Original subtitles

I head up a team.

We have a product lead,

we have a business systems analyst,

UX engineer, UX designer,

UX researchers as well.

What we do is we define this as equity-focused research.

What this consists of is trying

to speak with users from these

underrepresented and sometimes marginalized groups to

understand basically their experiences and their needs.

I grew up in Oakland, here in California.

I come from a lower socioeconomic status background.

I understand what my folks had to do to get a degree of

social capital and resources to be able

to give us a reasonable quality of life.

But I think of the struggles my folks had,

the struggles being a Black man,

the struggles that I've gone through

in terms of access to resources,

access to education,

straight on discrimination because of

the color of my skin and my background as well.

Having that lived experience,

I realized I want to be able to advocate for

people that are from my background and my community,

but there are tons of other backgrounds and

communities that are struggling in that same way.

I think that's what drives me to do the work, is

that lived experience and

understanding that there are people in need.

I studied medicine at UCSF and I did

my clinical rotations at SF General Hospital.

As you transition from

the pre-clinical years to the clinical years,

these are the moments in which you're

actually talking to people.

SF General being a county hospital,

it was the first time essentially that I got to start

to work with people that were from my own community.

I was working with a number of Black folks that

were from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds,

and there were patients

there that were going through really,

really horrible, horrible things.

But I would sit down and I would talk to people,

sometimes for 45 minutes or an hour,

to understand what their backgrounds

were and what their needs were,

at least in the clinical space.

It was those moments of

understanding their needs and understanding where

the system had broken down for

them that I think I learned the most.

I could see the points

at which these patients-physicians,

we're missing the mark,

they weren't getting the information that

was necessary to help these people.

A lot of that is why I left

the field of medicine because I wanted to do

something that would be scalable and had a lot more to do

with education and access for

folks that had not had it up till that point.

I actually left UCSF early before finishing.

I got three out of four years

in and I went to Stanford instead

and got into a doctoral program

there in learning sciences and technology design.

I got exposed to UX and

general product design, and UX research.

While I did my doctoral work,

I was focused on understanding the experience

of Black plus students

at Historically Black Colleges and Universities,

these students that were pursuing degrees

in computer science and electrical engineering.

My work there was focused on

understanding the challenges there and

understanding their ideas of

their own identity as engineers.

I went through the doctoral program and

got into an internship here at Google.

I had a chance to then be able

to convert to a full-time position after

the internship and I landed on

a wonderful team, Chrome UX team.

I came onto that team to get my chops,

to understand what UXR really meant,

and to understand how to work in product design.

But at the same time when I came in the door,

my intention was to be able to do equity work.

Since hitting the ground,

I've been in programs and

created my own programs that have focused on

equitable access to education and

specifically equitable access to education in UX.

I think my favorite part about my job

is the ability to focus on equity.

I think for me what that means is being able to

advocate for groups that

are underrepresented and marginalized,

and groups that don't have

as much agency or access to a voice in the industry.

Being able to speak with folks from these backgrounds and

elevate their voices and elevate their needs

is the thing that

keeps me going through the job day-by-day.

I'm Jason, and I am

the Head of Equity Engineering at Google.