Volunteer UI/UX Designer — AI Apps for Better Human Communication

About the role

Crossing Party Lines is looking for a thoughtful, creative UI/UX Designer to join our Apps and Agents team. We are developing a portfolio of AI-powered applications and conversational agents that help people communicate more effectively across differences. These tools are designed to help people listen more carefully, understand perspectives unlike their own, recognize assumptions and biases, express themselves with greater context, and navigate emotionally charged conversations.

Our work began in the political sphere, where Crossing Party Lines has spent nearly a decade helping people with different political views talk openly and respectfully. We are now bringing that proven approach into homes, workplaces, community organizations, and other settings where people need better ways to understand one another. This is an opportunity to help shape genuinely innovative products at an early stage—not simply make an existing interface look better.

About the Apps and Agents Team

Our team is combining emerging generative-AI technology with Crossing Party Lines' proprietary intellectual property, including:

• Communication skills developed and refined through years of real-world practice
• Teaching and coaching methods that help people learn those skills
• Frameworks for addressing both cognitive and affective depolarization
• A philosophy centered on curiosity, understanding, emotional safety, and respect across differences
• Specialized approaches to reflection, reframing, perspective-taking, asking better questions, and communicating with context

We are developing tools for conversation practice, coaching, role-play, public communication, and other applications of this work. Crossing Party Lines is also preparing an application to Y Combinator as we explore the potential to bring these tools to a much wider audience.

What you'll help us accomplish

You will help us turn promising AI prototypes and detailed product concepts into experiences that feel clear, welcoming, trustworthy, and easy to use. Because these applications involve personal reflection and potentially sensitive conversations, good design is central to the work. The interface must help people feel supported without feeling judged, coached without feeling controlled, and challenged without becoming overwhelmed.

What you'll do

Depending on your experience and interests, you may:

• Help define user journeys and interaction flows for new AI-powered applications
• Review existing prototypes and identify usability problems
• Create wireframes, mockups, and interactive prototypes
• Help establish a consistent visual and interaction system across multiple apps
• Work with developers, testers, writers, and subject-matter experts
• Participate in usability testing and use findings to improve designs
• Help us think carefully about accessibility, inclusion, trust, and emotional safety

You may be a good fit if you

• Have experience with UX design, product design, interaction design, or user research
• Can simplify complicated processes without stripping away important nuance
• Enjoy working on early-stage products where some questions are still being answered
• Are interested in human-centered AI, civic technology, communication, conflict transformation, education, or behavioral design
• Can give and receive constructive feedback in a collaborative environment
• Are comfortable working with people who hold a wide range of political and social views

Professional experience is welcome, but we are also open to advanced students, career changers, and emerging designers with strong skills and a relevant portfolio. You do not need to be an AI expert. Curiosity about AI-assisted products and a willingness to learn are more important than familiarity with every technical term.

What you'll gain

• A meaningful role in shaping innovative AI products from an early stage
• Opportunities to create portfolio-worthy product and UX work
• Experience designing for conversational AI and emotionally sensitive interactions
• Collaboration with developers, writers, testers, and experts in depolarization and communication
• A chance to influence tools that may eventually be used in homes, workplaces, nonprofit organizations, and public life
• Professional references based on the quality and consistency of your contribution

Time, location, and support

This is a remote volunteer position. You may complete most of the work on your own schedule. We hope volunteers can contribute approximately 8 or more hours per week, although hours are flexible. Team members should also be available for one or two online team meetings per week. You will report to Lisa Swallow, co-founder of Crossing Party Lines and lead of the Apps and Agents team. You will work closely with other volunteers and developers and will receive background information, product specifications, and access to the CPL frameworks underlying the applications.

We welcome applicants from different backgrounds, professions, political viewpoints, and lived experiences. Crossing Party Lines does not ask volunteers to agree politically. We ask them to approach differences with curiosity, respect, and a sincere desire to understand.