5 things I wish I knew before pursuing a UX Design career Pt. 2
One of my most popular articles this year was titled 5 things I wish I knew before pursuing a UX Design career. After writing part 1 of this series, I received a lot of positive feedback from the community. And today, I’m excited to write a part 2. I’ve tried to pick out the most impactful things that I have noticed in my personal career and also from observing those entering the field. Let’s jump right into it!
(If you haven’t read Part 1 of this series, be sure to check it out here!)
Design Less
That’s right, and it might sound counter-intuitive at first. The more experienced I became as a designer, the less design I was doing. It was because I spent more time thinking about about what we should design before I started designing. Requirements gathering, diving into research, looking at existing documentation were all things I need to consider in order to make sure I was forming the correct approach.
Design is about experimentation. You might build a great design, but once you test it, you realize it didn’t help people achieve their goals. When that happens, you have to go back to the drawing board. Only when you’re convinced and spent enough time on the IA, design, requirements, copy, and all of the things that are important to design do you spend time designing. While designing is important, I would argue it is more of a trivial part of the process (but certainly important) versus approaching the work correctly.
This process comes naturally as you work more as a designer. Start getting your hands dirty by designing but don’t be afraid if you feel like you’re slowing down: most likely, it’s because you’re thinking if your approach is the right one, making iterations, or re-visiting the goal of the project. Next time you work on a problem, take a step back and think about your approach.
Any capable designer should be able to translate a well-thought out solution into a design, but not everyone can come up with the right solution.
Having the correct mindset
This is going to be an extension of what I just mentioned, but because how important it is I want to dive into it a bit deeper, and that is mentality/having the correct mindset.
At its core, design is about translating abstract theories and concepts into implementation and application. Exploring things outside what is immediately prescribed can help you learn about other concepts and deepen your knowledge expertise. The best designers I know are tinkerers and scientists, people who aren’t afraid to try different things (and sometimes, fail!). This resiliency helps learn new knowledge as well as identify new areas that they need to learn.
Because design is focused so much on problem solving, there’s a need for designers to not only identify the right problems but be able to formulate an approach to tackle that problem. Get comfortable with not knowing things. It’s going to happen. Stay calm!
Choose your first project correctly
Or second. Or third. Or whichever case study is your ‘main one’. Like most creative fields, design is highly project-based. Many platforms, online certifications, and bootcamps will give you sample projects to do. There are many ux bootcamp/certification grads there are, so most likely your project will look pretty similar to those of your cohort. Because of that, I recommend choosing some of your own projects to do as well. So how do you stand out? Here’s the basic criteria I use when figuring out what project to do:
- It’s something I find interesting/useful.
- I start small.
That’s it. Don’t be afraid on working on a project that someone has been done already. Chances are, it has been. Just make sure you’re not copying designs and attempt to choose a specific problem area you are interested in working on. Bigger does not always mean better, so focus on the quality of the process and final designs. And if it’s not at least semi-interesting, you’ll most likely lose interest and give up.
A UX career isn’t always fun
When considering a career path in design, it’s important not to be seduced by the most exciting aspect of the work it involves.
I’m sure you’ve all seem the ‘Day in the Life Videos’ of a designer. There’s not lying, most of the videos show how it actually is. Especially for large tech companies, there are amazing perks like free food, commuter benefits, and gym. There’s also a lot of freedom in work hours, like being able to go for a walk or grabbing some food in the middle of the day.
But there’s also a lot of work involved. Hard work. Ultimately, every career path has some grunt work that takes up a large portion of your time, like hour-long meetings with stakeholders or doing heavy documentation. You need to figure out if this grunt work is appealing to you, because that’s what you’ll be spending most of your time doing — the super exciting stuff will likely take up a smaller portion of your time.
For design specifically, I will also say that a large part of work is…thinking about the work and then testing things (to my first point above). No matter your career, there will some significant amount of grunt effort required, and you should at the least be okay with it if you are looking to build a career in it.
Don’t compare yourself with others with other designers
If you gained nothing else from this article, let this be it. Imposter syndrome is real, and the more you compare yourself with others the more it will get a hold of you. If you think you’re good, that’s great, keep it up. If you think suck, identify your weaknesses and address them.
Don’t pay too much attention on who went to the better school, earns more, gets promoted more. And worst yet, feeling like shit after reading a bunch of “I have an important announcement to make…” posts on LinkedIn.
People do better or worse for various reasons. The most important thing for you is your trajectory to continue growing. I admit, even I have the biggest imposter syndrome. I thought everyone was smarter than me, and I was afraid of writing articles on Medium. I would be afraid of judgement and it would play in my head all the time. But at one point, I realized I could not continue being like that for the rest of my life. So I said screw it, what’s the worst thing that can happen?. I get 0 views on writing topics I’m passionate about? So what?
What I wanted to do was focus on doing my best and not worry about anyone else. Today, I realize that all those thoughts and feelings were only in my head, and none of that mattered. I’m also blessed with amazing managers, mentors, and colleagues that have encouraged me throughout my journey.
When we feel like we’re an imposter, we think our questions are stupid. We think we are flawed. We place too much attention on ourselves. No one cares. No one has that much time to care about you. We’re all busy. Knowing the world doesn’t revolve us, as sad as that may sound, is the most freeing thought.
The only thing that matters is that you work hard, be happy, and help others along the way. Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in my next article.
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