Dear Ueno: How to be brave and start all over again (as a UX designer)?
Dear Ueno is an advice column for people who for some weird reason think we know what we’re doing. Find out more, or read our old advice.
Kun (pronounced like “fun”) emailed us:
“Hello. Having been a Graphic Designer for almost eight years, I’m about to go back to school to become a UX Designer and eventually a Product Designer. I’ve seen how important it is for a designer to empathize and connect with users, but with everything becoming obsolete so fast now starting a new career path in my thirties is a very scary thought.
Could you give me any advice on how to be BRAVE and start all over as a UX designer? And how is UX different from Product Design?”
Liya Safina, Product designer at Ueno NYC, replies:
Hey there Kun, and thanks for your questions! What a great adventure you’re embarking on, I’m so excited for you!
Question 1: How to be brave when starting over?
To recap: You’ve set out to quit your job and evolve your career; you’re not afraid of being vulnerable by going back to school; you’re following your gut and your brain by first learning UX and then becoming a Product Designer.
This sounds pretty damn brave to me!
Here’s a fun fact: I’ve evolved my career six times now (and I’m 29) — from an architect, design magazine editor, educational researcher and methodologist, facilitator, UX designer to (eventually) a product designer. For some people this list indicates that I don’t know what to do in life — for me it indicates an organic evolution of a well-rounded designer.
Frankly, Kun, this probably won’t be the last career evolution for you (or me). Gone are the days when our grandfathers worked at the same factory for 30 years. As technology creates new ways to automate things, humans adapt, cross-pollinate the knowledge from different industries to eventually become an advanced version of a T-shaped professional. (We’re betting on an M-shape. Hit us up with a book deal!)
Who knows, maybe in 20 years you decide that life in front of a monitor is not for you. You’ll move to the countryside or open a restaurant. Or become a sculptor. Either way, all your previous careers will allow you to start from a solid foundation of understanding the user, an eye for aesthetics, and a strong grasp of the business requirements. Plus an ability to rapidly learn. Sounds pretty damn good, doesn’t it?
“Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.”
— Herbert Gerjuoy, psychologist of the Human Resources Research Organization and a cool dude who’s giving us hope.
A few practical steps to make any career transition less scary:
- Money: You’ll need time for education and networking so make sure you have enough savings for at least 6–8 months, or keep freelancing with your old job on the side (who said you should abandon it right away?).
- Education: First and most important step is getting to know what exactly you don’t know yet. A lot of people make a mistake by diving right into “lesson 1" without getting a proper overview of the field. Take time to glance over the contents page: what are the aspects of the job, tools, principles etc — this will provide context, let you know how to formulate your questions in a smart way (and be efficient with your keyword searches in Google). This will help you with the next bullet point too.
- Talk: Reach out to good and smart people in your chosen field, go for coffees, go to events, email or tweet at people who write things you like. (Make sure they know you don’t want favors, just their opinion — you’ll get ignored a lot but don’t let that stop you.)
- Get a mentor: Not a stranger. You want someone that you have a connection with. You’re asking a person to commit to a time-consuming process, let them get to know you first. Ultimately people will agree to be your mentor if they like you — and they can like you for many reasons: general charm, common background, a smart and intriguing question. Take time to establish that rapport. Here (1) are (2) a few (3) tips on how to do that.
- Volunteer at professional events: Help out at Meetups, professional communities (e.g. UX+XX, Creative Mornings, House of Genius), conferences etc. This kills a bunch of birds with one stone: education, networking, potential mentor connections, social support system, career opportunity leads.
Question 2: How is UX different from Product Design?
Wow. At first this seemed like a simple question but it sparked a huge discussion among the NYC design team. Tech disciplines evolve and fine-tune their nomenclature so rapidly nowadays that it’s sometimes hard to define them. But let me try!
UX Design has been around pretty much from the moment interfaces appeared. Those doing it used to be called “User Interface Architects” and other fancy names. In the 90s and early 2000s, however, the title “UX Designer” gained popularity, with the following responsibility list:
- User Research: figure out the exact portrait and needs of the user, understand the context of the usage and which features are the most important;
- Information Architecture: map the contents of a website or digital product in a logical (for the user) way, while also organizing the navigation and user flows;
- Wireframing and Prototyping: figure out visual organization of each page, content hierarchy and density, map all the states and potential ways the interface can break;
- User Testing and (some level of) Quality Assurance: plan and conduct user testing events, analyze the way people use the designs and suggest improvements based on these insights; “proofread” designs before launch to make sure what launches works as planned.
Every company has different variations of additional responsibilities on top of this list, but generally it’s always about improving the usability, accessibility, and user delight in the interaction with the product.
Product Design, on the other hand, encompasses the holistic process of creating digital products. On top of UX skills we also add visual design aspects (transference of a brand’s voice and visual assets to a product’s interface) and understanding of business strategy (e.g. feature feasibility within budget constraints, road-mapping the product, confirming product/market fit, to name a few — depends on company requirements).
So what are the core differences between UX and Product Design?
- Product Designers do visual design, UX designers stop at the wireframing stage of visualization;
- Product Designers rarely engage in extended user research and elaborate testing (but of course this depends on a specific company) — for a UX-er this is half of their job;
- Product Designers are expected to understand and execute holistic process of creating a digital product while UX-ers are only responsible for a specific part of it.
The key thing to understand is that while a UX Designer has a very specific function and needs to master it (e.g. be a steak knife), a product designer is a “jack of all trades” (like a Swiss Army knife that can cut pretty well, but also do a lot of other things). Sasha, Ueno’s Head of Product Design, wrote a whole article about it that you should probably click on right now and read.
Alright, Kun, let’s hope by the time you finish school another trendy design title doesn’t appear. But even if it does — who cares, when you love what you do, know how to learn, adapt and evolve?
Best,
— Liya
Liya Safina is Product designer at Ueno NYC who likes her Instagram more than Twitter, and thinks you really should see “Sleep No More,” an immersive play currently playing at the McKittrick Hotel in New York, and no, she’s not getting paid to say this. To ask us questions, email hi@ueno.co with the subject line “Dear Ueno,” or tweet at us with the hashtag #DearUeno. Include your name, location, and profession — real or fake. Ok, thanks.
