5 things they don’t teach you in school as a product/UX designer
I’m now 5 months into my first full-time UX design job. Here are 5 things they don’t teach you in design school.
1. Your design has to be measurable
How do you know if your designs are successful or not?
In school, you might receive a few positive comments from your cohort: “Wow your design looks so clean and pretty!” And you’ll use that as your token of approval. Teachers will also try their best, however these designs are never quantitatively used in the hands of real users. These critiques are completely subjective.
As a real designer, you will need to understand the business goals and set up success metrics at the start of every project. Is it to increase retention rate? Improve the NPS? Lower task completion time? Increase conversion rate?
Any redesigns will reflect like a before and after photo of someone going through a body transformation. You’ll objectively see your success and demonstrate the impact of design through quantitative and measurable metrics.
One additional reason why measuring your designs is so important is you’ll be able to objectively demonstrate your business impact as a designer. If you can show that your designs have made or saved the business money, that gives you easy ammunition for things like raises and job promotions.
2. You need to have rationale for every design decision.
When I was learning design, I had a lot more creative freedom to explore. I could design whatever I wanted to, however I wanted to. You cannot do that in the real world. The choices you make will have a real impact on the end users’ lives.
Ideally, whatever you’re handing over to developers will be trialled and tested. Every design decision should have the backing of user research, data, or best practices. When a stakeholder asks you “why did you design it this way?” You’ll have the rationale.
You’ll notice design in practice is a lot less creative than you thought. Design is scientific and intentional.
3. Let your babies go, do not get attached
As designers, it’s natural to want to refine your beautiful creations, care and nurture an amazing idea, and pour in our pixel-perfect love, only to have it ripped wide open and purged.
In the real world, get used to moving fast and killing off ideas quickly. Everybody will have an opinion on your design, and not all of it is going to be positive. Your designs will get rejected, and that’s okay.
In school, you spend a lot of time perfecting a few ideas. Real life is the complete opposite.
If you’re the type to get extremely defensive over constructive feedback, well I have some terrible news for you. Detach from your babies now and save yourself from a lifetime of hurt.
4. The design process is never perfectly followed. But it will help keep you grounded.
In my experience as a junior, it’s easy to get stuck with how to push a project forward. I don’t know what UX research method to use, or I have some vague problems, but don’t know how to fully define them.
Something that helped me immensely was receiving guidance from more experienced designers. But let’s say you don’t have access to that.
You know the double diamond process you learnt in school? Use it. Although no real-world project follows the design process perfectly, it’ll keep you grounded. Use it to give you a sense of consistency to move forward.
5. You own the product’s experience
I was once told this by a design mentor. A true product designer must believe they own the entire product’s experience. If you understand your user’s pain points deeply enough, there are some things you just won’t compromise on. Being a product designer means taking ownership of all design decisions.
I’m still far from this stage, but I use this mentality to cultivate my growth as a product designer every day.
Thanks for reading!
