User Experience Design Intern

American Electric Power•Columbus, OH

About The Position

As a User Experience Design Intern, you will join the User Experience team within AEP's Information Technology organization, creating effective digital experiences for customers, employees, and business partners. You will help make it easier for customers to do business with AEP and support customer-facing agents with clearer, more useful tools and workflows. Working with UX designers, researchers, product managers, developers, and business partners, you will gain hands-on experience contributing to meaningful enterprise projects across the user experience design lifecycle. The role emphasizes user research, experience strategy, journey mapping, service design, facilitation, wireframing, prototyping, and usability testing to help teams understand user needs and shape effective solutions. Projects may include web and mobile self-service, employee and agent tools, and responsible AI experiences such as conversational interfaces and intelligent assistance.

Requirements

Currently pursuing a degree or relevant learning path in User Experience, Human-Computer Interaction, Interaction Design, Cognitive Science, Psychology, Anthropology, Information Science, Communications, Visual Design, Computer Science, or a related field.
Foundational understanding of user-centered design, design research, interaction design, or product development practices.
Curiosity about AI and emerging technology, with an interest in designing experiences that are useful, understandable, inclusive, and trustworthy.
Strong analytical, communication, collaboration, organization, and problem-solving skills.
Ability to work effectively both independently and in a collaborative team environment, manage multiple tasks, ask thoughtful questions, incorporate feedback, and communicate design decisions.
Demonstrated initiative, professionalism, and interest in technology, design, and innovation.
Interest in user research, experience strategy, service design, facilitation, wireframing, and prototyping. While visual design skills are valuable, this role is primarily focused on understanding users, defining opportunities, and shaping experiences through research and collaboration.
Experience with design, prototyping, research, or collaboration tools is helpful. A portfolio, class project, case study, or other example of problem-solving is welcome but not required.

Responsibilities

Support discovery and research with customers, employees, agents, stakeholders, and subject matter experts to understand goals, needs, pain points, behaviors, and key tasks.
Help plan and facilitate interviews, workshops, co-creation sessions, design thinking activities, and other collaborative exercises.
Synthesize qualitative and quantitative research into themes, insights, opportunity areas, and recommendations that teams can act on.
Create or contribute to journey maps, service blueprints, personas, empathy maps, task flows, information architecture, and other experience design artifacts.
Create sketches, wireframes, and prototypes that help teams explore ideas, evaluate concepts, and communicate experience recommendations.
Help design and evaluate AI-enabled user experiences for customers and employees, including customer service agents. Consider how people initiate tasks, review AI-generated output, understand recommendations, correct errors, provide feedback, and maintain control.
Support usability and concept testing through methods such as interviews, surveys, card sorting, tree testing, first-click testing, prototype testing, and moderated or unmoderated studies.
Help teams identify usability issues, uncover opportunity areas, and recommend practical experience improvements based on research, testing, and observation.
Collaborate with product, technology, analytics, operations, and business partners to balance user needs, business outcomes, technical feasibility, accessibility, and risk.
Communicate research findings and design rationale through clear stories, presentations, prototypes, and recommendations.
Build knowledge of AEP's customers, operations, business units, and evolving digital ecosystem.
Work both independently and collaboratively, manage assigned work, seek feedback, and take initiative in support of team and personal development goals.
Collaborate with your manager and team members, contribute to department initiatives, and recommend practical improvements based on research and observation.