How the game of Life led me to a career in UX
I hope you can find some inspiration in my story if you are looking to make a career change to UX, and didn’t have formal training with HCI, Design, or something else tech related.
I am, by definition, a millennial. I like to preface by saying I am in the first wave of millennials — the ones that didn’t grow up with tech, had dial-up internet that made our parents’ phone lines busy all evening, and were freshman in college when Facebook became available. I also grew up in an extremely small rural town. Why am I telling you this? Because, a career in technology never even crossed my mind though high school and into college. I was told growing up that you wanted to be a teacher to have the summers off and job security, or a lawyer if you wanted to make money. Basically, if it wasn’t a career card in the game of Life I didn’t know it existed. The career books in my guidance counselor’s office were way out of date; and the teacher that taught careers class was 5 years past his retirement and still wore slacks and ties from the Nixon administration.
I liked art and wanted to get a job so I decided to go to college majoring in art education. FYI, an artist and teacher were both cards in the game of Life. After my first year, I immediately knew that I wanted no part in teaching elementary, middle, or high school and wanted to focus on painting and drawing and understanding creativity. People asked me what I was going to do with a fine arts degree and honestly, I didn’t know exactly. All I knew was that that I never felt more engaged, thoughtful, introspective and open minded. Art school taught me that I know almost nothing and that I can learn how to do almost anything. I loved art school so much that I didn’t want it to stop, so I kept going, I packed up my life and moved out west to pursue a MFA. Again, with no real end goal of practical real-world application for purchasing food and student loan repayment.
Still with me? Good, I promise this story will pay off and have something to do with UX.
After grad school, I moved to New Orleans on somewhat of a whim and I needed a job. After applying to countless jobs with no returned messages I was getting frustrated. I mean come on, I studied art for 7 years, it should be obvious that I can do anything. (I will write another article on the issues with recruiters matching job descriptions to resumes). The one practical real life skill I did have was I knew enough about Photoshop and Illustrator to fake my way into an interview. Finally, after a couple months I landed an extremely low paid position at a confection company to do all their design and branding. The company had a few brick and mortar stores and an e-commerce platform.
This was like grad school all over again, I soaked up everything I could about business, marketing, web design, and e-commerce. I started doing more and more research about careers in tech and came across this thing called UX. I was intrigued and realized that all of these parts of UX were the things I was passionate about. Creative problem solving, research, visual design, advocating for users, and a larger paycheck. This was my perfect career.
At this time in my life I was ready to move back to Pennsylvania closer to my small rural town, so I once again packed up my life to move. I applied to a job listing for a UX contractor at a large retailer in Pittsburgh, even though I was not totally qualified on paper. I had a wonderful phone and in person interview with a woman what took a chance and hired me, and the rest is history.
The traits that have allowed me to find success in the field of UX are:
Resourcefulness/hard work: If you don’t know something, learn to do it. Or find someone that does. Work harder than the people around you.
Admitting when you don’t know an answer: People will see through the BS and it will catch up with you.
Become a lifelong learner: Whether it is a new tool, testing concept or a new hobby, it’s important that we are lifelong learners at work and in our personal life.
Empathy: UX is all about empathy, you need to able to put yourself in your user’s mindset.
Creativity: It doesn’t just mean making art. Solving complex problems or looking at issues from a different angle is extraordinary valuable.
Take criticism: It will come from all sorts of people in all different ways — some will be useful and some wont. Take it all in stride and sort it out later.
Take a risk: Allow yourself to take risks and fail, even if they are small risks. You will learn more failing than playing it safe and hitting that target every time.
Just be a nice person: You will encounter enough “difficult stakeholders” in your career. Don’t be one of them. The universe will reward you.