From Rock Nerd(Geology) to Graphic Designer to UX designer — My design journey

Published in

Black UX Collective

8 min readSep 19, 2019

Wearing my Nigerian cultural outfit (Agbada) for my Bootcamp Demo day in Toronto CA.

The Beginning

When I was a little kid I always found myself asking questions. My mom “recalls” that I would always ask her, “Mummy who is this?”, “Mummy why are you wearing red?”, “Daddy who was the man mummy was talking to?” (I really hope I did not cause much trouble as I cannot remember much from back then lol). But all through my life I have always asked the question “Why”. I’ve always been curious since I was little, and I am still fascinated about figuring out how things work. I remember reading a book my dad bought on how things worked, from telephones (the old school roll to dial phones) to the record players.

Discovering Design in College

After high school, I went on to study Geology in college, as I loved geography and thought it would be similar. I was wrong. It was on another level of amazing.

My days in the University of Ibadan were tough but it was on that campus, circa 2009, that I discovered graphic design and motion design. My graphic design journey started with motion graphics and 3D. Then I discovered print design and posters (I was a student who needed the money) and I went on to do a lot of work for campus organizations and some other clients. Along the line, I created Autorun Softwares on 700mb CDs for yearbooks, course materials among others. While building these CD apps I would also think about how the users would navigate through the CD. I’d then create user interfaces in photoshop, “slice” them and stitch them together. This, in some way, was the beginning of my design thinking journey.

From Design to UX

I’ve been fortunate to work full-time in awesome startups in my graphic design career. I worked at Konga.com (an e-commerce company whose mission is to be the engine of trade and commerce in Africa) from 2014 and joined Andela (a startup that scales high-performing distributed engineering teams with Africa’s most talented software developers) in 2017. As technology became more accessible, with mobile and web experiences becoming more dynamic, I saw a need for me to increase my design skills to suit the technology industry. Hungry for knowledge, I took on side gigs (every designer should have a side gig) and I jumped on opportunities at work to design user interfaces and get feedback. I also learnt HTML and CSS to implement landing pages for e-commerce campaigns. I took on web development projects building websites on WordPress because I realized I could expand my skillset further. As my journey progressed, I assimilated skills in customer management, client empathy, negotiations, an eye for good design, presentation skills, receiving feedback from teammates and clients, motion graphics, art direction and front end development. My college degree in Geology helped me build analytical skills and logical thinking. All the skills I acquired over the years prepared me for my UX journey. But then there was a problem: “How do I become a UX designer?”.

Sample of some of my graphic design projects

My UX Journey and BrainStation

According to the Interaction Design Foundation (IDF), user experience (UX) design is the process design teams use to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users. I pondered over articles and resources (I will share these below) and continued to take on UI design projects to expand my knowledge. I joined the Interaction design foundation in 2018 and took a course “Become a UX Designer from Scratch”. This opened my eye to the possibilities of UX and how the skills I acquired over the years would come into play

In June 2019, I packed my bags and relocated from Lagos, Nigeria, to Toronto, Canada with big dreams to start a new life and a new career in a new location. I found BrainStation — a Bootcamp that offers a UX diploma after an intensive 12 weeks program. And I am glad to have been in a class with 28 other brilliant minds from different professional backgrounds (banking, law etc) looking to make a career switch. I took a huge risk, and as I reflect on the past 12 weeks was the Bootcamp worth it? Heck Yeah! With the knowledge I have acquired, I feel I am ready to take on the world of UX and solve complex problems that affect human lives globally.

You can check out my capstone case study “Healthwise” on my website www.mosope.xyz

Usability testing of a prototype. The setup includes an interviewer and a note-taker.

Validating ideas during a design sprint session with my sprint team.

Some screens from the Healthwise Application mockup.

Marketing website and Ipad App designed for the Healthwise app

Demo Day: Presenting my case study and prototypes

My Key Learnings from BrainStation UX Bootcamp

Below is no particular order are some of my key learnings from the program.

Your personal story is unique, never brush aside your life experiences especially if you are moving into UX from a different field.
Always be yourself, UX is one of the fields of work that your life experiences can be made useful. I know someone who moved into UX from a role as an actress. Always tell your story as you have a unique view about life.
Do not start solving a UX problem with a solution in mind.
It is very easy to imagine the solution to a problem when presented with one. In UX design you have to understand the problem space and the pain points of the user and solve for those problems.
If you have not heard about the “Double Diamond” (as my instructor Jonathan Lee hammered into us) now is a good time to research it. The double diamond starts from research and discovery, then moves into information synthesis, then to Ideation and lastly prototyping. User experience design is all about problem-solving. Your problem-solving skills are critical in user experience. How do you think and reason through processes?

You are most likely not the user of your product, the design is not about you.
Always empathize with the user. In user experience design, you are not designing based on what you like or what you think is the right action. Every idea and thoughts should be with the end-user in mind. Ideas and hypothesis should always be validated with the end-user of the product. Usability testing is very key.

It is critical to be able to communicate your design decisions
As a graphic designer, I am used to just presenting the final design or design options to a client. I had to learn to talk about my process, to clearly articulate my design decisions and back them up if possible with data. There are many ways to solve the same problem, communicating the reason for taking an approach is key to get buying from stakeholders and show you understand what you are doing.
Always document your processes
This comes in handy when writing case studies most especially. Anyone can come up with fancy design but the problem-solving approach is always different. Do you use sticky notes to synthesize data? take a picture and keep it. Did you sketch out ideas? take a picture and document it. These help to give validation to your design process.
Do not get “married” to your designs
It is very easy to be hurt when you present your design ideas and it gets thrown out of the window. Learn very early to not be emotionally invested in your design. It is very easy to be on the defensive when coming up with artifacts. Always be open to feedback and be ready to move on from ideas you feel are the best.
Always be an advocate of good UX design.
If you are just starting out your career or you want to ensure that UX is adopted in your work processes, always advocate for the user, always advocate for good processes. Design is everywhere and it is not related to digital products alone.

My design journey has been an interesting one and many people ask questions like “What is next for me in my career?”, “Where do I go from here?”. If you are at this point in your life my advice will be “DO NOT STOP LEARNING”. Every skill you learn will add to your arsenal and prove useful until you reach the right spot.

Not everyone will have the opportunity to attend a Bootcamp. There are great articles and courses that can help you get started in UX. Also, it is important you have a mentor that you can learn from and that will give you feedback on your works.