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Recently I’ve been doing more and more contract work for companies out of Silicon Valley. They have always had a sort of hiring bubble, as top talent is difficult to find, but I’ve recently seen a trend towards more design-focused companies.
In the past if you were a talented software engineer you could move to the Bay area and have your choice of of work at wonderful, exciting new companies sprouting up everywhere. That is still the case, but this terrific tornado of opportunities has recently begun plucking designers up into the storm.
I know it is obvious now, but Apple is a huge force behind the idea that design is important. In the late 90's I worked at CompUSA, living the nerd dream and playing far too much Ultima Online while building macromedia director presentations as a freelancer. I remember Steve Jobs’ keynote and the idea of a crazy new computer that didn’t look like a typical computer. It was a stark contrast in the back of the store, this bright, fun, blue toy in a sea of yellowing plastic boxes exciting customers about the notion of what a computer could be. Also, it had a 1024 x 768 display which was mindblowing. Every website I was building back then was 640x480 and if I wanted to be risky I would build one at 800x600 omfg! BEST IF VIEWED IN INTERNET EXPLORER at 800x600 my website footers proudly stated!
“The most impactful product of the year!” My 19-year-old self could often be overheard exclaiming to small groups of people who didn’t seem to care. “Have you noticed how in the past year every consumer product now uses that blue translucent plastic even if it doesn’t make sense?” I would ask my friends while they drank copious amounts of alcohol and succesfully flirted with members of the opposite sex at the Vans Warped Tour. No one seemed to care except for me.
Ever since that keynote, which ruined product design for the next five years, I knew I wanted to focus full-time on design. (Maybe that isn’t fair, the iMac didn’t ruin product design, designers copying trends ruined it.) The idea of approaching something stale and redefining it was akin to being a real-life wizard and conjuring up whirling elemental balls to impress the ladies. “BEHOLD MY POWER” I would scream while legions of women flocked from their homelands to catch a glimpse of me atop my tower of Pentium chips. Only one of these options was within the reality I live in, which is unfortunate.
I am however extremely fortunate that I fell into this position in life. Everything just sort of happened around me and I just did what I enjoyed. It was a huge benefit growing up with computers (thanks to my boyhood best friend who had me addicted to Lucasart and sierra adventure games) and loving art, but one that just sort of happened to me. Timing is everything they say, and my time growing up with tech has given me an edge in this industry (until more recently anyway, every new employee in the workforce grew up with computers).
In the many years I have been freelancing professionally since 1997. I have seen many trends come and go, and originally I just viewed the idea of a UX designer as a trend. I have very quickly learned that is not the case.
Why UX Design Jobs are Amazing
I’m not going to sell you on why UX Design is important or explain the difference between UX and other design jobs. If you aren’t on board with that idea yet I doubt you are reading this. What I do want to convince you of is that you should consider focusing on it.
High Paying Jobs
If tech trends flow from Silicon Valley, UX Design will be an important key hire for many companies in 2014.
Almost the entirety of 2013 UX Designers in the Bay area have been commanding huge salaries, equity in companies and an important voice in board meetings. Design rates for talented UX designers are often times on par or higher than rates for talented engineers.
Not Much Competition
Any seasoned professional can tell you, changing your identity and job title is scary. It is how you define yourself. “What do you do for a living?” asked the pretty barista at the coffee house. “I’m a graphic designer!” I proudly shouted at the top of my lungs with my fist raised into the air like an 80's rock star, forever scaring the girl and getting myself banned from another mom-and-pop java hut.
When people now ask what I do and I tell them “I’m a UX Designer.” I’m often met with blank stares and occasional bouts of eye-rolling.
What many designers don’t understand is that you have been changing your profession over the last few years whether you realize it or not. You used to be a graphic designer, making ads for print magazines, some book layouts, tradeshow collateral and the occasional website banner ad-you know, designing graphics. You then shifted to almost exclusively websites, and maybe you even had a hand in some minor software design. You became a professional with HTML 4.1 and witnessed the rise of style sheets. Now you are being thrown into the fun space of mobile apps which can be built natively or with web technologies. You are learning about a/b testing and the thrillining world of agile scrum development cycles. Git doesn’t scare you anymore. The world around you has turned digital and you aren’t really a ‘graphic designer’ in the traditional sense anymore. You’re a badass.
It Will Sweep the Nation
I’ve noticed these trends in Silicon Valley and it has begun to leak into some of the tech companies I’m working with in Austin, Phoenix, New York and other smaller tech areas. It won’t be long before many other companies start looking for a full time in-house director-level UX Designer.
The space is ripe for the few top talents to rise up and define the new market. That time is now. Good designers in the space right now will be directing teams of UX designers in a few short years for larger established companies, if they aren’t already.
No Need for Jack of All Trades
Any designer today can tell you, they know a lot of things and focus most of their efforts across a broad plane of technologies and ideas. The days of only focusing on a very specific set of work is long gone. If I were to interview a girl today who told me she can only make print ads but can’t build a website I would need to have a serious conversation with her. One that would probably end in tears and hopefully a new-found determination to learn more shit.
Go search indeed for ‘graphic designer’ job postings and I’m sure this list will look familiar:
- 10 years experience
- Must have a strong content strategy background
- Must be a Social Media Guru
- Masters from an Accredited University
- Master Level Experience with the following software a must: Adobe Photoshop, QuarkXPress, Indesign, Premiere, After Effects, Avid, Microsoft Office, Wordpress, Adobe Illustrator, OS2/Warp, Microsoft Windows 95, Adobe Flash, PHP, MySql, Javascript, Xcode, Java, Amazon aws, Html 5, CSS, Adobe Dreamweaver (LOL)
- Must be Handsome
- No Telecommuting
Starting Salary of $11 an hour with benefits starting after 24 months of full time employment.
Most Positions are Very High Level
The most refreshing part of the UX work I have done in the past year is that I’m allowed to focus all of my energy on the actual user experience. UI is handled by a team under my command, the visual design language is handled by a team under me, the branding and identity work is handled by my team, the content strategy is handled my team, the facebook ad campaign is handled by a team under me, etc. The point is, I’m in charge, which is a great place to be as long as you were humbled a bit by your past years as an underling beneath theMarketing Director.
I get to focus on high-level ideas and implementations, not day-to-day design trench work. Don’t get me wrong, I love working in Photoshop and on websites and all that other stuff, but it isn’t my focus anymore. I can do bits if I choose, and the rest is handled in a very organized top-down fashion and creates better design and a better experience for the user. Which is amazing.
By focusing on UX Design as my primary responsibility, I have given myself a title bump. Many UX positions in the market are director or VP level positions.
So How do I Become a UX Designer?
If you are already a designer you have a huge head start. Here are some tips I’ve picked up this last year to help anyone wanting to make the move.
Designers are terrible when it comes to listening to others. I have an entire other post I’m working on addressing this point. Try listening to what the clients want and don’t give them reasons why they are wrong. I’ve found a quick way to learn empathy is to have a child. I highly recommend this method ☺ The book Brain Rules for Baby helped me with my empathy.
Seriously though you need to practice empathy in order to become better at it. Just like any other skill.
Become More Familiar with Digital Work
If you still aren’t fully entrenched in the digital world, you should probably get on that. Build some small websites for fun, try making a couple apps for the experience or see about freelancing for a small startup. This is easier than you would think. You don’t have to get rich from this project, just take something familiar and make it better.
Read some books. I started with About Face 3 and even made some of my own notes from the book here. The book is pretty out of date, the 2nd half of it is all about making interfaces in windows 3.1 (or XP I can’t remember) but the beginning is useful. There are parts that only work if you are established with a large company (things like building customer stories from personas) won’t work in small agile startup environments, but it begins to cover the basics of how to do useful research and forumlate a plan. If you have more reccomendations for good books / articles to read please leave them in the comments. I’m always looking for good books.
Redesign the UX For an Existing Product.
Take an existing product and try to make it better. Post your ideas to design centered communities for feedback. Ask lots of questions, Quora is great for that. Redesigning something already out there is a great way to learn, you risk nothing and have everything to gain.
tl;dr
Design is in higher demand now than it ever has been. A large portion of designers’ time is spent focusing on the User Experience in their projects, whether that is figuring out the best way to get website viewers to the content they want, or driving sales in a mobile app. If your job already has you doing these things and you enjoy that end of it, or if you are a junior designer and you enjoy doing ethnographic research and listening to people and determining their needs, then you should consider doing UX design full time.
UX Design jobs are currently in high demand at many new and established tech-focused companies and will probably filter out to other sectors in the coming years. The jobs are paying well and give you an incredible amount of freedom for your rewarding work. If you are already an established designer the amount of learning you will have to do is minimal, and the most important thing to learn, empathy, will help you in not only your career but also in life.
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