How do you define an experienced UI/ UX designer?

Experienced UX designers could no longer be relevant anymore.

No offence, designers, but over the past decade, UI and UX patterns have changed so significantly that it makes me start to wonder, how do you define an experienced UI/UX designer (let’s just refer to them as designers in this article shall we?)?

For example, the iOS design principle has changed so much from 6 to 7 and it has affect the way we interact with our mobile devices. Even a bigger shift would be Windows 8.

Today, I was turned down from a potential project because I was deemed as inexperienced and they are “not looking forward to working with a fresh grad”.

To me, I believe that to master the UX design, it’s not by the years of experience that you have, but by:

1. How well you emphatize with your user (that includes identifying the problem and all the other stuffs).
2. Keeping up with all the latest UI trends and gestures.

In fact, young people these days have the most innovative and fresh ideas to tackle all your UX problems, let’s give them a chance and not be fixated on the paradign of hiring someone with “years” of experience.

Because whenever a new UI principle is introduced, all of us are back to square 1.