Helpful Advice

Something I truly enjoy at this point in my career is offering advice to the next generation of UX professionals. I have spoken to students at various public and private universities as well as other professionals considering a career change or focus on UX. Please explore the info and resources below if you are considering the field of UX design or product management.

FAQ

Should I pursue a career in UX?

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment rate for web developers and digital designers—which includes UX designers—is expected to grow 23% from 2021–2031.

We do not know how AI will impact that prediction. This is a reality to consider, especially if you are focused on visual design as your career focus.

But do not give up hope. I believe that more and more employers will prefer job candidates with UX experience (either in design or research) because those candidates simply bring more value to the organization.

These skills are essential...

Organized

Being organized is essential. You will have multiple inputs from stakeholders, customers or users, and tech teams and will need to communicate clearly the goals, vision, design, interactions and expected outcomes to multi-functional teams. Requirements and discussions around the design and development of a product can become lengthy and span multiple channels, such as email, Teams, design files, etc.

Detail Oriented

Having a big-picture mindset benefits your projects and career—you need to be able to consider various outcomes, but the reality is that most of your UX projects will require close oversight, whether you are working solo or with multiple designers. Being detail oriented will help you uphold consistency standards across the UX and discover opportunities to delight the end-user at every touchpoint.

Collaborative

At first glance, this might seem like “teamwork,” but collaboration goes beyond that. Teamwork has the connotation of a group trying to accomplish the same goal. It is all about “agreement,” but collaboration is about working with others who have various needs and requirements, and sometimes you will not agree. You have to find middle ground in most cases and be open to sharing your work and rationale.

Perseverant

There are many needs to consider in every UX project coming from stakeholders, end-users, potential customers, tech teams, etc. Most projects require some compromise due to time, budget, or interoperability. There will be times when your solution requires you to take on the role of a UX advocate. You must be willing to talk through the benefits of your proposed design even if others did not initially agree.

Comfortable Presenting

This is where all these skills come together. You will be presenting your ideas frequently, whether in a conference room filled with clients or coworkers, or on a computer screen during a conference call. Either way, it will be your ideas, your gestures, and your voice on display. You do not necessarily need to be extroverted to succeed at this, you simply need to be confident of your research or designs.

UX Work Environments

There are numerous UX job opportunities in advertising agencies worldwide. Advertising agencies typically provide creative, collaborative environments for their employees to enjoy, with many onsite perks. The other benefit of working in an ad agency is the exposure to a variety of UX areas of focus, from strategy and customer research to design and usability testing. The size of the UX team is usually commiserate with the size of the agency, but this is not always the case. One thing to note is that there are many more layers in the agency when it comes to client servicing, which can result in you having a lot less influence on the finished design, if that would be a friction point for you.

If you work for a tech, product, or service company directly—on an in-house product team—you will enjoy more influence over the UX. You might also be working in a smaller group and have less support depending on how the organization prioritizes UX. When interviewing, be sure to inquire about these sorts of topics and issues.

Common career paths in UX

DESIGN

There are two different types of UX designers, traditionally speaking: visual designers and information architects.

Visual designers, as their title implies, are focused on the visual, interactive layer of the UX.

Information architects design and map the UX on wireframes and sitemaps, which inform the visual designer's graphic design.

Employers are starting to hire more visual designers than information architects as graphic designers are now studying usability and accessibility as a requirement of their degree.

RESEARCH

Most companies thankfully still view UX designers and researchers as separate and distinct roles. Researchers tend to study psychology, science, or statistics in college, while designers tend to study graphic arts and usability.

Research can be either quantitative or qualitative. Most organizations will invest in quantitative on an ongoing basis but invest less frequency in qualitative due to the cost and time impact it can have on a project. Designers should observe usability studies/user testing whenever possible to improve upon their design acumen.

STRATEGY

This path welcomes professionals with a variety of degrees and skillsets. The common thread among people working in this field is a desire to provide an excellent user experience. Really, it is very similar to the traditional roles of customer experience planning and management, but there is more of an emphasis on the principles of user experience. While there are pure UX Strategy roles, product management will also look and feel very similar.

Above, it is said that being detail-oriented is an essential skill for UX professionals, but with UX strategy roles, a big-picture mindset is equally valuable.

Hi there!