As a Travel Advisor, my ‘users’ were the customers that came into our agency looking to book a trip. The ‘experience design’ began with speaking to them to understand what exactly they were looking for. Did they want a plane flight to visit a friend, or were they looking for a weeks-long vacation for their entire family. Regardless of what their needs were, I would work with them to design a travel solution that exceeded their expectations.

As a Tour Leader, my ‘users’ were the international travelers that I drove across America on multi-week camping trips. The ‘experience design’ was in managing their entire journey, ensuring that every moment of every day was a positive one. There was an incredible amount of flexibility allowed for adding special touches to the trip: whether it was blindfolding the group on our approach to the Grand Canyon (safely, of course) so that their first view was jaw-dropping, or cutting up a watermelon in 130 degree heat at the lowest point in North America, Death Valley. Everything that I did from sun-up to sun-down was in service of their experience, which was, in fact, reflected in the company’s given title for its Tour Leaders: the “Chief Experience Officers.”

As an Operations Specialist with G Adventures my ‘users’ became the very Tour Leaders that I described above, both in the U.S. as well as across the globe. The ‘experience design’ was in creating processes, platforms, and technologies for this nomadic audience. I didn't call myself a “User Experience Designer,” but it was in this role that my work most closely resembled what a UX Designer does, i.e., working with stakeholders and engineers to design and launch products for a specific group of users. It was also in this role that I learned of my talent for designing digital experiences, and even though I was building spreadsheets and Google Sites instead of prototypes in Figma, it led me to the work that I love today.

After nearly a decade in the travel industry, I made the difficult decision to move back to California to be closer to family. Never afraid of change, I also reevaluated my career to date to see if I could make any improvements. I identified the work that I excelled at, as well as the tasks that gave me the most energy, and it was in the middle of that Venn Diagram that I discovered the UX industry.

In the months since I've been training myself for a career in UX. I've practiced with the required tools, built projects from scratch, and earned Google's UX Career Certificate to ensure that I'm versed in UX methodologies. This period was incredibly insightful and necessary to upskill myself, but it's also proven to me that I've been an experience designer throughout my entire career... even if my title hasn't always reflected it.