LINEPUP
Designer & Developer
How I use my social work education as a web developer
The route I took to fall in love with web development may seem odd. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in social work. Throughout my education I learned skills like empathy, cultural competence and advocacy. When I made the switch to web design and development, I initially thought my social work education would be wasted. I have since realized that many of the skills I practiced through social work are still very much applicable in the world of web development.
Empathy: Understanding the User's Perspective
A good developer empathizes with the end user. We are tasked with building experiences that solve users' needs in a seemless and friendly way. As a social worker, I was tasked with finding out what the client's goals were and then utilizing my skills to help them reach those goals. I do the same thing as a web developer.
Cultural Competence: Thinking Outside My Limited Experiences
Cultural competence is still a critical skill in the world of web dev. Imagine you're managing a website that is used by people around the world. You'll need to ask yourself how the user-experience should change based on what countries, cultures and languages are accessing your site. For example:
- How are you using color in your designs? According to Eriksen Translations, in India, red is often associated with purity and brides often wear red wedding dresses, whereas in western cultures, such as the USA, we associate red with excitement, danger or urgency. Additionally, what do you do when a country has one word that means two colors?
- How are you choosing imagery? Are you using imagery that feels inclusive of people in various cultures and people groups?
Advocacy: Standing Up for the User's Best Interest
I also mentioned advocacy in my list of social work skills. Social workers are tasked with defending society's underrepresented, mistreated and forgotten people groups. Social workers are affect change at the macro and micro levels for individuals, families and people groups. No matter which career a person enters, they receive some level of power over something. And as the famous quote from Spider Man goes, "With great power co..." well... you know the quote (or DO you? See cultural competence section). As developers, we may not have Darth Sideous levels of power, but we can affect the way people experience the internet. We can use our power for good or evil. We can implement dark patterns and manipulate users, or we can defend them through honest, transparent experiences focused on their best interests. When considering the prevalence of the world wide web, the people who collectively develop the web actually hold a significant amount of power over people's daily lives.
The Dark Realm of Dark Patterns
I mentioned dark patterns earlier. Dark patterns are manipulative and/or misleading user experiences meant to coerce a user into performing an unintended action, which they likely would not have performed otherwise (College of Journalism and Communications, University of Florida). I can relate these patterns back to my social work education as they present significant ethical dilemmas. Anyone who's taken an introductory ethics course knows that ethical dilemmas are never black & white issues. This means that designers and developers often have to make decisions about how to treat users respectfully. Most of my design and development journey has been marketing-focused, meaning we are trying to encourage users to take certain actions, fill out forms, submit demo requests, etc. The question I need to ask myself is, "At what point does guiding users turn into coercing them?"
I like to think of myself as an advocate for the end user. It might sound a little self-righteous, but hey... who doesn't like to feel like a super hero every once in a while? There have been times when I've defended the end-user from manipulative online experiences suggested by project stake holders. These stake holders are often under a lot of pressure to drive results, and that pressure can make it tempting to implement dark patterns in an attempt to gain leads or mislead users into acting a certain way. In some ways, developers are the "last line of defense" to ensure that users have a fair, transparent online experience.
Development is a Surprising Human Experience
Development is very technical. But as tempting as it is to imagine developers as some sort of isolated, introverted geniouses forced by social-anxiety to live their lives in a dizzying array of matrix-style, monospaced text, I don't think that does us justice. I believe development, at its best, is very human-focused. As I transitioned from social worker to developer, I had a sinking feeling that my education would be wasted in my new career. But that's one of the beauties of development. Developers are often self-taught, hailing from many different previous fields of work. How have your experiences influenced how you approach development?