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Lessons Learned from Interning at a top Financial Services Company

Interning at Amex has been an incredibly eye-opening experience, exposing me to UX industry practices. One of the things that stood out to me was the responsibility and trust that American Express internalizes, from servicing their credit card members to supporting their employees.

1. There is due diligence to approve your concepts when working in an enterprise as established as American Express. As an intern, it meant scheduling meetings with my direct manager as well as other senior designers to get their eyes on it before showing experimental designs to potential customers. This also led me to be more critical of my work before sharing it with others.

2. Balancing differing opinions was something I worked towards this summer. Visual design is sometimes subjective so it was common to have opinions on layout and typography. I learned how to communicate and justify my design choices, without defaulting to “It looks nice.” If a consensus couldn’t be reached, we consulted previous and current user research to determine the next steps.

3. User research is much more than just asking questions. Under the guidance of the UX researchers, I learned how to facilitate interviews and let the users guide the conversation. I also learned the importance of intentional communication so as to not ascribe motivations or bias in the research design and testing findings.