What they don’t tell you about the UX industry starting out

So here are a few things that I’ve learned during my time starting out now in the User Experience industry that I think that many new junior designers should be aware of. It’s a struggle out there but maybe this article will help you get a firm grasp of what UX is.

The photo is from Freepik!

Not Everyone Is Cut Out For UX

Make no mistake, you should absolutely try to get into UX/Human Factors because it’s such a great field with a multitude of roles and experiences! That being said, a few things that people should consider is that going into UX for the wrong or shallow reasons may not work in your favor.

Average Salaries for UX’ers courtesy of Nielsen Norman Group

That being said, some people aren’t cut out for UX/CX/Human Factors based upon their personality type, their inability to take criticism, and lack of foundational knowledge and a real passion for the discipline.

If you’re trying to get into the industry just because of the large payday that the graph describes, you’re not in it for the right reasons and eventually, you will not be happy about the choice you made.

To ‘succeed’ in UX is more about helping people have better experiences with their tools by being a problem solver and not just a pixel pusher. We have a duty to the public using these tools, tech or not — to make their lives easier, to build designs that are all-inclusive to those with disabilities in order to bring about better experiences.

Throw in the ability to continue to improve upon solutions, being able to walk in another person’s shoes and understanding their needs which are clearly reflected on your design decisions — you need thick skin, critical thinking, and a good understanding of people whilst have the ability to tie all of those attributes into different design methodologies.

Finding your ‘Speciality’

Example of what being a ‘specialty’ designer courtesy of Ellessmedia.com

The term ‘T-shaped’ designer was coined by IDEO CEO Tim Brown who has lead IDEO into becoming one of the world’s leading design agencies. He has suggested that being a ‘T-shaped’ designer is crucial in order to build up empathy whilst mastering skills to smooth over the iterative process.

T-shaped people have two kinds of characteristics, hence the use of the letter “T” to describe them. The vertical stroke of the “T” is a depth of skill that allows them to contribute to the creative process. That can be from any number of different fields: an industrial designer, an architect, a social scientist, a business specialist or a mechanical engineer. The horizontal stroke of the “T” is the disposition for collaboration across disciplines. It is composed of two things. First, empathy. It’s important because it allows people to imagine the problem from another perspective- to stand in somebody else’s shoes. Second, they tend to get very enthusiastic about other people’s disciplines, to the point that they may actually start to practice them. Tshaped people have both depth and breadth in their skills. — Tim Brown, CEO of IDEO

Be like Liam Neeson in ‘Taken’

Finding your specialty means how you can carve out a niche for yourself in terms of building your own skillset and becoming a specific kind of designer. Having a special set of skills allows you to not only carve out your own identity but being able to have mastery over specific skills gives you an advantage in terms of negotiating salary, creating more demand for yourself in the hiring process, and overall expanding your knowledge beyond the general foundation.

That being said, having a general foundation of knowledge is what makes a specialty designer even more important in that they can make the process of designing products easier by having the skills to collaborate with anyone else on the team such as developers, marketers, strategists, and even upper management. This is how you build up empathy with others in a collaborative space and understand their perspectives which would make for a better product.

I argue that the need to become more T-shaped for designers goes beyond optimizing for collaboration. I think it is critical as a design professional to have some level of skill in all other design disciplines. I would also argue that all design schools should teach and give students experience in the full range of disciplines. Of course, it would be expected that the quality of work wouldn’t be as high for the non-specialist but it should be passible. — Karel Vredenburg, Director at IBM

The aforementioned quote by Karel Vredenburg encapsulates why there should be a desire for incoming juniors to find a space of design in which they are comfortable with and become true masters whilst having good foundational knowledge of the general skillset.

Being a specialty designer is in particularly useful because of how they can work through a rush of work, specifically designed for themselves better than generalists can and that in turn — creates incredible value to an organization in reference to you and this, in turn, will likely motivate you more to become more knowledgeable in fields that you may not have a good grasp on.

Simply put, find a skill that you’re interested in after getting a good foundation, be it in 3D design, being an interactive designer, or a UX researcher; find your niche and strive to be a master!

Rome Wasn’t Built In A Day — Neither Are You

Knowledge is what’ll get you ahead in the field. Never Stop Learning

A lot of people are trying to be user experience designers in some way be it going to undergrad schools with a focus in design, going for their master’s, or going to any number of UX boot camps that have blown up since the early 2010s. So needless to say it’s a hot market without any kind of regulation of what it takes to be in the industry.

Image is from the UX Collective Article

Hence why you’ll get people selling shovels in a gold rush and those shovels are the various boot camps, 1-year master programs, and even those programs that ask you to pay a portion of your first job’s salary as part of their tuition, there’s some cause to be a concern.

Problem is that so many of these programs give people false pretenses about how they’ll get into the industry just by taking a course and having some ‘ok’ projects that do not have much depth or just require you to follow specific directions without the critical thinking necessary to explain the context of why they used a specific methodology.

This includes asking yourself; what are some of the hard decisions you made to make the design itself, what kind of business constraints do you have, and overall what parts of your process — did you enjoy the most, & showcase those portions rather than the entire process, because that’s what makes your process

The different fields that form UX(user experience) & how they intersect by Dan Staffer

Outside of that, all of the information given in these courses are not enough in terms of understanding user experience. UX is a multi-disciplinary that tasks learnings from psychology, anthropology, web design/development, computer science, visual design, and more. Taking all of those subjects into account and throw in the different specialties that I’ve mentioned previously, it takes a lot to be a UXer and being aware that the certificate isn’t going to be the thing that gets you that job.

Supplemental learning is what’ll give you an edge in terms of foundational knowledge. It’ll also be useful when you start going through interviews. Some great resources are;

• The Interaction Design Foundation
• Material Design
• Google Design
• IDEO
• ‘Don’t Make Me Think’ by Steve Krug(book)
• ‘Emotional Design’ by Don Norman(book)
• ‘Brand Thinking’ by Debbie Millman(book)
• ‘The Design Thinking Playbook’ by Micheal Lenrick, Patrick Link, Larry Leifer(book)
• Follow other designers on social media(Pablo Stanley, Ann Jean-Baptiste, to name a few)
• Professional Designer Slidedecks (take a look at those if you can find them)
• Coffee chats with other designers (ADPList is great for this)

These are just a few different resources/paths to help you along your journey but it’s not just about foundational knowledge that you should be looking for. It’s about the quality of the projects you have and having one airtight project that you can be tremendously proud of- is something to strive for, especially if the goal is to be interviewed and hired. But above all else, there’s one thing you should know..

You’re Going To Fail & Doubt Yourself A Lot

This 100%.

Sometimes you fail upwards, I guess that’s what had happened to me and it’s what made me find out about UX.

My personal story is that I originally wanted to be a lawyer and so I went to community college, transferred to a pretty good state school, but had 0 passion for the law field when I got there, wasted 2 years in denial — nearly flunked out of college altogether but got accepted to a small school with limited funding.

At the time I was doing a basketball podcast and so I decided to try out a major called ‘Communications Technology’. The major had a few required classes to take — one of them was UX Design. I instantly fell in love with the class and field in all honesty it’s been a blessing in disguise nearly failing out of the Uni. It’s been 2 years since then & I’m about to graduate with my bachelor’s at 25 but I feel like I’m just getting started personally.

Conclusion: What’s The Point?

What’s the Point?

Maybe the point I’m trying to make with this article is that it takes time and hard work to make it into the UX/HCI field and that if you’re not willing to put in the work, you’re going to have a tough time.

The learning is constant because of how the tech industry is like- it’s always evolving and changing & we as designers need to adapt. The desire for connections is daunting — even for myself I wasn’t sure about making connections online but joining an online community, attending online events by companies like IBM & posting whatever I think is important to my growth on Linkedin helps me find more genuine connections as well.

I’m not saying this all to scare anyone but rather to prepare for any other hopeful designers that have a misconstrued idea of what it takes to be in user experience. I myself am leading a team for a project I’m doing, and while I have limited experience myself, preparing newcomers for the reality of what UX/HCI is crucial to making sure they’re ready for the challenges they may face. Being a leader also has helped me drill in concepts that I’ve learned beforehand and allows me to reiterate the lessons I’ve learned to newcomers whilst inspiring them as well.

It’s an uphill battle but the work is hard, and the constant learning, connecting, maybe draining but if you stick through it- you’ll be better for it in terms of career prospects and personal growth. Thanks for reading and good luck to my fellow designers!