How and Why I decided to quit architecture to become a UX/UI Designer
My story is not always happy, but I thought that writing an article about that would help me make a point about why taking this decision was the right one for me.
I studied architecture, and I loved my university years. I enjoyed working with other people and discussing the stories we wanted to narrate through our drawings. I loved composition classes, and I loved the idea of working to improve people’s lives and combining function and aesthetics to create a better world.
After finishing my master’s degree, I decided to transition to landscape architecture.
During my master’s, I had an internship in Salvador de Bahia, an amazing capital in the northeast of Brazil. There, taking a normal walk and wandering around without an actual plan was considered too dangerous. I had to confront the fact that, as a European, the ability to explore most places without thinking about the consequences was a huge privilege.
I decided then to work on making public spaces more welcoming and better for everyone. I loved working on projects like squares, parks, and playgrounds to improve the quality of life and to ‘build pretty spaces’ out of the neglected corners of the city.
Not all the endings are always happy
The downside of working in the field was the amount of overhours, the challenge of finding my own path into a hierarchical environment and low wage. After four years of this lifestyle, the relentless overworking left me exhausted and led to a burnout, forcing me to reevaluate whether I wanted to continue down that path.
I was tired of being always in the office, not having time to live the spaces I loved to design. I was tired of not having money nor enough holidays to see the projects I was studying at work.
Once I start to rediscuss my life choices, I reached out to friends who did this transition and they were really happy about UX Design. They said that’s a job made for architects, and I agree.
What remained the same?
- The creative part: UX is essentialy about designing spaces in the digital world. In a sense, you are an achitect shaping websites, apps and interfaces. However, instead of understanding and solving the needs of a single client, you address the needs of thousands of different people simoultaneously.
- The design thinking process: I unconsciously used the design thinking process in my architectural work for years. Although I only recognized this after starting my UX Bootcamp, the necessity of empathizing with stakeholders for quality-driven and human-centric results was always inherent in my approach as an architect. The similarity extends to the design process itself — both fields starts with research and empathetic problem definition, followed by ideation, prototype creation (whether paper models for architects or low/high-fidelity prototypes for UX designers), and finally, testing for feedback and adjustments.
- Communication with Stakeholders: Engaging with stakeholders, providing reasons for ideas, and understanding their needs are shared responsibilities. Clients, stakeholders, or managers may not be familiar with the design process, making necessary the translation of work into a language they understand. This ability to communicate effectively, facilitate collaboration, and align all stakeholders is a skill honed by architects and proves invaluable in UX design.
- Concept Creation: The process of creating concepts leading to presentations, storytelling, and diagrams to convey problem-solving and creative ideas remains consistent between the two fields.
- Collaboration in Multi-disciplinary Teams: Both architecture and UX design demand collaboration within diverse teams. The success of a project often hinges on the ability to work with individuals from various backgrounds.
- Scaling Ideas: In architecture, the saying goes “from the spoon to the city,” emphasizing the need for design intent to span from small details like a doorknob to larger urban elements. Similarly, in UX design, the ability to define a scalable design language and comprehend the complexities of scale is inherent.
So architects and UX Designers have a lot in common!
We have the skillset, we just need to polish it further. As architects, we know how to empathize, we know the aesthetics and visual design and apply logical problem-solving. That is exactly what we need to keep doing.
What are the new challenges?
- Data-driven approach: The fact that you need to look at data to support design decision. In the past, my manager often criticized my designs based on personal taste rather than providing concrete reasons for their shortcomings.
- Physical vs. Digital Spaces: While designing as an architect in the physical space, learning the distinctive features of digital environments isessential to recognize that digital spaces often emulate physical ones from the outset.
- The Duration of the Design Cycle: In architecture the design cycle is typically very long. The duration of each design cycle will depend on the project’s magnitude, but it will typically span several months or even years. This can make you feel disconnected from the result, or depending on your personality, it might even take a toll on your creativity. On the contrary, UX design in general has much quicker design cycles, going from weeks to months in the majority of cases.
- Feedback oriented: As a UX design cylcle spreads accross multiple different stakeholders it is curcial to make them understand that their feedback is being heard and taken into consideration. It is also important to identify valuable feedback as design cycles can become “noisy”.
The end
I am thrilled and excited about the new chapter of my life and I think UX will give me what I felt was missing from architecture and make me feel complete again.
I like the quote “from the spoon to the city” as I always found this approach effective in its simplicity and it summarizes my philosophy of architecture. At the basis of any design there is creativity, no matter what the subject is. Creativity then needs to be supported by technical skills that allow ideas to turn into construction. It’s that simple!
I am looking forward to have the chance to dive into UX Design deeper and deeper and gather more and more knowledge and expertise along my journey.
If you like, you could find some of my design here!