6 things every UX designer should do
Small things that keep you in the game, and help level up.
A good designer is not just someone who can make stuff up but the one who can solve problems, collaborate with a team and communicate the value to various stakeholders.
Design career as Julie Zhuo (VP, Product Design, Facebook) stated is divided into three parts:
Craft & Execution — sharpening the basics of design, mastering the tools, getting better at designing clear and visually aesthetic interfaces.
Product Thinking — Julie puts it this way: “Strong product thinking means that you understand what a good outcome is and how to design an experience that would lead to those good outcomes.”
Influencing Skills — clear communication, effective collaboration.”
and once you learned it you need to stay good at it, that needs regular practice.
So, these are 6 things you should start doing to stay relevant and progress
Make something other than work to stay creative
Problem
In our day jobs, we are hardcore focusing on designing solutions to the problems. The problem of the users, business, we how about technical constraints. While should aesthetically look good but it alone kills the creativity, that needs to be saved.
Creativity is nothing but a mind set free
~Torrie T. Asai
Creativity may be a bad UX but for sure an essential skill in idea generation in turn problem-solving.
What to do? (Solution)
Post a Dribbble shot once a week, and while keeping the basic UX and navigation hygiene in place show your creativity (duotone effect, excess white space, trying different fonts or just using colours that looks good but not related to the brand)
Do some pet projects, to unleash when it goes wild
Problem
When working in a corporate setup, we work mostly on the team. A bunch of designers, developers, business strategists and people from different backgrounds come together to solve a problem or fulfil a need.
But, can you create value in the world on your own? that’s the bigger question you need to answer
What to do? (Solution)
Do some personal projects once in a while, make a product for a smaller audience, sell a course or just make an MVP for your startup. Start a side hustle
Write to tell stories, communicate, and inspire
Problem
While most of the designers are good at solving the problem, but when it comes to communicating it to the stakeholders or inside the team about the decisions they took. They are not so comfortable.
Every great design begins with an even better story.
~Lorinda Mamo
Start sharing those stories. Lots of designers are good at their craft but when it comes to presenting it to the people, sharing it, they drop the ball.
What to do? (Solution)
Writing helps you become an effective communicator, it helps you to articulate your thoughts well. You eventually become better at documenting stuff, explaining the process. Document your processes, write about the designs you are working on currently.
Learn new skills faster, being a unicorn won’t hurt
Problem
As a designer’s role is evolving (both diverging and converging) every day, we need to stay out of comfort zone and learn new things to stay relevant whether it be learning how to code or understanding business.
What to do? (Solution)
Start learning new things. Nothing in the world matters more today than the ability to learn new things faster. Learn Illustrations, programming, business management, copywriting, or web development. It also helps in building pet projects.
Keep reading perspective and learnings from others
Problem
As designers, we are always on our toes to ship the next big thing. But, due to this lack of time, we don’t get asked most of the crucial questions before shipping. Which ends up causing several problems such as lack of consideration, behavioural shift and more.
While we cannot change the shipping deadline for most times but, what we at least can do is read about others experience in something similar, in same vertical, and adapt what worked best, and what didn’t at all.
What to do? (Solution)
Reading helps you to learn more perspective on things, unleash a bigger part of the world to you. You learn about new things, solves the dilemma, inspire you and you learn from people far more experienced in less time. Some articles from UX Planet, N/N group
Go out experience the world, because that’s where real problems are
Problem
A bigger part of a UX designer’s job is solving the problem, but what about maintaining our senses for seeing a problem, empathising with people and their daily struggles around old ways of commute to new ways of communication. One who can’t see a problem, can’t solve it.
What to do? (Solution)
Go to a local supermarket, watch other buying something, and experience buying a small thing first hand and see if you like it or can you think of some problems and ideate a solution for that.
Opposite of growing is never staying where you are. It is always failing.
All these things help a UX designer in growing and prepare for levelling up.
Thanks for reading!! would love to hear your views on the same.
What are some more relevant skills for UX Designers according to you?
Thanks for reading!! would love to hear your views on the same. Please share it on rohanmishra.design@gmail.com
Thanks for reading. 👏
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