Why Peace Corps Volunteers make good product designers
*disclaimer: everyone’s experience is [same same but] different.
“The toughest job you’ll ever love” is the unofficial slogan of the Peace Corps and what we would jokingly toss at each other when we were riding in an overloaded furgon (vans that acted as a cross between a taxi and a bus in operation and were the main form of transportation) that meant that one of us was riding in the trunk, or when we reached the summit of a mountain (of which there are many in Albania) with the most incredible view.
The thing was, for as much flak we gave it, it was true. It was by far the toughest job I’ve ever had and I loved the ways in which it challenged me, forced me out of my comfort zone and made me grow in ways that I couldn’t have under conventional circumstances. The two years I spent in the town of Orikum, Albania as a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) volunteer taught me things about myself, grew my self-confidence in my ability to problem-solve, take on challenges, forge connections and learn a new language. I found that my time as a Peace Corps Volunteer had such a fundamental impact on me that I’ve seen the lessons learned applied in every role I’ve had and product design is no exception. The following is a non exhaustive list of the ways in which the Peace Corps prepared me for product design.
I learned radical empathy
Base level empathy means that you actively work to put yourself in someone else’s shoes in order to understand their thoughts, feelings, and how they might drive behaviors and decision-making. Radical empathy takes that a step further when you take that understanding and look for concrete ways to improve lives. There’s an argument to be made that the act itself of joining the Peace Corps takes radical empathy, and I think that is certainly present, but the lesson was really in the doing.
Interestingly enough, the experience that really had the largest impact on my commitment to radical empathy had nothing to do with my direct service. Albania was a communist country beginning after WWII until 1991 and the effects from that period in its history are still felt today. One of the ways in which communism left its mark is in the general architecture throughout the country. Most buildings are square, concrete blocks with little decoration on the exterior and interiors that are almost exclusively concrete or plaster walls with tiled floors. Without insulation in the walls, this meant that every building was incredibly cold in the winter without the use of wood-burning stoves or small electric heaters. Winter meant being cold all the time and in Orikum, it brought a lot of rain and grey skies.
The combination of dreary skies and dreary buildings that all felt exactly the same in their designs and cold temperatures ultimately had a major impact in my general well being. I often felt low energy, discouraged and uninspired and the realization that the built environment could have such a profound effect on me like that inspired a strong desire to help ensure the designs that people encounter in their everyday life would be ones that improve their standard of living instead of detracting.
As it translates to product design, empathy matters as we all know, but the thing that really drew me to product design, is the opportunity to work on something that helps someone else. It’s cool to make a slick design that earns a lot of Dribbble hearts, but ultimately what I care about — and the thing that motivates me — is the positive impact that I can have with my work. Radical empathy is a powerful motivator and I learned it first as a Peace Corps Volunteer.
I learned the importance of community (user) buy-in
When talking about the Peace Corps, I think it’s important to call out the difference between (white) saviorism and partnership. In the first there is the assumption that without the involvement of someone (the savior), nothing would get better — that people are somehow unable to better their own lives without assistance from “more developed” countries. A partnership operates with the base level understanding that no one knows their own needs better than individuals themselves, so rather than providing prescriptive support, a partner looks for ways to support people where they’re at in the ways that they need support.
The project that I felt was the most successful during my service was the girls’ soccer team I started in Orikum. Gender roles are pretty well defined in Albania, and soccer is considered to be a boy’s sport. Girls can play volleyball. As a lifelong soccer player myself, I figured there had to be some girls who wanted to play, but didn’t have any organized way to play and it would be a great opportunity to utilize my passion and skill. I even found a friend from the community who was willing to help coach. The reason why it felt so successful even though we had no other teams to play against, just a few soccer balls and never really got beyond doing drills and scrimmages, is because those girls were so committed. If I were ever even a little late, they’d come to my apartment to make sure I was on my way. They showed up each week and matched me in enthusiasm and commitment — something I never quite achieved with any of my other projects.
My approach to the soccer team wasn’t radically different than that of any other project, the difference was that I had found something that was a real need in a part of the community and the team was a response to that. This lesson cemented the importance of community buy-in as it relates to a successful project or product (something that has also been backed up by research). In product design, spending the time researching who your users are, their behaviors, motivations, frustrations and goals help inform what product should be built. If I had had that understanding going into my service, I’m sure I would have had more projects that felt that successful.
I learned how to think (and see) from a different perspective
One of the hardest things to do as a human being is to shift perspectives and think outside the frame of your own experience. One of the easiest ways to experience it though, is to be an outsider. It’s a testament to the American power structure (though I certainly share culpability) that I’ve rarely found myself in that position as a white woman in my own country. My first taste of what it was like to be the person who stood out as an outsider was when my family moved to Tokyo for five years when I was 11. It was (obviously) super disorienting at first and I hated feeling the unfamiliarity while being so far away from my friends. But gradually, I adjusted and by the time we left, I loved living there so much that I was more upset to leave than I’d ever been to move there in the first place.
Choosing to have a similar experience as an adult meant that I entered the experience with an excitement that welcomed growth and the opportunity to step outside my comfort zone and understand another perspective. In Albania, a lot of that meant slowing down, an emphasis on family and connections, generosity, and a strong connection to the past.
When I left in 2011, smartphones connected to satellites were not yet the prevalent phone choice, so when we arrived in country, every volunteer got a simple T-9 interface phone. Because they weren’t connected to a satellite dish, we had to manually set the time on the phone. A week or two after arriving, I was walking around our training hub of Elbasan with a group of volunteers and a Peace Corps staff member when I noticed that the large clock on the castle walls showed a different time than I had on my phone. Anxious to determine where the fault in the discrepancy lay, I asked the staff member if the castle clock was correct and was completely nonplussed when he responded, “Oh, it doesn’t matter.” Doesn’t matter? But if I don’t know the correct time, how am I supposed to know that I’m on time??
Later, I would learn that even the tv channels might show different times and that people liked to compare which channel they used to set their clocks, but that moment was my first introduction to a culture that didn’t run by a clock. Coming from a culture that lives and dies by the clock, it could be frustrating to not be met with the same devotion to time and I lost count of the times I was told “avash, avash” which literally means “slowly, slowly” and generally just means take it easy.
Spending the time learning Albanian culture helped me understand how to operate within it, make connections, strategize and communicate effectively. As designers, we don’t force users to adjust their behavior patterns to fit our designs, we design to existing patterns, then we utilize our understanding of the things that influence and motivate them to inform the strategy behind our designs.
Finally, I think it’s important for your own personal growth and development to be exposed to alternate ideas and perspectives, but as a designer, having the ability to easily tap into another viewpoint means that I can quickly bridge an empathy gap and design to user behavior and needs.
I learned how to fail
We were warned that this would happen, and it certainly happened to me — over and over again. The majority of my side projects either petered out or turned into one-off projects. The English club, private tutoring sessions, the beach clean-up, the school redesign competition, the essay writing contest all turned out to be unsustainable and didn’t continue. This did not feel great. Even though I knew I was in a space in which I was allowed (and even encouraged) to take the risks that could result in failure, it still stung to feel like I wasn’t a good volunteer. A lot of the reasons the projects failed were beyond my immediate control:
- Some students lived in the next village over and needed to take the school transportation home at the end of the day because they couldn’t afford the public transportation in order to stay behind for a meeting.
- Sometimes parents wouldn’t allow the students to leave the house because they were needed at home.
- Sometimes there were cultural concerns — in a small town everyone’s watching and occasionally parents/students were too worried about what would be said about them to partake in anything that felt gossip-worthy.
- And then sometimes students would either just forget or would rather hang out with their friends (and honestly, who can blame them?).
Now as a product designer, I see these factors as user pains or frustrations that affect behavior and must be taken into account when considering a problem/design solution.
The lesson in these experiences was that failure didn’t mean the end, but a wrong turn on the path to a solution. It’s easy to feel discouraged by set-backs and failures (and trust me, I did), but I learned how to pick myself back up and try something different.
Once I began my course in product design, I felt as though this basic lesson was quickly put to use, but now with the framework and perspective to let it mature into what it really is: opportunity and insight for the next attempt. User tests were the place where I found out if my designs were really on track or not, and as I practiced more, it felt rewarding to harness the momentum that went into the failure and redirect it into the next iteration.
The Peace Corps was certainly the hardest job I’ve ever had, but it made me resourceful, resilient, and it reinforced my understanding that diversity strengthens rather than divides. Plus I was introduced to raki, and if you’ve ever wanted to find out how long your esophagus is by drinking liquor that feels like fire, then raki is the drink for you! It’s also delicious and you should definitely try the plum. Gëzuar!
