Feeling new to UX? Five ways to unlock your early career success
Congratulations, you started a new career. You’re relieved to finally be done job hunting. It’s the only marathon with a moving finish line; you never know your current standing, and learn you’re done weeks after running past the finish line. But through it all you arrived, finally landing that coveted entry level UX job role. Anxiety follows your relief however, as you have no clue what you’ll be doing. Some of you are confident you can handle it, others feel like an imposter, or maybe you feel somewhere in between. Regardless, a new race is ahead of you. Two years into that contest myself I’ve learned a few things. So here are my five tips to those preparing to run their next marathon of being a UXer.
1. You are the expert, so take yourself seriously
You were hired for your expertise, so give it.
A new job can seem overwhelming (new people to meet, systems to learn, and responsibilities to handle). It’s easy to think that because you’re new you don’t know enough to offer expertise. When you’re new however, you come in knowing the latest developments, techniques, and tools. More than that, you come in with a fresh perspective — and that, my friends, is worth its weight in gold. If a company has faith enough to hire you, have faith enough in yourself to make big decisions.
You’re a professional now — act like it.
Don’t be casual about your career. If you don’t take yourself seriously, nobody else does either. If you act like your ideas don’t matter, then they won’t. If you lack confidence in your abilities, others will too. If you think responsibilities are better suited for someone else, they will be. You don’t need to pretend you’re a genius, but have confidence in what you do know and the skills you bring to the table. Nobody else knows your value like you do, so make sure you treat your own work with the respect it deserves. As Dr. Norman Peale comments on the famous “As If” principle from the great psychologist William James,
“If you want a quality, act as if you already have it. [This technique] is packed with power and it works.”
Don’t sweat assumptions too much
It’s okay to not know everything — nobody does. In this field you have to be comfortable with ambiguity. There will be moments where you don’t know what to do, what the best solution is, or even what the actual problem is. At those points you have to make a decision based on assumptions. Even if you have some data to offer direction, you’re not discovering axioms; they’re still assumptions. Your goal is to build enough evidence to conclude the assumptions are true. So at the end of the day, make the best designs you can with the most informed assumptions you have.
2. Don’t wait to be told
Take initiative and do things that bring value
Have you ever seen a problem at work and thought, “Huh, somebody should take care of that”. Guess who that somebody is: you. For example, my studio has breakout rooms with dry eraser boards for collaborative work. These boards were never cleaned and always covered in markings, so it was impossible to use them. I thought, “Somebody should take care of that.” So I did. Is cleaning white boards a part of my job description? Obviously not. But did I improve collaborative meetings for the entire studio? Yes, and that’s what matters most. If something needs fixing, do something about it. Don’t pretend someone else will do it. If they were going to, they would have done it already.
Work on solving the right problem
School tells you what to do. Business needs you to tell them what to do. When you are hired for a job, there are inherent expectations about what you will do and how you will do it. More often than not, however, what you should do and how you should do it differs from those expectations. Think of your company like a client; they have a problem and need you to fix it. But the presenting problem is always the symptom instead of the cause. If the client (your employer) were right about the actual problem, they would have fixed it already and wouldn’t need you. Your job is to identify the right problem to solve and the right way to solve it. Solutions in UX are often easy. Identifying the root problem is the hardest part.
You’ll see blind spots that others don’t
As mentioned, your fresh perspective is worth its weight in gold. You’re not yet entrenched in the status quo and have imagination that others lack. You’ll see blind spots that others don’t, but the value of what you see is only realized if you share it with your team. Sometimes your ideas will be too far-fetched or ill-informed to implement. But it’s easier to generate innovation by reigning in crazy ideas than building on simple ones. Don’t wait for someone to ask. Say what you see and share your vision, it’s worth more than you think.
3. Get everyone involved in research
Your value is only as good as your influence
With UX research, its value is entirely contingent on someone else doing something. Your contribution is how your work influences the outcomes of the product. Your work doesn’t do anything by itself. It only informs work to be done. This means your most important soft skill to develop is how to influence others. This includes your product manager, developers, and even your design team. Create relationships and make sure your work meets them where they’re at. If you don’t, anything you say will go in one ear and out the other. Ensure your research has staying power.
Don’t be the oracle
On the topic of influence, make sure you get as many members of your team involved in the research process as you can. Those who don’t do the research won’t remember it. You’ll become either a talking head or the user oracle, neither of which is good. Erika Hall wrote,
“Being one of the smart people is more fun than obeying the smart person.”
Research becomes real to those who experience it first hand. Don’t let the only participation others have in your work be listening to you report it.
Don’t assume others know what you know
Don’t assume other people know what you know about users, design, research, or whatever. Once we know something, it’s difficult to imagine what it would be like to not know it. It’s like water to a fish. Things that seem obvious to you are not always obvious to others. Research methods seem strange and convoluted to those who haven’t done it before. Do your work with the assumption that other’s don’t know as you, and interpret the research for them as they take part. Remember to be patient as they might be quick to forget things that seem memorable to you.
4. Be curious
Empathy first for your team, then for your users
Phil Gilbert, former head of design at IBM, taught empathy first for your team, and then for your users. Good design is a byproduct of a good team. Internal politics can play as much a part in your design work as your team’s skill does. Work on building a relationship around a shared vision with your product team first. Worry about users second. If you don’t buy into the concerns of your product team, they won’t buy into the concerns of your users. So first think about solutions that accommodate the needs of your team, and then your users. It’s a job of empathy, so make sure you have enough to go around.
Show interest in your work
If you want to be interesting, be interested. Curiosity in your design space creates a contagious attitude for others around you. You’ll impress people with your energy to tackle your work. Not every design space you work in will necessarily be exciting. But you can still be excited about your work because of the impact you can have. Think of a customer’s very first experience with a new Apple product. It’s not the display, or the tutorial, or the set up. It’s the packaging (aka the garbage). Think about how impactful that “garbage” is to the entire experience of the product. If that garbage doesn’t do its job (for example, the product gets busted while in the mail), the product also seems like trash. The mundane is not meaningless.
Speak your developers language
I’m not going to add to the debate on whether UXers need to code. But if you want your developers to respect you, you have to learn their domain. Too many design suggestions get made without understanding the technical details required. That lack of understanding can lower your credibility and influence with the team. When you recognize what you’re asking from your developers, you make better designs. Better designs garner better buy in. When you can understand your developers, they’ll understand you too. Seek for mutual understanding with them to lead to better outcomes.
5. Manage expectations
Learn what others are thinking
The first thing to manage when starting a new job is expectations. Your boss has them, you have them, even your teammates have them. More often than not, nobody tells you the expectations. You have to learn them yourself. Use your research skills to identify needs, ask questions of your team, and listen for what people don’t say. You can find out pretty quickly what’s important to them, what they don’t know, and where you need to fill in the gaps. But expectations are a two way street. Give them some of your expectations for yourself in return instead of letting them define it all for you.
You won’t always like your users
Users are like children, you’ll think they’re cute until they do things that drive you crazy. They won’t always want what you want for them. Sometimes you know what’s better for them. Other times they reveal your biases and teach you that you don’t always know what’s best. It’s a curious balancing act. Users are very good at identifying their problems, but not at voicing their needs. So don’t get caught up trying to deliver on their preferences or you’ll never hit the mark. Advocate for their voices, but advocate for things they can’t voice themselves as well.
Don’t lose the forest for the trees
No team is perfect. Political struggles between groups are real. Unlikable coworkers are real. The questions about “why do we need UX?” are real. There are plenty of problems that exist and any number of rabbit holes to get stuck in. Often what you want to do is never what’s actually possible. When that happens, remember that the first alternative isn’t always the best option. Keep perspective on your real goal: the user’s experience. Don’t get lost checking off boxes or iterating forever under the guise that it’s for your users. Details matter, but make sure you can always see the big picture so you don’t wander off course.
Navigating your early career is filled with exciting challenges. Some you’ll know were coming and others you’ll have never been able to expect. But just because you are new, doesn’t mean you have to feel new. Find mentors, be bold, and focus on the people around you. You’re not working right now on leaving a design legacy behind, so feel empowered to take risks. In five years time your work will likely be replaced, but the impressions you leave with others can last a lifetime. So now with your new marathon before you, get on your way. The front runners are calling for you to join them.
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Please visit www.ibm.com/design for more information on IBM Design.
Denver Nash is a Design Lead and User Researcher at IBM based in Poughkeepsie, NY. The above article is personal and does not necessarily represent IBM’s positions, strategies or opinions.
