Why Become A Ui/ux Designer
Everyone has their own reason as to why they want to become a UI/UX Designer . But here are a few of the best reasons:
Ui / Ux Career Paths To Consider
Brenda Barron Stokes
So you want to be a UI or UX Designer? Great decision! But which career path should you take? There are many options, and it can be tough to decide which one is right for you. In this article, we will explore some of the most popular career paths for UI and UX Designers, and we will discuss some of the benefits and drawbacks of each. We hope that this information will help you make the best decision for your future.
The most popular career paths for UX and UI designers are:
Lets take a closer look at each of these options.
Is Ux Design A Good Career Path
So you’re considering a career in UX design? Get to know the ins and outs…
Ironhack – Changing The Future of Tech Education
Careers
UX/UI Design
As of 2022, there are almost a billion active websites in the world with new websites and apps being built every day. Its a user experience designers job to make those websites and apps easy to navigate, and enjoyable to use. Its no wonder LinkedIn featured UX/UI designer on their list of the 10 most in-demand tech jobs in 2022.
With high salaries and low barrier to entry, a career in UX design has a very long list of benefits. But before you jump feet-first into a UX design bootcamp, you first want to know if a career in UX ticks all your boxes. What kind of companies could you work for? What kind of UX roles could you progress to? And how hard is it to break into the field?
We address these questions in this quick-fire beginners guide to a career in UX design. Before you know it, youll have all the answers you need to confidently foray into the exciting and innovative field of UX design.
Lets dive in!
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Alternative Paths: Transitioning Into Product Management
A UX background equips you with everything you need to know to develop and launch viable products.
As a designer, you focus on, well, the design. However, if youre more interested in the business side of the equation, product management might be the right role for you. A product manager defines a projects goals and timeline, and tracks it right through to launch. While user experiences deal directly with the user, product management is focused primarily on how a product is developed.
Like UX designers, project managers offer cross-team leadership and loop in design, development, marketing, sales, and customer support teams as needed.
The Hidden Third Track
Beyond the technical and managerial tracks, theres an emerging career trajectory that I see some of my peers becoming. That is the Consulting Track.
Design and UX consultants are able to break free from normal corporate structures. They set their schedule, determine their own rates, and are usually brought in as an expert to solve specific problems.
Consider such a person Freelancer 2.0. They dont just take design jobs to pay the bills, but instead theyve established a brand such that has people come knocking on their doors to solve specific problems. Some example job titles of design consultants Ive met:
- Lean UX consultant helping big, slow corporations run a little faster
- Information Architecture guru figuring out how to make a sense of big messes
- Startup design consultant helping a startup build their MVP / establish their brand
- UX research consultant helps companies identify core customer needs and behaviors
This hidden track sounds fabulous but its not easy, nor fits everyones styles. Usually consultants share the headache that freelancers share managing clients, making sure they get paid, negotiation, creating pitch decks.
But they do enjoy having recognized expertise and getting paid high rates .
If you are someone who people keep coming to specific problems with deeply experienced subject matter experts fit this well, the consultant track may be worth considering.
Just kidding, there are dozens more career tracks
- Entrepreneurs / startup founders
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Mit Media Lab: Best For A Variety Of Courses
MIT Media Lab is among the world’s leading research organizations focusing on interdisciplinary and diverse disciplines. Students in the Media Arts & Sciences school can choose from over 30 undergraduate and graduate degrees in various specializations like human-computer interaction , design entrepreneurship, experimental psychology, and communication.
Who is this school designed for?
This school is better suited for advanced professionals with prior experience in the field of UX design. With its core focus on research and innovation, MAS school admits students with demonstrated experiences in human-computer interaction and design.
What skills and qualifications can you expect to learn here?
The graduate programs available at MAS can teach students skills in various domains like
- Computer graphics technology
- Creative technology
Once enrolled at MAS, youâll become a part of a global community of researchers and designers, gaining exposure in several industries.
- Price: Fully-supported programs
- Formats Available: In-person
Thatâs a wrap on our list of the nine best UX design programs you can considerâhereâs a quick summary.
How To Become A Ux Designer
To start your UX career, youll need to learn the skills required to become a professional designer. Youll also need practical experience in the role. While some people prefer to get a degree, it’s been found that individuals entering the field of UX come from various different backgrounds outside of the traditional college route.
Below are a couple of options to help you get started. But for a more detailed guide on cracking into this lucrative field, read our post on how to land a well-paid UX job.
- Become an Intern: One way to gain the experience you need, would be to get an internship with an organization. Youll learn on the job as you work on real-life projects.
- Enroll in a Bootcamp: Bootcamps are another great way to learn career-ready skills and build some practical work experience. These laser-focused online courses are specifically designed to get your hired, fast.According to a survey by Nielsen Norman group, the majority of students that enrolled in a six-month UX bootcamp, said they were able to strengthen their professional skills. Most of them agreed that bootcamps provided them with the hands-on experience that was missing from traditional degrees. They even went on to acknowledge that bootcamps provided a realistic working environment and that they not only picked up hard skills but also soft skills like collaboration and communication.
To kickstart your tech career, . Our expert team will teach you everything you need to land your dream UX job.
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Ux Designer Career Paths: Stepping Up Your Design Career
Advancing your UX design career can mean becoming a manager, advancing within design, freelancing, consulting, or switching to a related UX role.
Working in UX design can be creative, engaging, and lucrativeâthe average US salary for UX designers in June 2021 was $103,704 . But what options do you have if youâre looking to advance to the next level? There are several career paths available for those looking for what might come next.
Critical Thinking To Support Wireframing/prototyping Activities
Skills in wireframing and prototyping are fundamental to the UX design profession. For this reason, designers should be capable of critical thinking. They must also be able to collect important information and use it in a practical setting. Questioning basic assumptions, recognizing ones mental processes, and cultivating greater foresight are methods for enhancing critical thinking abilities.
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Ux Career Path : Ux Freelancer Or Consultant
Not everyone wants to work within a company or an established team. Thats why freelance UX specialist or consulting roles are often a great choice for entrepreneurial self starters who enjoy working for themselves. Freelance positions in UX also offer fantastic flexibility.
People keen to work in freelance UX positions will usually have great networking skills, as theyll need to reach out to others to form connections and pitch for new work. People interested in this route will also want to have a fantastic portfolio of work that they can show to prospective clients.
As you gain more experience, you may also be able to provide freelance UX consulting services, where you offer companies advice on strategy, often in relation to broader business or marketing strategies. It is not uncommon for UX designers to first gain experience working for different companies, before using that experience to help other companies in a freelance role.
How To Become A Ux Designer: An 8
In what follows, well walk you through the steps you can take to become a UX designer. If youd like to learn about the transition in video form, UX designer Maureen shares her tips based on her own personal career change:
For the eight steps were presenting today, the first three are largely exploratory and will help you determine whether UX is really for you.
The next five are all about building up the technical expertisethe hard skillsand the professional capitalthe soft skillsyoull need to convince design leads and hiring managers that youre the right person for the job.
If you feel youve covered some of the initial steps, simply select a later one in the list to jump straight to it.
Without further ado, here are the eight steps youll need to take to become a UX designer:
Are you ready to be transformed into a UX designer? Excellent. Then let us begin.
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Top Skills For A User Experience Designer
The skills section on your resume can be almost as important as the experience section, so you want it to be an accurate portrayal of what you can do. Luckily, we’ve found all of the skills you’ll need so even if you don’t have these skills yet, you know what you need to work on. Out of all the resumes we looked through, 17.6% of user experience designers listed sketch on their resume, but soft skills such as artistic ability and computer skills are important as well.
Why Do I Love Working As A Ux Designer
No other profession in the world can provide the same benefits.
Design in the digital world makes for such a fulfilling job. You can use your creativity every day. Youll solve problems and help other people. You might make a positive impact in the lives of thousands. With a bit of luck, millions could use your design.
Working in UX puts you at the forefront of technological development. You can try new things all the time. Youll work with brilliant people, the best of our generation. UX designers work halfway between technology and humans. Youll learn a lot about new tech and also have to talk and communicate with many different people all the time.
And yes, UX design comes with the great salaries of the tech industry.
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Do Ux People Need To Code
That evergreen question always comes up. I believe that UX people dont have to learn coding. They certainly shouldnt do coding as their daily job. Sooner or later, however, every UX designer should learn at least some coding on the side. It will help them understand feasibility as well as whats going on under the hood. Learning some coding can also help you communicate better with developers.
With all that said, if you want to get your first UX job or work as a junior designer, you shouldnt focus on coding. Focus on your UX skills because that makes up your main job. Product teams will always include developers and they will have responsibility for the tech.
Make Your First Draft
Using all the input, create the first draft of your path. Dont aim for perfection but for getting an MVP that you can put into use and get feedback on:
Extract qualities for every UXer If your brainstorm looked anything like ours, you might end up with some post-its that dont describe skills but character traits. Think of post-its like Not afraid to make mistakes or Open to learning and growing. These qualities are not specific to any seniority level, nor are they something you can train yourself in per se. Still, they form a baseline every UXer should meet to grow within your specific company successfully. Capture these qualities in a separate section that applies to every seniority level.
You dont have to use every post-it Be critical about the post-its and throw them away when they are not reflecting the seniority level in point and dont match expectations. To illustrate: one of the post-its stated you needed 5+ years to be a medior. Although having years of experience could help you gain the necessary skills to be a medior, its not a given. We removed any post-its that did not describe a clear skill, habit, or responsibility.
As for expertise-specific post-its, either park these on a separate frame for later or rewrite them to apply to any UX expert. So You can work with Figma becomes Youre able to work with the right tooling for your expertise.
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What Skills Do Ux Designers Need
UX design is a versatile and multidisciplinary field, which means UX designers need a diverse array of skills that stretch far beyond the confines of design. Entry-level ux-ers are expected to have skills in user research, wireframing, user journey mapping, user testing, and visual design. They should also be familiar with UX methodologies and frameworks, like design thinking and lean management.
So, what about soft skills?
UX designers are responsible for making sure the digital product is accessible, usable, and intuitive which means putting themselves in the users shoes. To do this, they need empathy and curious constantly striving to understand the users needs. They also need strong communication and collaborative skills, so they can work closely with UI designers, interaction designers, information architects, copywriters, and other stakeholders across the business.
Overwhelmed by how much there is to learn? Worry not beginners can master all of these skills on a UX design bootcamp.
Structure Your Learning With A Credible Ux Course
What should you look for when choosing a UX design course?
So far, your journey into UX has been all about discovery a rather autonomous endeavor that has seen you free-styling your way around various blogs, books, and YouTube channels. By now, you should have a good idea of what UX design is all aboutand whether or not its a career that you seriously want to pursue.
Assuming that you do indeed still want to become a UX designer, its time to take it up a notch. As youll have noticed, theres an overwhelming abundance of content out there, and while this is ideal for background reading, it wont turn you into an employable UX designer. What you need now is a structured, hands-on approach to learning.
When it comes to choosing a UX design course, you want to make sure that youre getting the best value for your money. Its an investment in your future, after all, so you need to get it rightand not all UX design courses are created equal.
So what exactly should you look for when choosing a UX design course? Based on our extensive knowledge of the industry, weve put together a checklist of pointers that will help you to distinguish the best from the rest:
Project-based learning
Look for a course that requires you to get hands-on. Employers will want to see that youve mastered the right practical skills, so its not enough to just learn the theory. A good course should provide expert content coupled with hands-on exercises to test what youve learned.
Human support
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Work On Your Own Projects To Develop Ux Design Skills
Its one thing to understand how to execute UX design projects in theory. Its another to actually do it. Working on your own UX projects will help you practice and refine the skills you have and gain experience as you encounter new challenges, all while generating work that can go into your UX design portfolio.
Leading your own UX projects also gives you the opportunity to apply your new skills to every step of the UX design process from early market and user research and persona development to crafting a user journeys overall information architecture, wireframing, prototyping, and user testing, ultimately using the knowledge gained at each step to inform how you execute other steps with subsequent projects.
Youll also want to practice developing a variety of project types, to strengthen your UX design skills in as many different areas as possible. Look for projects that put to use your knowledge of UX design fundamentals and the design thinking process, user research strategies, design research strategies, and give you the opportunity to practice creating UI design elements and responsive designs.
As you proceed, youll strengthen the soft skills youll need as a User Experience Designer as well skills like project management, collaborating with other team members and project stakeholders, communication, and even empathy your ability to put yourself into the mind of your products users, to better develop designs that respond to the ways they think.
