From developer to UX designer: unexpected challenges
And how I dealt with them.
I was playing around with the idea of moving into User Experience for almost 3 years before I took the first concrete step. I did not know how to make it happen. Anxious about the prospect of dealing with a pay cut since I would have to start from the bottom. And all the while, I worried about learning the technical skills required to become a designer — foundations of user experience, techniques of user research and testing, learning the tools, keeping up with the trends, honing my creative side and so on.
When I started on the path to becoming a UX designer, I found that despite a steep learning curve, I was able to cope with things that I worried about. Easy access to tutorials and books helped me quickly level up my skills.
The things I was struggling with surprised me. Here is the list of the top 3 challenges I faced.
1. Imposter Syndrome
I was very fortunate to get the opportunity to shadow the in-house UX team at my company to learn the ropes. It started with random design assignments, nothing related to ongoing projects. I would show my work to the team leader and we would have one-on-one review sessions. I had limited interaction with others in the team. So far so good.
The first time I got a project work, I was thrilled. It was a small piece of an internal project that was being handled by a senior member of the team. I poured everything I had into it. When the time came for design review, I saw other team members come into the conference room. My heart started racing and my head went blank. These were design graduates sitting before me. And here I was — someone who had read a couple of books and saw a few tutorials, presenting my design. What if they laugh at me?
This feeling of incompetence and insecurity continued for a long time. Even though I was regularly assigned tasks from ongoing projects — an indication that I was doing good, I lacked confidence. “I don’t know, I was just trying it out” or “I didn’t think about it.”These are the things I would say when asked why I had made the design a certain way, even when I had proper reasons for doing it. I didn’t consider my opinions, ideas or suggestions to have much weight.
How did I deal with it?
- Building a solid foundation — This is true for venturing into anything new. The best way to build confidence is to be well learned in a subject. I read a lot of books design and combed through the internet to find useful articles and blogs. Youtube is a godsend for ‘how-to’ tutorials. It was how I learned my way around the different tools. Eventually, I enrolled in a couple of short courses to gain expertise.
- Learning the lingo — One thing I have learned while working as a professional is that being able to speak the right words can make or break your case. So besides grasping the concepts of usability and human psychology behind it, it is important to be well versed with the technical terms. I found this particularly helpful during conversations with fellow designers. It made me come across as someone who knows what they are talking about.
- Getting a certification — This is certainly not required for becoming a designer. But it was a crucial step for me. It gave me a mental boost — a standing amongst my design school peers. I choose the Certified Usability Analyst(CUA) offered by HFI for this.
2. Overanalysis
As a developer, I was trained to analyze — requirement analysis, impact analysis, feasibility analysis and so on. Whenever I explored a solution, I would think through the implementation details.
This mindset turned out to be a major roadblock when working as a designer. The purpose of the ideation phase during the early stages of design is to come up with as many ideas as possible. I found this almost impossible to do. When given a problem statement I could quickly come up with a design solution. Maybe a couple of solutions. But beyond that — nothing. For every idea, I would try to run through all possible scenarios. This drastically limited my ability to generate ideas. I understood the concept of “first diverge and then converge” but doing it was an arduous task.
How did I deal with it?
- Learning idea generation techniques — Turns out this is a problem faced by a lot of designers too. Quite a few techniques have been developed over time. I invested time in learning them. I still struggle with this problem but at least I know my way around it now. These techniques help me set aside the detailed analysis tendencies and concentrate on quantity.
- Brainstorming sessions with other designers — More than anything else this helped me get an idea of how designers think. How they process information (requirements) and synthesize their ideas. It also gave me a sense of how much detail needs to be put into design concepts at different stages of the cycle — assisting me to balance ideation and analysis.
- Getting a dose of daily inspiration — This is the secret behind most successful designers. They spend time looking at other people’s work. Ask any designer and they can tell you on the spot 5 places they look for inspiration. It could be platforms like Dribbble, Behance or some aggregator websites or publications on Medium or IG accounts. This is something they do every day not just when they are searching for a design reference. I started by looking at websites my teammates followed. I still have to remind myself to visit these websites every day. With time I have found ways to integrate this into my everyday routine.
3. Vague Requirements
As part of an Agile team, it was drilled into my brain to not take up any user story for development unless the requirement, expected behaviour, and acceptance criteria were crystal clear. So when the first time I was told something like “why don’t you show us some design options and we will figure out which direction we want to take”, I did not know how to respond.
After a swim in the pool of lucid and crisp requirements, I was now flailing my arms around in the puddle of murky visions and vague expectations.
The other designers in the team were not fond of projects with unclear requirements but they seemed to be at ease in such a situation.
How did I deal with it?
- A deeper understanding of the design process — Most design frameworks like Double Diamond are meant to first sort through unclear problem statements and then coming up with an appropriate solution. Over time I also figured out which methods or techniques are best suited for which scenario. For example, flowcharts work quite well when trying to make sense of a complicated feature.
- Accepting that ‘Show and tell’ works better — No matter if you are talking to a child or an industry expert, show and tell always works better. It is a simple truth. We could spend time talking about something or writing documentation to explain it but nothing brings as much clarity as seeing the thing. Even if the feedback is “No this is not what I wanted” is a starting point.
- Becoming a facilitator — The business, tech and design teams often find themselves at odds with each other in terms of priorities. This leads to confusing and or frequently changing requirements. I picked up some tools my teammates used to facilitate discussions and arriving at a place where everyone agrees with what the requirement is.
- Empathizing — As user experience designers we are taught to empathize with users. We should also learn to empathize with the development and product team. Instead of getting frustrated with them, take a step back and learn where they are coming from. What are their expectations and needs from the design? It’s something I struggle with every day — but I am getting better. And hey if not us then who else can champion empathy!
Conclusion
In my experience, changing professional lanes requires more than just acquiring hard skills. A mental shift is necessary to facilitate the effective implementation of the new skills learnt. All the three challenges that I listed above required both hard skills and a change in my perspective to overcome.
If you are facing any similar challenges then you are more than welcome to my list of the books, tools and techniques that help me get through them.
