A Day in the Life of an Acquia UX Designer
Hey! I’m a UX Designer at Acquia, an open source digital experience company in Boston, MA. My job is to improve our digital products by investigating our current and potential users’ needs and improving or creating new feature workflows based on data and research. Much of this work requires me to work collaboratively with PMs and Engineering as well as within our UX team with our UX Researchers and UI Designers.
7:00 AM: Wake up and (hopefully) do a morning workout. I’m not a morning person so if I’m able to drag myself out of bed to get one in, then that’s a win for the day in my book. Since I can’t have any pets in my apartment, I’ve resorted to plants so I check up on them in the morning before I leave for work.
8:30 AM: Everyone needs coffee so usually at some point during the day I’ll take a coffee break with my co-workers at a local café to take a break from the office. I didn’t have any pressing morning meetings today so I met up with one of my co-workers before work.
8:50 AM: My walk to the office isn’t super glorious, but the beautiful glass building that we’re lucky to call home, is a sight to see. In terms of the location, we have it pretty good too. We’re located in Downtown Boston near a whole bunch of good coffee and lunch spots.
9:00 AM: When I get into the office I usually settle into my desk to check my emails and Slack messages, catch up with nearby co-workers, and look at my schedule for the day. One of the things I love about my job is that every day is different. Some days I get big chunks of time to work on my projects while other days I need to touch base with various roles across the company to loop them in, get feedback, or handoff my current work. Today looks like I have a mix.
9:30 AM: When I don’t have meetings, I jump into whatever projects are on my plate which usually involves designing wireframes or a prototype in Axure. Anyone who knows me knows I love Axure. For all you shaking their head, yes, I know there are other wonderful tools out there. Despite that I’m definitely privy to it because it was the first prototyping tool I mastered, Axure also works to my advantage. Due to the complexity of our products, I need to build out intricate workflows to test with users and Axure allows me to dig deep into the details. Today I’m wrapping up some edits to a prototype for a new feature.
11:00 AM: The (internally) famous Acquia Snack Wall. Throughout the day the Snack Wall is restocked by a snack fairy with an abundance of (mostly good!) snacks. So you gotta get there early to get the best stuff!
11:30 AM: Met with one of our UX Researchers to review the prototype I finished up earlier. They’ll use it to conduct remote usability tests with our customers over the next week. At this point we’ve already identified what we’d like to test and learn from the users so this is our last check-in to make sure I’m not missing any key pieces of the flows.
12:30 PM: What I do for lunch depends on the day and whether or not I brought lunch. We have a great kitchen and eating area that my coworkers and I will frequent to for lunch. Or we’ll find one of the office’s many nooks to eat in a quieter area.
2:00 PM: Once a week, our UX team, which includes designers, researchers, managers, and our fearless leader (aka UX Director), gathers to update the team on what we’re working on and any important updates. Our team is unique in Acquia because we’re spread across various products and projects. This means our team typically doesn’t interact day-to-day, so this meeting gives us the chance to stay in the loop and make sure we’re still communicating and are in the know about important things.
3:00 PM: I recently handed off a set of wireframes to our UI Designer to start applying final designs so we met to review the work so I could provide any feedback or discuss any changes he suggests.
4:00 PM: I designed some improvements to a feature that’s currently in the build phase so sometimes I need to sit down with one of the front-end engineers (in person or remotely) to answer their questions or QA the work. We use Jira to capture the details but it tends to be easier to take a stroll by their desk or ping them on Slack instead.
5:00 PM: When my workday usually wraps up, I head home to enjoy the rest of my night but today I’m heading over to the Museum of Fine Arts. I come from a graphic design background so to get back to my roots, I’ve been taking a weekly watercolor class at the MFA. Plus it doesn’t hurt to bring in a little inspiration from the greats back into my day-to-day work.
Every day is different and that’s what makes my job so interesting and rewarding. I work with amazing people who all strive towards the same goal of designing great products for our users.
Acquia is the open source digital experience company that empowers the world’s most ambitious brands to embrace innovation and create customer moments that matter. If you’re a talented UX/CX Designer or Researcher, come join us! We’re growing our team. Check out our open positions.
