My journey from architecture to UX design

Ever since I transitioned from being an architect to a UX designer I have been contacted by many people struggling with their careers and wanting to make the same change.

I’m writing this article to get my own story straight, reflect on my career so far, and try to answer the questions I get usually asked.

I think I was around 10, playing with my set of Lego when I decided I wanted to be an architect. I soon became obsessed with shapes, colours, and most of all understanding how things work. I found buildings to have a complexity that I found mesmerizing. They are art and science. They talk about cultures, traditions, and people. And I wanted to be part of that.

ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL

I never had a doubt. I started my Architecture degree and learned (through sleepless nights, travels, site visits, plans, wood models, and lots of coffee) about spaces, construction, materials, history, structures, and much more.

In 3rd year I took a lesson on architectural history. The class was about English architecture in the 19th century and its main character, John Nash. Our teacher talked about how he designed with the human scale in mind. He was not trying to make people small, like gothic cathedrals or the French boulevards that were being built at the time. He was trying to make them feel comfortable, creating spaces that people could process without being overwhelmed.

I wondered why that wasn’t the main priority of our studies. How did Le Corbusier, an elitist fascist priest that wanted to destroy the center of Paris to build skyscrapers become the main representative of modern architecture? I felt I was being taught that architecture will teach people how to live “properly”, and not the other way around. Why was that?

MY CAREER AS AN ARCHITECT

I still finished my Masters and started working… Turns out my journey in the architecture profession did not have a lot to do with what I studied for the past 6 years. Although things have picked up since 2012, it didn’t help that I graduated in Spain in the worst construction crisis the country had ever seen, and I found myself fighting to work for free for quite some time.

I did feel lucky enough to be able to work in my field and get more and more experience. I loved the early stages of a project: coming up with concepts, figuring the functionality of the spaces, and interacting with clients to create spaces that would cater specifically to them. I had begun my journey towards human-centered design, I just did not know it yet.

Fast forward to 8 years later, my career was a mix of final projects for students, furniture, renovations, and finally building entertainment centres in the Middle East. But I was getting more and more frustrated by projects taking years to finish, construction stages, spending weeks drawing things that have already been fully decided, or unrealistic budget restrictions.

I tried many times to steer my career in a direction that would make me happy, but I never really managed to do so. I was still affected by those early years and struggled to know my worth as an architect. Eventually, I realized it wasn’t possible to create a portfolio that made me proud of and defined who I was. I needed a new start.

HOW I BUMPED INTO UX

I started by thinking about what I enjoyed doing at work. The list looked a bit like this one:

• Talking to clients and understanding their needs.
• Early stages of design, figuring out how a space works
• Creating concepts
• Coming up with new ideas
• Form definitely follows function
• Creating presentations, storylines, diagrams for your projects so people understand where you’re coming from

One day, I was at my friend Jaco’s house while he was working for his new company, where he had recently been hired as a senior UX designer. He started to talk to me about UX and I was hooked. I felt it was keeping the parts I found the most exciting about architecture while leaving what frustrated me behind.

UX is about developing spaces in the digital world. In a way, you are an architect for websites, apps, or interfaces. But instead of understanding and solving the needs of, let’s say a family, you solve the needs of thousands of people at a time. Your client and your users are now always different people, so it is much easier to have objective arguments when looking at data about a third party. And instead of working on projects that can take years to solve, UX is usually organized in short sprints that look at a certain functionality.

I looked for a way to join the UX world as soon as possible. I found there currently are mainly 3 ways of starting your journey: Higher education, Bootcamps, or Self-learning.

I chose General Assembly’s 3-month immersive program as it was the quickest way to get into UX. A couple of people I had met did it a few years prior and I eventually decided to follow their advice.

GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The beginning of the course was rough. The course was filled with ice breakers, games, activities between lessons, and in a way that I felt I was spending a thousand pounds every week on playing musical chairs. Coming from architecture school, this was a change of pace that I was struggling to take in.

But soon I realized that I was learning. A lot. And it was in a way where you did not feel constantly at your limit, you had time to process the lessons and did not forget them 20 minutes after.

GA was a very good experience overall. I mean, for the price, it may as well be. Working while doing it is virtually impossible, and you need to be able to pay fees and afford life in London for 3 to 4 months, and without any guarantee you will find a job straight away. As you need time to prepare your portfolio, this may take even longer. But it delivers, and you have the best time while doing so. By the end of the Bootcamp, I was confident enough to start applying for roles.

JOB HUNTING

After finishing the course, you are expected to build your portfolio in order to start applying for jobs. UX portfolios are quite different from architecture ones. In architecture, one may focus on construction details, renders, or layouts. For UX it is the process that matters. You need to be able to show diagrams and thought processes graphically, so documenting your work, taking pictures of your sketches, design studios and walls filled with post-its as you go comes in really handy.

When it comes to how to show your work to potential employers, everyone has a different opinion. Medium case studies are somehow expected but I don’t believe anyone really has time to read 4 ten-minute essays per applicant. For better or worse, there are many junior UX applicants out there, and they have websites and case studies for reference. Ultimately, it is up to you how to deliver your work in a way that is understandable. Some people create a website, some a PDF file. I personally went for a PDF summary, then in-depth presentations for my projects that I would show in interviews.

People from all backgrounds go into General Assembly and your previous experience is what potential employers dive most into. During the interview process, I quickly found out that architecture was a very useful background for UX, but you had to find a way to explain it as it may not seem obvious at first. With every question they had, I would find myself steering towards architecture, and I felt the challenge was how to circle back into UX.

I also underestimated the power of networking. Getting that first role is not easy. You hear how UX is one of the most sought-after jobs but as far as junior roles go, there aren’t that many, and they are usually not advertised that much. You had to really focus a lot of your time and energy on going to meetups, conferences, and making connections and most of the people from my Bootcamp got their first roles that way. After getting a referral from a friend, I finally landed my first UX role at Reach.

MY CURRENT ROLE

I don’t think I can quite compare my previous experience in small companies with this new role. The differences in management, benefits, training options are countless, but some of that might be due to working at a large organisation for the first time.

Currently, we are a team of around 16 people, separated into 3 departments: Research, UX, and UI.

As a rough description, Research’s main job is to talk to users and understand their behaviours and frustrations, then in UX, we come up with ideas and generate solutions that create better interactions between users and our product. Finally, we pass the torch to UI that works on the graphic side of things.

Our job is to be the ambassadors for the user in meetings and defend their interests with stakeholders, developers, and other parties. It can range from optimising a registration process, figuring out how to place ads on a site, or revamping the whole online presence of a national newspaper.

I love how quickly you see results. Your ideas get tested straight away and it is so easy to see if they work or not. Working digital-only is just as if your 3d models were the final product, not having to budget, spec, and build your designs. And the best part is that I get to work on the parts of the design process that I love, and can make a successful career out of it!

CONCLUSION

I hope sharing my story helps if you are interested in pursuing a career as a UX designer. It is definitely not for every architect, but some of us can definitely build a much happier future in UX, and there is no better time than now!

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If you relate to my story in any way, here’s where you read a bit about UX and figure out what we do. UX collective and Nielsen Norman Group offer curated articles and stories about many UX related topics. Medium is the go-to place for case studies, and while Behance and Dribbble may be more UI led, they can easily become your new Pinterest.