-Ford team. She also previously did a few personal projects and an independent study with the HCI department. Let’s get to her story!

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Could you briefly introduce the position and what you did for this job?

I worked on a small team, and I was the only design research intern. The type of projects and work we did can vary. It can be abstract exploratory research. For example, we could dive into a broad problem space that doesn't necessarily have to do with cars. Or it can be something more evaluative or generative, like testing an actual prototype of a vehicle. While I was there, the work I did was more on the abstract side of things, but there's an opportunity for both.

Why did you choose this position at Ford?

At the time, it was the only offer that I had, and they only gave me a week to decide. So that's more practically that's why, but it actually ended up being a really good. It really aligned exactly the kind of work that I was interested in. I was lucky, I guess, to have that. I originally was pretty interested in my independent study I did. It had to do with transportation, like autonomous vehicles. I just think that directly ties into how humans move through life. And cars are such a central and overwhelming part of society. That was the topic that interests me because I'm not as passionate about something like what a screen looks like. I'm more interested in the built environment and the physical things. So that's why I looked at certain transportation companies. And originally, it's an application that was just design intern. And once you apply, they slotted you into which team your resume shows your skill sets on. When I applied, I had mostly UX research experiences, so I became design research. Whereas if I had applied with more UI/UX design, I probably would have been more interaction design intern. So I liked that it was design research. And I also just had a really good interview process. I really liked the people I talked to. The culture overall felt like a comfortable, progressive culture to be a part of.

Could you briefly introduce what your process of applying and getting into the position is like?

I remember sending out a lot of different applications to any job posting I could find that had UX design or UX research, or just UX intern as a label. And most of them were remote at the time, so location didn't really matter. And I just made sure that my resume and my cover letter were double checked by multiple people. I had some friends with within HCI, who would read through my resume and make sure it made sense. And you don't always need a portfolio when you're applying to UX research positions, but I was applying to everything. So I'm making the portfolio a big hurdle to get over. I also had friends and people look over that along the way. And then I also had to get over my fear of networking—just emailing somebody that may know somebody at some job to get you an interview. I didn't know anybody at Ford, but it still was really helpful once I got to Ford with knowing how to reach out to people, network, and make those connections because a lot of the time is about who you know in order to get an initial interview. That was the lead-up to it. And then once I got the interview, it was really about researching the specific company. Also, luckily, the D-Ford interview was later on, and I had already done a few interviews before that, maybe two that I didn't feel so confident in. So by the time that one came around, I had practice with the other ones. I over prepared for it. I practice behavioral things, they gave me a whiteboard challenge, and there were two rounds of interviews.

What was the whiteboard challenge that they gave you like?

I had at least a few days to a week to think about the challenge. And then you present it to them once you get there. Essentially, they just wanted to know how you approach the problem. So I didn't draw any sort of screens because, again, that wasn't my strong suit at the time. The line was more about writing different things about what I know from behavioral sciences and behavioral economics, and then some storyboards. And then I presented it to them in person. The people interviewing me were really nice. I think that helped me be more comfortable. And I was definitely over prepared, so I was confident. That helped with just not being nervous and shaky.

What is one challenge you faced during the internship?

A lot of the work was with other people, and I wouldn't necessarily say it was a challenge. But when you're at a large company, it was actually more of a rewarding, interesting, and good learning experience. I wasn't just working with designers or people with a design thinking mindset. That led me to have to persuade others that design thinking is valuable, or keeping the users first in certain situations when you're talking to people who are really into numbers and business. So that was a challenge in that sense. But it's a good learning experience.

What is your daily routine like for the internship, especially being a remote one?

I'm from California, so that's on Pacific timezone, and the internship was based on East Coast timezone (the office was in Michigan). So my day was actually roughly from 6 or 7AM until 2 or 3PM, because I would work from 9am to 5pm, eight hours a day. East Coast is minus three hours (in timezone), so my schedule was really early mornings. But it was nice because I got to end early. And because you're not in the office, you have to hold yourself accountable. So I had to create my own little schedule for myself. I had my own workspace in my room. You had to kind of keep yourself going even though no one's necessarily holding you accountable. But there was always, at least most of the time, meetings during the day, so that kind of gave structure to the day, like “I need to finish this before my next meeting.” It gives you those little points in the day that set things, so those are helpful. I had to make sure to get up and didn't just sit all day.

What is one thing that you find the most valuable or useful from this intern experience?

Having that role and being with that type of team, I think I get to see how things function in the real world, especially at a company like Ford because Ford has such a long tradition in their company that's trying to bring design thinking to the forefront of their company. And I was a part of a team that's supposed to help do that. So it was a good experience of learning how to persuade people to understand what human centered design is because not everyone comes from the background—most people don't. And we're lucky enough to study it within classes. Another aspect, I would say, is that the project that I was working on, the people that I was working with, and the problems that they tackled, were very ambiguous. And there's no right answer; it's pretty abstract, and they don't really have a direction. It's kind of going to explore this space. So I think that I gained a lot of experience in trying to tackle ambiguity and fuzzy, blurry, and unstructured things, making structure from no structure.

What is your future career plan like? Would you still choose to work in UX research?

I really like the process of understanding people and finding the pain points and areas of opportunity, and ****UX research fits that. I'd like to also be a part of the design process. There are some roles that are a little more general—when you're doing UX research, you're also doing some UX design or some prototyping. Because it's going to be early in my career, I want to be able to explore multiple avenues and get a broader introduction to more skills before I just go narrow into one. And I'm also interested in overall service design and design strategy. So I’m trying to figure out ways to get breaths to my resume.

What is one important skill that you think a UX researcher should possess?

I think genuine curiosity about whatever the problem that you're given is important. I think also having an interest in people is really big. I find it really interesting and cool to talk to (people in) whatever project I work on. For the most part, there are interviews. When I interview the customer, I am talking to a real person and hearing them being so passionate or so mad about something, and I find it really interesting. And being excited about a problem space is also important. For example, I'm in a course right now, and we're doing service design and consulting with a local music store. That's not something that I have experience with, but we got to go visit the store, and I just thought it was so cool. Now I'm thinking all the time—how do I use music? All this stuff just throws yourself into that space, even if it's not something that you know about.

Could you give a tip to other students who also want to pursue internships/ jobs in UX research?