How to become UX designer

Want to become a UX designer or enhance your UX skills? Adhere to this information on how to become a UX designer to develop an excellent professional in the UX area. The following blog includes basic principles of UX, and some suggestions & sources to help you on your way to becoming a UX designer –

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What is a UX design?

People often ask “What is a UX Design?” By definition, UX is designing for the user’s experience by enhancing usability, interaction, accessibility, and emotion.

 The term UX design allows us to reframe what a contemporary web designer does.

A UX designer is someone who understands how users interact with software and focus on those users when designing a product.The actual specifications of a UX designer vary based on the company they work for, but this wide experience includes:

Conducting User Research

Site Architecture

Wireframing

Prototyping

User Testing

UI Designing

In a smaller organization, a UX designer may perform all of these tasks, but in large teams, the responsibilities will usually be divided into specialties. These various designations include UX Researcher, UX Designer, Information Architect, and UI Designer.

Becoming a UX designer

The actual method for how you can become a UX designer will vary a bit depending on where you are currently in your career. A high school student with no experience will probably have to do more learning on their own, attend a school, or find an internship. If you’re already employed as a graphic or web designer you might be able to use some opportunities on the job to start moving in the direction of UX design. No worries where you’re at, you can choose from these general outlines to improve your UX skills.

Learn the Basics of UX Design

Do The Work

Find Your Strengths

Grow Your Knowledge

Build a Portfolio

When you’re starting off in one of these new areas, you’ll probably not turn out the best work. That’s exactly what you want.

 You need to be exercising until you’re at the point that you can sell that skill, and it doesn’t come overnight.

Pick one of these areas to get started:

Start wireframing: If you’re currently implementing your design work without any wireframes, add it to your process. Try wireframing some complex tools to get a lot of practice (e.g. a login system, a donation form, a social media site).

Do some research: Do you have any active websites? Try learning how people are using them. Ask family or friends to use them while narrating their thought process and watch. Resist the urge to be defensive or try to point out what they should be doing.

Learn a new tool: Ultimately learning the concepts and putting them into practice is more important than any individual tool, but when applying for a job it’s good to see that you’ve got some knowledge with at least some of the key UX tools.

Here are some more great ways to continue your skills growth:

Start a project – choose something challenging and this will rapidly accelerate your growth

Read articles from the UX community

Try new design tools

Share your knowledge with others by blogging, answering forum questions, having conversations on social media, or sharing work with your co-workers

Become the part of the community – find events or participate in online communities

Attend a conference – this is worth doing at least once to increase your passion for the field, meet others, and learn

Conclusion

Having UX Designer as your job title is easy. Getting your head around the full process takes time. Study, learn the tools, read a lot, do projects, get your portfolio out there and get a job. 

Enjoy the journey as it is a unique time to be a UX designer.

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