So you want to be a UX designer…
First of all, congratulations! It’s a good time to be a UX designer in the IT industry right now. Some of the major design companies have been recruiting more and more throughout the last 5 years. For instance, in 2012, IBM had 1 designer per 72 developers. In 2017 the ratio is 1 designer per 8 developers:
At the same time, Gartner predicts that through 2021, the demand for enterprise app development will grow at least five times faster than IT capacity can deliver what’s needed.
Furthermore, there are plenty of trends (e.g. virtual reality, conversational user interfaces), where we as UX designers have to ensure that technology doesn’t come in the way for useful and usable experiences. As mentioned in the brilliant article called “The State of UX in 2018”, expectations to deliver based on user’s needs are changing, and quick:
“[…] users expect the same level of immediacy from the product or service you are working on right now. Endless product backlogs and feature requests that never go live can hurt your brand and frustrate your audience. Businesses need to drastically change to deliver value for users earlier, faster, and more clearly. “
We as designers have our work cut out for ourselves, and personally I find it super exciting. Working with design is a quite creative job, with the benefit of being able to work together with great people from many different cultures, and help to shape the world to a better place. A good design solves problems, both from a user and business perspective — and problem solving for others is a skill that is definitely in demand.
What does a UX designer do exactly?
On a high-level, this is how I approach a UX project.
1. Understand the problem to solve.
Is the problem worth solving in the first place? This may include conducting stakeholder interviews and trying to better understand the business goals (why are we trying to solve this problem? How can we as a company benefit from solving this problem?).
2. Research.
This is done in order to get a better understanding of the users’ goals. What are the users’ needs? Which tasks do they perform in their daily life/work? In which context? It can also be helpful to connect the users’ goals to the business goals and see if they match well or not. If you have a hard time finding users, there are usually several alternatives to consider, for instance performing some kind of “desk research”:
- look at job descriptions matching the user profile you are looking for
- find interviews online with people matching the user profile you are looking for
During the research phase I also try to find information about what competitors do, as well as what their market thinks about what they do.
3. Analyze.
From step 1 and 2 I now have plenty of material to go through in detail. During this step I try to structure all my material and thoughts, going from more “raw material” (e.g. interview transcripts, notes, mind maps) to more structured formats. This may or may not include creating personas, user journey maps and more. If there are points of conflict (e.g. different views between stakeholders, or business goals contradicting user goals), then I’ll try to bring this up with the project decision makers (follow the money) so that the project decision makers are aware of this, and can choose to take a different direction (if needed) from there.
4. Sketch/Prototype.
Once you know that the problem is indeed a problem worth solving from a business and user perspective, you can then start sketching. When sketching, you generally want to visualize a potential solution which achieves the wanted business and user goals. By drawing / sketching solutions, you also visualize concepts so others can easier understand the design. It’s very common that everyone thinks they agree on the same solution, but when seeing the visualized prototype, it’s not exactly what everyone had in mind. This is very valuable, since you save a lot of production development time when you know this early on in the project, and you also increase the likelihood of delivering the right thing a the end of the project.
5. Test the envisioned solution, ensure it solves the problem(s) (from user/business perspective)
Connecting back to the design goals (i.e. what is the goal of both business and users), and after several design revisions/iterations has been made, it is now time to test the solution. This can also be done in many ways, but a common way is to perform user testing. Based on what you learn from the user testing, you may need to do new iterations of the design.
I’m not an artist and I’m not good at drawing, are you sure I can sketch a solution anyway?
No worries! I am not good at drawing either, and I still manage to sketch and create prototypes fine. In all honesty, drawing circles and rectangles goes a long way when designing a user interface. Also, in my opinion, there is a difference between an artist and a designer, in the sense that an artist wants to evoke many different kinds of emotions from their art, whereas a designer wants to evoke a very specific kind of emotion / achieve a very specific goal with the design.
Will one person do the whole UX process mentioned above?
It depends on many factors, such as:
- the project size
- the type and size of the company company and what resources they have
- the people involved in the project and their competences
It’s however rare to find a person that has a deep competence in all UX areas. Personally my strengths lies in analyzing, prototyping and coding. At work I also collaborate with people who specialize more in user research (e.g. creating personas, user journey maps, based on user interviews and more), visual design (e.g. making the design look pixel-perfect), and front-end development (to translate the design into code).
What should I study to become a UX designer?
There are several options to become a UX designer, depending on what you prefer:
Design schools
This route will give you a more formal design education. The benefit of this type of studying would be:
- more individualized way of learning / more attention from the teachers to you as an individual
- good opportunities for networking with others (which may lead to potential job offers)
This is also an option if:
- You prefer a more structured approach to learning
- You find online courses boring to finish
Here are a few examples of design schools in Sweden:
- Linneuniversitetet — Interaktiondesigner (180 hp)
- Digital design, Högskolan Kristianstad (180 hp)
- Hyper Island
- Umeå designhögskola
Online courses
Another route to take is to learn about UX design through online courses. The benefit here would be that:
- You become more location independent when studying.
- You can choose more when (e.g. which time of the day) you want to study.
- It’s sometimes easier to find more specific skill-based training available (e.g. user research, visual design) this way.
I’d recommend this option if:
- you are a more independent learner
- you only want to focus on a specific skill area at a time
Again, there are plenty of options here, but to name a few:
Learn by doing
This is the route I personally chose, mainly since when I started learning about UX design, I was already working as a software developer. But I can tell you from first-hand experience, this is also a possible option. I’d recommend this route if:
- you can’t afford to / don’t have time to spend several years in a school (maybe you are already working at a job)
- you prefer to learn in a more practical way.
Some recommendations when taking this route would be to:
- Find a mentor. Find someone that can help you through the steps of what it takes to become a designer, and that can give you some helpful tips every now and then.
- Create personal projects. Find a problem that annoys you (or a friend of yours), and try to solve it.
- Learn by copying the big sites. Go to a page like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Amazon or similar, take a screenshot of a few pages, open up a tool (e.g. Sketch, Adobe XD) and start recreating the design pixel by pixel. This will lead to further questions, which brings me to my next point.
- Join UX communities. There are plenty of good ones, but one place that I personally like when it comes to asking (and answering questions) about UX is ux.stackexchange.com.
- Follow UX blogs, like Smashing Magazine, A List Apart, or UX Mag.
- Read up on design trends and the current state of UX.
Applying for your first UX design job
When applying for your first job as a UX designer, make sure to also have both a resume and portfolio ready.
The portfolio is something you’ll typically get “for free” when you go to design school, online courses (given that you actually do the assignments!), or when learning by doing. It’s important that you create a portfolio which not only shows the end-result (i.e. a nice looking static screen), but rather shows your whole thought process that led to the final design.
Here are some examples of design projects that would totally wow me in an interview:
And here are some pages which post UX design jobs:
Nailing the UX design interview
It’s impossible to know every single question before your first UX design interview, but some preparation of the most common questions helps a lot. Here are some good articles on this topic:
- The 7 Questions You’ll Be Asked at a UX Design Interview (And how to prepare for them)
- 15 Essential UX Interview Questions
- What it takes to succeed at UX Design Interviews
Final words
If you made it this far, congratulations! This is my attempt to create a comprehensive guide on where to start on your UX Designer career path. I hope you find the article useful. Of course, the learning doesn’t stop while getting a job as a UX designer — in fact, I’d say that’s when the real learning starts!
If you have any questions / feedback, feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks for reading!
