Member-only story
Why are Portfolio Redesigns so Absurd… Yet so Popular?
The amount of WhatsApp redesigns is unhinged.
Have you ever seen a good redesign for Facebook? Go to Behance and search for a Facebook redesign. You will probably find mediocre attempts at an ordinary redesign of the infamous platform and repetitive patterns of unusable user interfaces.
This trend has been going on for a few years now, parallel to the rise of the UX industry and its attractiveness to everyone. It’s easy to become a UX designer with just a quick (but expensive) course and land a job at any FAANG company.
Here’s what you have to do:
- Sign up for any course labeled UX. Who offers the course does not matter. What matters is that it’s (a) expensive, (b) short, and (c) offers a certificate.
- Finish the course (or half of it) and start populating your portfolio with case studies.
- Apply to as many jobs as you can on LinkedIn.
- Good luck.
I don’t like being off-putting or bitter, as others do. But it would be remiss of me not to say that this mission statement hurts the industry and your career potential.
UX Design can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. What it means to me differs from what you will find from UX practitioners on YouTube.
Let’s deconstruct:
UX Design → User Experience Design
Isn’t it funny that the more we use the term “UX,” the more desensitized we become toward what it means?
Many people, especially non-designers who want to break into the UX industry, think of UX design as a bunch of specialization tracks. They’ve been told to believe it’s okay if you design skills or knowledge. It’s okay if you know nothing about user experience or the digital world.
And it’s mostly true. But not knowing is not the same as not learning. Where many UX courses fall short is in bridging between theory and practice. They teach students to ideate, make up problems, and fabricate research data to present a case study on their portfolio. But they don’t teach them the key skills of actually implementing theory.
