My Top 3 Challenges in Switching Career from an Advertising Background to Product Visual Designer (and How I Overcome Them)
For 5 years, from 2016โ2020, I worked as a designer in advertising agencies and handled many clients from various industries including tobacco, automotive, consumer goods, insurance, beauty products, and many more. My scope of work in the first 3 years focused on graphics, branding, and art direction, while in the last 2, I focused more on the UI/UX scopes.
Throughout those 5 years, I knew that there was something that can be improved with the design process and workflow. Back then, I really liked to read articles and watch videos about UI/UX design โ mostly regarding Product Design, and I realized there are some steps or processes that I skipped and never experienced at the companies I worked with.
In advertising agencies, we were tasked to complete a product/website with a tight deadline where there was no time to do proper or ideal research. There was a time when I was at a point in my career where I was looking forward to new challenges and was ready to take on more of a technical role in the UI/UX or Product Design scope. So I thought it would be very interesting to apply to Traveloka as a Visual Designer because it aligned with my career goals.
Why Traveloka? Well, based on my research from reading Traveloka Medium and watching some videos on YouTube that discuss Product Design in Indonesia, I saw that the Traveloka team never stops exploring ways or ideas to achieve the best product for users. Therefore, I felt that Traveloka is the right place for me to grow my skills as there is a lot to learn there.
Challenge 1: Fulfilling the Visual Designer Standard
At the beginning when I joined, I was aware of so many things I must learn, especially the things related to the workflow. I spent more of my time during office hours looking at all the working files in Figma, getting used to them, and learning Momentum as a design system.
When I was assigned my first project, it didnโt go smoothly. I realized that the approach I took could be further improved.
Instead of studying the product knowledge/context first, I was too focused on the aesthetics. Instead of asking a lot of questions and asking for feedback, I was silent and didnโt follow up on the problems I faced. Itโs kind of hard for me to adapt to this mindset because itโs not something that I was familiar with.
In the advertising agencies, most of the output I produced was treated as marketing tools because the goal was to gain awareness, not directly offering a product or service. Thatโs why in my past jobs I worked so hard to beautify the output.
At Traveloka, there was a time when I felt so anxious but thankfully my internal team (especially my manager) helped me a lot through my hard times. Being honest and open to feedback is the key. Before designing for humans, donโt forget that you are a human too. Mistakes happen to everyone, but being able to change for the better is a different thing.
I tried to rise up, I changed my mindset from a designer in an advertising agency to a product designer. I read all of the documents related to the project, trying to understand the problems, understand our users, understand the business goals, seize opportunities, and ideate well-thought solutions by learning the scope and flow that fits my project.
I started taking the initiative to sync/huddle with product managers, engineers, and also designers from other teams. I recorded all my syncs/meetings so I could watch them again later. This method was very effective for me as it helped me understand better and get deeper into the product context and knowledge. I also regularly asked for feedback from the design team and stakeholders so that the deliverables I made are in accordance with the standards.
I found out that working as a Visual Designer is not just about nice-looking screens, itโs about finding the best solutions for the user and the business.
Challenge 2: Communication Skill
As a designer with a shy personality, my public speaking skill is sufficient (not bad, but not good either). In accordance with my previous work experience, where I didnโt get enough opportunities to speak up and defend the design deliverables that I created, I had a mindset that a designer can only work on visuals without paying attention to good communication factors, โlet the visuals do the talkingโ as they said.
This was very different when I became a Visual Designer. My design and art direction skills, essentially the output, are not enough to convince everyone without explaining in as much detail as possible. At first, I thought this was a big constraint for me, but as time went by I felt otherwise. I felt like this is the time for me to get a chance to speak up and convey the design decisions that I made. I learned to present well by shadowing other designers when they conducted a session.
When I present my work, I usually use storytelling (user stories) techniques, because it helps articulate what values a product feature can bring and create a better understanding of why users need a specific functionality. Itโs in human nature to tell stories as well as to listen to them. It helps me establish the user perspective to stakeholders. Stakeholders here are not only product managers, but my design lead, and everyone involved in a product development.
For me, clear communication is key to making the session go smoothly and getting to the finish line. I try to keep in mind at all times that the more I say in detail, the better. With a lot of information having to be conveyed, I must communicate it in a reasonable way that is backed by strong data to ensure the stakeholders know what Iโm saying.
In order to communicate effectively, designers need to hone empathy and clearly frame their work.
It doesnโt matter how good you are at designing products if you canโt effectively communicate the value of your designs.
Challenge 3: Conducting a Usability Testing
Usability testing is the process of finding out how easy or difficult it is for users of a product or service to interact with it. While quantitative measures usersโ performance on a given task through the percentage of users who completed a given task, qualitative testing understands deeper on how they experience the product and why they performed certain actions.
Usability testing is one of the steps of the process as a Visual Designer. As a Visual Designer, Iโm required to do this phase end-to-end: Making a testing plan, preparing visual materials, developing the contents and questions, contacting participants, and conducting the testing. Again, this is a new experience for me. At my previous companies, I was only in charge of preparing visual materials without having to develop content or questions. This was totally new to me.
Fortunately, the design team is willing to help me. They suggest what testing method should be used for my first project and whether it should be conducted with qualitative or quantitative methodology. They taught me how to develop content or questions for the test and how to use the testing tools. They also gave advice on how to contact participants properly.
As time went by, after successfully conducting usability testing using the quantitative method (using Maze as a testing tool), I conducted another testing for the next project by using a qualitative method (user interview). At first, I was confused because I had never done an in-depth interview before. But this time I was much more prepared, so I took the initiative to shadow my peers while they were conducting a testing. I observed what they did when they conducted qualitative usability testing and how they elaborated on the participantโs feedback. I also studied the testing plan made by other visual designers and read about how to create proper content (interactive prototypes), questions, and scenarios that are relevant to the goals of a project.
The qualitative method turned out to be much more comprehensive, as I was also able to understand what users were feeling and get new perspectives that I had never thought of before, so I could leverage their insights to make iterations.
I am very happy when I get a positive feedback from one of the participants. I realized that this is a phase that gives me a lot of new experiences and makes me more empathetic to users.
So, all in all, by transitioning to visual designer, there is something to learn every day. You will never stop finding something new. Figma is simply a tool, it efficiently helps, but wonโt bring any impact or value unless you also bring well-thought solutions. You cannot work alone because your work needs a collaborative process. Yes, you can abandon the trope of the lone designer!
