1-Year Milestone: UX Designer Thoughts
As we begin 2024, this marks a special milestone in my career: 1-year of officially being a UX Designer. Although to some this may seem like a trivial moment, it was something that felt like a far off dream when I was first changing careers.
When I look back on this whirlwind of a year, I have some contradictory feelings. At times it feels like it has been the fastest year-to-date, but at the same time it feels like I have been doing this forever. If you asked me 5 years ago, I never would have guessed the direction my career has taken, but now I honestly couldn’t imagine it any other way. UX provides just the right amount of challenge and variation that I look forward to come to work everyday. I feel like I am in a state of constant learning and actually get to put these new skills into practice
I wanted to take this chance to reflect on the past year and think about what I have learned and in turn, where I want to keep improving. I am by no means a master at any of these things and I will be using them as focus points on how to growing my own skills this year. I hope this may serve as a guide for newer designers who are looking to better understand where they can keep improving as well.
Remember the User
Imagine this: you are deep in the weeds of your latest project, fielding different stakeholder’s input, trying to include all of the technical requirements, and understanding the latest business needs. In these moments, sometimes its possible to forget about WHO you are actually designing for. This is the point where you need to take a breath and really think about your users and shape your decisions based on their needs.
My User Goals
Personally, I want to consciously put the user into all of my design decisions and suggestions. This may not always entail a huge user research project, but I want to try to include as much as possible within the time and budget restrictions on projects. In this way, I can better communicate the rationale behind decisions and the user is being represented in everything that we do.
Communication is Key
I cannot stress enough how important communication is for a UX designer. You are not only communicating with your own team, you are reaching out to people across the organization for input depending on the project. It is extremely important to not only find ways to connect with others, but also be able to effectively communicate your design ideas to many different types of stakeholders. The best ideas come from open collaboration and willingness to give and receive feedback.
My Communication Goals
I have a goal this year of improving on my interactions and communications across the organization, focusing on improving those outside of my team. I feel like every team has a different way of operating and better understanding how individuals like to collaborate helps to open the channels of communication.
As an example, to better improve my developer interactions, I am actively working on bettering my skills in coding (If interested, I wrote about this experience in a past article!). Although I am nowhere as skilled as our engineers, learning a little bit has given me the ability to better understand what is possible and better communicate my design ideas.
I am also actively trying to improve on how I talk about my designs and my design decisions. Whether it is in a presentation setting or a casual critique, I want to be able to effectively convey the reasons behind my decisions. I will be practicing how to better tailor my storytelling and design presentations depending on the relevance to the different audiences.
Always Keep Learning
This year, I feel like I’ve learned so much, yet I still have barely scratched the surface of what there is to know. The field of UX is constantly evolving and as designers, we have to be willing to move along with it. With new technologies constantly appearing, it is an exciting time to be a designer. It is so important to keep an pulse on the industry and be willing to push your skills further and keep developing them.
My Learning Goals
I will continue to focus on increasing my skills in Figma and better understanding what they have to offer. With the introduction of variables last year, we have learned how to push the capabilities of our design library. I am looking to improve these skills further to be more comfortable contributing components and ideas to the library. I’m sure this will evolve as we hear more about what Figma will introduce this year!
I also will work to to stay up to date with changes in the industry and follow the latest UX trends. It becomes easy to slip into your normal routine and stuck within your own designs, but you never know what will help inspire your latest idea. I’m always curious about what is being done and hope that I can widen my knowledge and apply to my own designs.
Conclusion
I appreciate you taking the time to read through my reflection about what I learned this past year. If you’ve been able to get even a little bit of inspiration or better understanding as a designer, that would be a win in my eyes!
I truly am grateful for all of the mentors, fellow designers, and co-workers who have allowed me to get to where I am in my career today. I would never have been able to make it this far without the help of everyone in my community. Also, special shoutout to Tyler and RocketReach for always believing in me.
I’m excited to keep on learning and cannot wait to see what this next year will bring.
