New to UX? This Is for You
Some Tips for New UX Designers
You’ve decided to become a UX designer — your ambitions are high and you’re ready to tackle the world of UX. But now you’re staring into the most unfriendly of user experiences — a plethora of paths not clearly marked.
I’ve been there too.
And here I am to clear a path and create a more friendly UX for the UX beginner. In this article, you’ll find a list of tips and resources that will help you get started as a UX designer.
Ready? Let’s get started:
Take a UX design course
In recent years, design training has gone from face-to-face, intensive, and expensive to remote, self-paced, and affordable. There are now several online platforms offering UX design courses for beginners. With some of these courses costing nothing and others costing the same as a few cups of coffee, there is no excuse not to take as many as possible. Some popular online courses are:
Google UX Design Certification
I recommend Google’s UX design certification course as it helped me understand the fundamentals of UX design.
To give you a better idea of what you’ll be learning from the course, here is the first project I completed based on what I learned while taking the course.
Read design books & articles
Thanks to the internet, reading has become much easier. There are now several mediums available to us to help increase our learning. We have blogs, digital books, websites, etc.
Here are some books that provide invaluable information for new designers:
Design of Everyday Things — by Don Norman
Don’t Make Me Think — by Steve Krug
100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People — by Susan Weinschenk
Lean UX: Designing Great Products with Agile Teams — by Jeff Gothelf and Josh Seiden
You can find insightful UX articles here:
Find a design mentor
“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” — Isaac Newton
When you follow those who have gone before you, you will be able to accelerate your growth as a designer. Find someone who is a few rungs above you on the ladder of expertise and lean on them for guidance.
You can easily find a mentor through a community like ADPList that connects learners to mentors.
Create a design portfolio
To be a successful trader, you have to display your products. After all, people need to see what they are buying. Think of your portfolio as your online shop that displays your work and shows potential employers what they stand to gain if they hire you.
And the good news is that you do not have to write a single line of code to create a portfolio website these days. Several website builders can do the heavy lifting for you. Some of them are:
This article by Career Foundry has some tips to help you craft a great portfolio.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
Perfection will only come through practice, not by reading instructions. No matter how many design courses you take, you can’t grow as a designer if you don’t put your knowledge into practice. There are no shortcuts.
Yes, your designs will suck at first. But with regular practice, you will develop an eye for what works and what doesn’t.
Can’t come up with a design challenge to work on?
Several websites offer ready-made imaginary challenges you can work on. Here are some of the most popular ones:
Share your work aggressively
There are several platforms where you can share your work and get noticed by potential employers. And how you decide to share your work is entirely up to you. Depending on which platform you use, you may be able to share a few screenshots of your designs, a detailed case study, or an article detailing your design process. Some of these platforms are:
Join design communities
“If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go together.”— African Proverb
Joining a community with people who share the same interests as you can help get you ahead in any career. The benefits of joining a design community include: getting feedback on your work and learning about opportunities. Some UX communities you can join are:
User Experience Design (UX) on Linkedin
Uxcel Community on Slack
Some more tips
- Constantly seek criticism, not praise: You learn nothing new from being praised, but with every critique comes an opportunity to get better. Hence, you should continually try to find areas of your design that need improvement.
- Don’t be afraid to ask for help: The world is full of opportunities for anyone willing to seek them out. Therefore, never be afraid to ask for help. When you see someone you admire and want to learn from, reach out to them. Just ensure that you’re polite and communicate your request clearly and concisely.
- Never compare yourself to others: With so many success stories being shared on social media, it’s easy to get caught in the comparison trap. However, comparing yourself to others is pointless because every journey is unique; no two paths will ever be alike. In other words, don’t feel pressured to meet up to social media standards: allow yourself to grow and evolve at your own pace.
- Be consistent: Every successful designer you admire today was once a beginner. They are only doing better now because they kept pushing even when they were doing poorly. Therefore, prioritize progress over perfection. The goal is not to be 100 percent perfect, but to be 1 percent better every day.
- Build good relationships with other designers: No man is an island. To grow as a designer, you will need the help of other people. Look out for opportunities to strike up conversations with other designers and follow up on these conversations. By forming good relationships with other designers, you are more likely to hear about potential work opportunities, happenings, and moves within the industry.
- Manage your time well: When you’re a new designer, it’s easy to get overwhelmed with everything you need to do. To avoid burnout, discipline yourself to concentrate single-mindedly on a single task or activity at a time. Focus on that task till it is 100 percent done before moving to the next one.
And above all,
- Be patient with yourself: We often expect to see results quickly and get disappointed when the results are delayed. However, remember that the successful designers that you see today have worked hard to reach their present position.
The journey to being a great UX designer is a marathon and not a sprint — don’t focus on the destination; instead, enjoy the process as you discover more about yourself as a designer.
Well, there you have it. The roadmap to help you navigate the unfamiliar terrains of your career in UX.
All that’s left to say is: Welcome to the world of UX design. I hope you have a rewarding career. Good luck!
Any thoughts or comments? Feel free to drop me a line here or connect with me on LinkedIn.
