Table of Contents
- Current UX climate 🌏
- Too lazy to read? Watch the presentation 👇
- Why should you get into UX? 🤔
- Step 1. Get excited 🤩
- Read up on UX
- Find out what a UX designer does
- Decide if UX is for you
- Step 2. Get educated 👩🎓
- Free UX courses
- Paid UX courses
- Design degrees
- Some of the best free online UX resources
- Some of the best design books
- Step 3. Get the right tools 👷♀️
- Design process and workshop tools
- User research tools
- User interface, wireframing, and prototyping tools
- User testing and usability testing tools
- Collaboration and development handoff tools
- Other useful resources & guides
- Step 4. Get some experience 👩💻
- Offer free UX work
- Design challenges
- Unsolicited redesigns
- Adding to your UX portfolio
- Hone your soft skills
- Step 5. Get social 🤝
- Becoming a community member
- Watch the leaders
- Step 6. Get hired 👩💼
- Applying for your first UX design
- UX salaries
- UX job interviews
- Why should you work for startups in the beginning
- Other factors affecting your first UX job decision
- Final thoughts 🖤
Do not index
Do not index
Thinking about getting into UX design? Don’t know where to begin? Here’s a step-by-step guide for your eyeballs.
Current UX climate 🌏
User Experience (UX) Design has become an integral part of any great product or service. Companies are investing more and more and paying closer attention to the value of UX. This has created a shift in the emerging markets with UX roles flooding the job boards — leading to astounding interest from job seekers.
Students and designers (majority graphic and web) are now trying to figure out how to penetrate into the tech industry. With UX education being sub-par or non-existent in these markets, the question is then “how do I get started?” and “what are the steps I need to take?”
If you’re a student, and/or looking to transition to UX Design from another role, start your journey by following this guide.
Too lazy to read? Watch the presentation 👇
Why should you get into UX? 🤔
With any new pursuit, you need to ask yourself WHY?
- Why do you want to get into UX design?
- Why is this the best choice?
Then ask WHAT?
- What are your motivations?
- What do you want to achieve?
- What are your initial questions before you go all-in?”
In this article, I’ll provide my recommendations and point to resources that can help you dive deeper on the topic of UX. We’ll cover these 6 steps:
- Step 1. Get excited
- Step 2. Get educated
- Step 3. Get the right tools
- Step 4. Get some experience
- Step 5. Get social
- Step 6. Get hired
Step 1. Get excited 🤩
Read up on UX
Firstly, you need to have a basic grasp and define user experience design.
“User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user’s interaction with the company, its services, and its products.” — Nielsen/Norman Group
Without investing too much upfront education time, watch Youtube videos from AJ&Smart, and/or listen to 1 of Invision’s 15 favourite design podcasts. After gaining a general understanding of the topic — you’re now ready to speak other designers to find out how it works in the real world.
Find out what a UX designer does
A UX designer aims to enhance consumer interaction through a design process: research, ideation, prototyping, and testing — typically working on online products such as applications and websites.
A UX designer is essentially a problem-solver through the art and science of design.
The role differs from company to company and market to market. It all depends on the design maturity within the organisation. Do your research by asking several UX designer friends “how does UX work in your company?”, “what does your day-to-day look like?”. Contrast and compare answers to get a clearer understanding.
Decide if UX is for you
Has UX design piqued your interest? If yes, you’re ready to dive deeper — But wait— You’ll have noticed there’s an overwhelming abundance of content out there. While this is ideal for background reading and discovery, it won’t turn you into an employable UX designer. What you need now is a structured, hands-on approach to education.
Step 2. Get educated 👩🎓
Education should be deeply personal. Whether it’s reading, listening, watching, or doing, tailor your education to your preferences from the start.
User Experience Design is a vocation not a profession.A vocation is generally a job that requires a particular set of skills acquired through experience or through training but not necessarily dependent on a college degree. Profession refers to the career that one opts for, getting extensive training and acquiring special skills to become eligible for a job in it.
Free UX courses
ANYTHING FOR FREE! Free courses are a great way to try (before you buy) and validate if UX design is for you. If you’re a disciplined self-learner, you may never have to pay for a UX education (like me). If you’re unsure about going all-in, below are my recommended free courses:
Paid UX courses
Paid UX courses are not cheap and require a lot of commitment.
- Ask yourself how much time can you dedicate each week to learning UX?
- How much flexibility do you need in terms of scheduling?
- What’s your budget?
Paid courses are immersive and great for someone who’s made the decision to become a UX designer.
Note: Paid courses are NOT essential. These courses sometimes offer UX certificates — this is also NOT that important and WON’T get your hired. Applying what you learned and showing evidence WILL.
A good paid UX course offers these 5 things:
- Project-based learning — a course that requires you to get hands-on to master the right practical skills, not just theory.
- A tangible portfolio piece — a course that leads to at least one portfolio project and helps you to refine it, ready for the job market.
- Human support — a course that offers at least one industry expert, be it a mentor, a tutor, or (ideal scenario!) both.
- Career support — a course that offers specialist career support, for example, coaching throughout your job search.
- Expert curriculum — a core syllabus written (and continuously updated) by expert curriculum writers, not third-party curated content writers.
Ultimately, if you’re paying for a UX course, you want the full career-change package. Here are some of my favourites:
Design degrees
Design degrees are getting more common, however, it’s NOT necessary to attend university to become a UX designer— what’s more important is experience and portfolio. Nevertheless, there are tremendous schools that offer Human Computer Interaction (HCI) degrees. These are:
For more on design degrees, check out Top UX School for rankings.
Some of the best free online UX resources
- InVision’s Inside Design and Design Better Company
Some of the best design books
Step 3. Get the right tools 👷♀️
Learning standard industry design tools, such as Figma or Sketch, are a MUST, however, great designers mix and match tools in his/her’s toolbox. To be well-rounded as possible, spend time and master at least one tool in each part of the design process.
The growing number of design tools means you’ll constantly find new ones. Don’t be afraid to experiment to supercharge your workflow. To begin with, try the recommended tools.
Design process and workshop tools
- ⭐ The Design Sprint (recommended)
User research tools
- ⭐️ Mobbin (recommended)
User interface, wireframing, and prototyping tools
- ⭐ Figma (recommended)
Get shortcuts to a master of UX processes, for any project, without expensive bootcamps.
User testing and usability testing tools
Collaboration and development handoff tools
Other useful resources & guides
- ⭐️ Mobbin — the world’s largest UX/UI library (recommended)
- Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines
- Google’s Material Design
If you’re feeling adventurous, UX Mastery made this giant list of 200+ tools for UX designers. Go nuts!
Step 4. Get some experience 👩💻
Arguably one of the most important steps. Practicing. Putting your newly acquired UX skills to the test. Be proactive and creative when looking for ways to gain experience. Do as much extra-curricular design work as possible to add to your growing portfolio.
The repeatable nature of the skill is required in order to acquire or maintain proficiency in it. UX is no exception. We have to practice it in order to gain and improve our competencies.—Dear UX: My tiny letters to the UX practice
Questions you should ask when designing with Emily Anderson.
Offer free UX work
Volunteer your newly acquired skills for free. Hiring designers can be expensive, and there are plenty of people looking for UX design skills. Reach out to your network, for example, design a simple website for a family member‘s business — that’s how I got started.
If you’re struggling to find projects, try charities and non-profit organizations platforms such as Catchafire, donate:code, and VolunteerMatch.
Design challenges
Practice with random design challenges. These offer a simple problem with a deadline — the focus is on rapid execution vs quality — head to UX Collective’s article on 10 UX/UI challenges for the uninspired (and the unemployed).
Unsolicited redesigns
An unsolicited redesign is essentially a voluntary design challenge that you undertake purely for the fun of it (and to gain valuable UX experience). It could be an app or a website that was confusing or cumbersome to use.
If you’d like to learn more about this popular UX practice, take a look at digital designer Sean Hervo’s article on the value of unsolicited redesigns, and heed Jason Li’s advice on how to do an unsolicited redesign that people actually care about.
Adding to your UX portfolio
Showing work in an online portfolio is a MUST. Include any previous relatable work, such as websites or graphic designs, along with showcasing any of your newly acquired UX skills.
An employer will look carefully based on your portfolio and judge you based on what you can do. To build an industry-standard UX portfolio, don’t forget the following:
- Include your process — Employers want to see the evidence of thoughtfulness, the reasoning behind decisions, and how you arrived at the solution.
- Include rough notes & sketches — Employers expect to see your ideas and that you didn’t jump straight into your first solution.
- Include your documentation and UX artifacts — Don’t say you did something (for example, interviews, journey maps, etc. ) — show it!
- Include your designs — From wireframes to high fidelity mockups — show employers you can deliver high quality designs (always include a write-up, not just the UI).
- Include something personal & about yourself — You need to stand out from the competition and show your personality.
Check out these 14 mind-blowing portfolio websites — Case studies and Portfolio, for inspiration.
“Most UX designers make a huge mistake when it comes to their portfolios. They show their work, but they don’t tell people about their work. They don’t provide that context, and without context, no one looking at your UX portfolio can get a sense of why you made the decisions you made.” — Sarah Doody.
Grab your Notion UX Portfolio Template [FREE]
Your full guide to creating an outstanding portfolio and getting noticed.
Hone your soft skills
The hard skills are incredibly important to being with — Can he/she actually do the job? Yet to become a senior UX designer, it’s the soft skills that take you to the next level — Can he/she be an effective communicator and move the needle? Focus on the following:
- Storytelling — Helps to empathise with those you’re designing for.
- Critiquing — Delivering and receiving feedback in order to improve.
- Presenting — Persuade, engage, and bedazzle your audience.
- Facilitating — Leading a group to a common goal.
More resources:
- Essential soft skills from Jared Spool’s article, the founder of User Interface Engineering and world-famous UX designer.
Step 5. Get social 🤝
Now that you’re educated, mastered a few tools, and have a decent portfolio—it’s time to get social.
There are many reasons why you should network: motivation, inspiration, fast-track learning, and increased opportunities.
Becoming a community member
One of the things I love about the UX design field is the Community. Designers are proactive, quirky, and more than happy to share knowledge. Here are some ideas on how to meet fellow designers:
- Online communities— 28 Slack communities you should join as a UX designer.
- Events — Meetup, Eventbrite, local Facebook events.
- Conferences — InTechnic’s List, UXVN, UXSEA
- Mentorship — Amazing Design People List
Watch the leaders
Don’t forget to follow influential designers and thought leaders in the UX space. Thousands of thousands of designers now publish content around UX Design (ahem!) and it can get intense.
My favourites are:
- Don Norman (first ever UX role at Apple)
- Julie Zhuo (Ex-VP of Product Design at Facebook)
- Jonathan Courtney (Founder of AJ&Smart and accidental comedian)
- John Maeda (father of computational design), Brad Frost (author of Atomic Design)
Step 6. Get hired 👩💼
The final step. Get hired and become what you worked so hard for, a professional UX designer. Obviously, it starts a job search…
Applying for your first UX design
Finding the right job is hard even for seasoned UX veterans. Here’s some common advice I give to beginners:
- Use job descriptions as goals & milestones — Look at the requirements, work on those skill gaps, and add them on your portfolio — Note: Majority of UX job descriptions are very generic so this shouldn’t take too long.
- Go for quantity and NOT quality — Experience is everything when starting out — Try and get paid for learning UX — How awesome right?!
- Ensure there’s a UX team — Mentorship & learning from other designers will advance your career by bringing insights to nuances of UX design.
- Start right away — The sooner you get a job, the sooner you have the chance to find a potential specialisation, i.e. research, UI, design systems, content, etc.
- Title does NOT matter — Get hired to improve your UX skills — The titles of UX designers are constantly evolving.
- Growth over Salary — Put more stock on growth and opportunities — The money will eventually come.
Grab my Free Design Jobs Database.
UX salaries
Like other jobs, salaries vary from country to country and company to company. This is dependent on what you think is right and fair. Do your research before negotiating on websites such as PayScale, Glassdoor and Indeed.
The average salary across 107 countries is $52,683, with the highest average being in $100,890 in Switzerland — UX Designer Salaries
For Vietnam, GetLinks and Economic Research Institute estimates the monthly average for UX designers is between $1350 — $1500 (31m — 34m VND). I received $1400 for my first role as a UX designer in 2015 🤷♂️.
UX job interviews
Preparing for your first interview, as a UX designer, can be daunting. Fear not, most companies go through this process when hiring designers:
- Portfolio review — A scan of good quality portfolios — Your portfolio should show at least 2–3 well-written pieces of design work.
- Phone interview — A quick hello — Often a formality with questions about your background and experience — Be confident and concise, express how much this means to you. Sometimes used in emerging markets to test your English.
- Portfolio walkthrough — A presentation of your design work — They’ll consider your process, quality of work, and presentation skills — Answer questions honestly, take feedback gracefully, and show the best projects!
- UX design challenge — A short take-home test — They’ll examine your ability to execute within a specified time, the reasoning behind decisions based on limited data, and how you present design work — Go through the process you learnt, list constraints, and document everything!
- Whiteboard challenge — A live whiteboarding session — They’ll look at how well you collaborate, think on your feet, and your comprehension of the problem — Stay calm, ask lots of questions, and think aloud — no wrong answers here, so have fun!
- App critique — A critical analysis session of a popular application — They’ll delve into your product strategy mindset, how you talk about the user, and your attention to detail with micro-interactions — Put yourself in the shoes of the user, give examples of why you think the designer made a specific decision, and be opinionated.
To learn more, check out UX Design Job Interview Tips for Global Candidates: Landing Your Dream Role in the US
Land your next role with Job Sprint —165+ micro-video lessons directly from years of experience hiring UX designers as UX Managers.
Why should you work for startups in the beginning
Startups are dynamic, fluid, unpredictable environments. Unlike corporates, a more rigid, highly process-oriented, bureaucratic system. Nevertheless, the lack of structure (or constraints) can really expand the range of your UX career experience.
The 2 key reasons why you should join a startup:
Full engagement with your craft — In a startup, you can be directly involved with the product, at every stage of the process — from conception to release. The opportunity to apply all of your training, expertise, and wisdom throughout the entire lifecycle of a product is particularly attractive. There’s a greater possibility that the final product will really have your stamp on it.
Higher degrees of collaboration — Startups typically provide the opportunity to work directly with other designers, product managers, developers, executives, sales, and business development — all in close quarters, in a rapid decision-making environment. Learning from domain experts while working in close collaboration can be extremely rewarding.
Other factors affecting your first UX job decision
- Company type — UX agencies offer a wider range of projects, but many don’t allow you to see them through or iterate on them. Working at a product company, you’ll have a greater opportunity to go deep on specific products or features.
- Company’s design maturity — How much does the company value and invest in design? Are there people there you can learn from? Or do you have to be the UX educator? (Fun if that’s what you’re into, exhausting if it’s not).
- Benefits — Beyond salary, what perks matter to you? Work from home, flexible schedule, gym membership reimbursement, free booze, budget for conferences and education, unlimited paid time off, parental leave, ping pong tables, pet-friendly office, and more!
- Culture — Love the structure and branding of corporate? Feel like you would thrive in an early-stage startup culture? What cultural things matter?
Final thoughts 🖤
Whether you decide to become a UX designer or not, I hope this guide has helped inform that decision.
Becoming a UX designer is both exciting and challenging. Be warned — IT TAKES TIME!
Completing these 6 steps should take you between 8 to 12 months. It took me longer! Immersing yourself, failing forward, and hacking your own process will get you there quicker.
You’ll have many highs and many lows. You will fail. You will argue. You will lose sleep. You will learn. You will end up designing things for millions of people. You will end up loving it. Like I did.
Good luck! ❤️
Whenever you're ready, there are 4 ways I can help you:
1. Junior Designer Bundle: Transition into UX with my playbooks: breaking down portfolios, applications, and UX frameworks, to build a solid career foundation. Craft an unforgettable portfolio & get hired.
2. Senior Designer Bundle: Become a design leader with systems to build healthier, happier teams and grow you and others meaningfully. Join 500+ aspiring leaders.
3. UX Portfolio Critique: Get a 20-minute video of brutally honest feedback, a checklist of things to fix, in less than 48 hours. Get a personalised portfolio critique here.
4. Job Sprint Course: Stand out in an unpredictable job market by building a memorable personal brand and a killer job search strategy. Get hired in UX with Job Sprint.
