Opinion

How to Break Into UX Design

This article dives into the world of UX/UI design, sharing how it’s evolved, the skills you’ll need, and expert tips to kickstart your career.
How to Break Into UX Design

Embarking on a career in UX design requires a combination of learned technical skills and an intrinsic interest in getting under the skin of user behavior. It’s an industry that in the past 20 years has changed almost beyond comprehension - from a place of pure exploration and play in the early days of the internet, to a delicate and measurable human-centric science (though still with as much space for creative exploration as possible).

For those ready to explore a career in UX, the best place to begin is by exploring the many foundational resources available online - Coursera and Figma are great places to learn and practice the basic skills you’ll need. 

Alex Lampe Portrait

We are in the business of creating relationships between people and brands. We need to be people obsessed, really understand what drives them, their unmet needs and how their behaviours might change over time.

— Alex Lampe, Strategy & Innovation Director and Co-founder, Wiedemann Lampe

From this point, gaining practical experience is essential. Jump straight in and work on a project - any project - whether self-initiated or from online challenges. It doesn't matter if you don’t feel like an expert - establish the beginnings of a portfolio and show your ability to apply the new knowledge you’ve gained. If you can, get more than one project on the go to bring diversity to your portfolio. 

Learning how to run creative workshops is a huge asset to an early career UX designer. Start to familiarise yourself with different frameworks and tools that will help you to understand the psychology behind UX, and how to ensure it solves problems within business and society.

There’s a whole world of UX to dive into - above all else, the best thing to do is just start exploring it and seeing where it can take you.

Read the full article here.