Work On Your Communication And Collaboration Skills
Marc: It’s not only about designing… to get designs to life you have to collaborate, you have to work with other people and in teams.
Master your communication skills. Great designers are great communicators.
Siying: Besides spending the first couple of years perfecting your craft, I think it’s also equally important to work on the ability to articulate your ideas, design decisions, and solutions to a variety of audiences. It may be easy to have discussions about design with people within your field, but the challenge comes in translating that knowledge into something comprehensible for the larger crowd (clients, stakeholders, users, etc).
I wish there was a shortcut to this, but truthfully the only way is to practice — write, listen, share your work, explain what UX design is to your parents — whatever means it is that gets you talking about your work, use that as an opportunity to practice your communication skills.
Learn From Others & Give Yourself Time To Learn
Barbara: Get close to talented colleagues who inspire you. Find a mentor! Stay connected and build a strong network!
In the agency where I worked before, I had many very talented colleagues from different fields such as visual or product design. I discussed incredibly much with them and learned a lot about the broad field of design and engineering. Some of them were like a mentor for me, whom I still ask for advice today.
Finding some role models was one of the best things to develop my skills.
Lena: Don’t hesitate to ask others for comments and help, it’s not a sign of weakness, but rather strength, as you’re not afraid of critique. Learn to listen to others, but also stick to your opinion, if you feel like that. Provide help and feedback to your colleague, you always grow as a team.
By supporting each other, helping each other out, criticizing each other’s work and learning that together you can reach 120 percent.
Take your position as Junior as an advantage, nobody expects you to know everything anyway, which is great. Means, don’t be afraid to fail and make mistakes.
Don’t be in a rush, take your time for growing.
Accept Challenges And Mistakes
Siying: Being open to challenges and learning to sit with my fears in uncomfortable situations, because when I’m able to overcome those challenges I evolve personally and professionally.
My mistakes and failures are actually some of the most important lessons in disguise.
Be adaptable, especially in an industry where we’re faced with an ever-changing landscape. Adaptability in the sense of experimenting, trying different approaches, and learning to work together in new ways. It’s probably one of the most important traits that can ensure your growth and survival as a designer in the long run.
Looking back, I wish I had learned earlier how to let go, be okay with imperfections and come to terms with the fact that your work will never feel completely polished.
When you’re new, it’s like there’s this fire in you that constantly wants to keep striving for more and do better. It’s not inherently good or bad — it can either drive you to accomplish way more than what’s expected of you, or it can unwittingly put you in a state of “analysis paralysis” (where you’re perpetually stuck in a loop, because your work is never “good enough”).
Recognize this behavior, learn to work with constraints and be contented with what you’ve created within the given timeframe, circumstances, and resources.
Explore The Breadth Of UX Design And Beyond
Marc: Design nowadays is very fragmented. So, try out many things and work on all kinds of different projects and in various industries to develop yourself.
Barbara: Be curious.Try to soak up as much as possible, whether or not it is directly related to your field of work as a UX designer. Work on different projects (if possible).
Zanwei: For designers, I think the most important thing is to understand the meaning of design in the first two years of work. In school, design is quite unrestricted.
But for work, the value of design comes from realizing its business value under limited conditions. Therefore, we need to learn to take into account the larger view when solving the problem.
Be Conscientious About Developing
Barbara: Over time, set new goals that you want to achieve and try to take every opportunity to achieve them (e.g. improve presentation skills).
Step by step (you cannot learn all at once)!
Siying: Not only is project documentation essential in building your portfolio, it also doubles as an opportunity for self-reflection that can be extremely beneficial for both professional and personal growth.
Make it a habit to write a summary at the end of every project — of the things that went well, the challenges faced, what you’ve learned and what could’ve been done better. Doing this at the end of every project (while the details are still fresh in your head) allows you to apply your learnings as soon as you embark on your next project. It can also save you a lot of time, and makes everything way easier by the time you decide to put together your portfolio.
Find And Show Your Individuality And Value
Barbara: Form a strong opinion. Be loud (especially as a woman)! Assert yourself!
Looking back to when I first started, I wish I had had more courage, spoken my mind more. You think as a junior, opinion isn’t worth that much, but it is the opposite.
I had a time when I did not know exactly in which direction I wanted to develop, had no specific skills. I read a lot of books and blogs (e.g. about speculative design, coding, art, Swiss Graphic Design) and thus gained a broad knowledge. It helped me to define myself as a designer.
Don’t focus on the others, focus on yourself! Don’t look at what others do, but concentrate on your skills and the path you want to take as a designer.
Marc: The only few opportunities you have to be independent in your work is your portfolio and your side projects. So, use this freedom and show us something very personal.
Yingchun: I wish I had thought more: “What is design to you? What do you want? What are you willing to invest in this?”
Design as a career isn’t just a job, it’s a way of life.
Lena: Sounds quite cliché, but start believing in your gut feeling and skills. Don’t underestimate your experience you collected so far, same as you can criticize design artifacts, you can identify weak points to improve your own work. If you feel something is not right yet, then most of the time it’s true.
I would do it all over again, but I remember there was one thing I felt so uncomfortable and unsure in the beginning. Talking about money.
Designers should learn to know their value and be confident about themselves, which also means to expect a fair salary.
It’s a collective problem of designers to undersell themselves. As a general rule, put 10 percent on top of what you think you are worth. If you are a woman 15 percent.
If You’re Stuck And Don’t Know How to Start: Some More Tips From Marc, Our Chief Creative Officer
Start copying. “Start copying what you love. Copy copy copy. At the end of the copy you will find yourself.” (Yohi Yamamoto)
Remember: Even the Beatles started as a cover band. And after emulating Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Elvis, and playing thousands of live shows as a cover band, they started writing their own songs as a way to avoid other bands being able to play their set. Eventually Paul McCartney and John Lennon became one of the greatest songwriting teams in history.
Thank you to the UX Designers who shared their advice: Barbara Schussmann, Lena Heinrich, Siying Ong, Yingchun Hu, Zanwei Guo
MING Labs is a leading digital business builder located in Berlin, Munich, New York City, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Singapore. We guide clients in designing their businesses for the future, ensuring they are leaders in the field of innovation.
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