With the rise of UX jobs in 2020–2021, accelerated by the global lockdown, and everyone spending much more time on their devices, is this already competitive career path out of reach for many individuals? In fact, it has never been easier to create and showcase a portfolio of projects that represent an individual’s skill, does that mean this industry is already saturated? In this article, we will take a look at what I believe is the most efficient way to learn UX design and become industry-ready. Keep in mind that this is not a comprehensive guide and you will need additional resources to succeed at UX, many of which I will link at the end of this article that I have personally used.

This is the route I took which I feel is the most accessible since it uses free or a minimal investment of resources and money.

Firstly, what is UX design?

UX design is a discipline focused on improving a customer’s satisfaction by offering ease of use and enjoyment with the product. This leads to their loyalty to their brand. UX design considers the user at every point and each design decision is made in order to make the interface more intuitive for the user.

This can perhaps be better illustrated with an example. We can consider a website that takes a while to load and we have been hired as a UX designer. Initially, it seems as though the issue can only be solved by developers, making the page more lightweight or finding some other method to load the page more efficiently. However, as a UX designer, there are also solutions that we can implement without the need for development. A basic solution to this could simply be adding a loading animation in the beginning, something that distracts the user’s attention while the page loads in the background.

Why learn UX design?

If you want to read an in-depth rationale on why UX is one of the best industries to enter, check out my blog post on that topic. TLDR: UX has an incredibly high salary ceiling and is easy to enter from any industry. Most of this comes back to thinking about the user, so the most simple and intuitive solution is normally the best one. Finally, UX designers also get exposure to other facets of tech and so transitioning from UX to other tech-related industries is easy.

The UX roadmap

Now, the roadmap to UX and how to get to a senior designing position varies with whomever you talk to but the essentials that you need to get there remains the same. A portfolio and commercial projects are ultimately what hiring managers are looking for. However, getting there is a different story entirely.

Beginning

Although there are numerous UX bootcamps and design certifications floating around in the web, after going through one myself, I genuinely believe that a bootcamp or certification is something that is unnecessary when entering this industry. It definitely streamlines the process and holds you accountable, but if you do not have the budget or the time to start with a bootcamp, then self-learning is a highly viable option.

What I would suggest you begin with is getting a feel for UX and what it is all about. Every UX design introductive course will suggest the books; Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug and The Design of Everyday Things by Don Norman. It is also important to understand the UX design process that designers use to analyze, research, and create a final deliverable.

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Read both books in your free time while reading up on UX case studies and you will be able to learn much faster than what they offer in UX bootcamps. This is because you are directly learning from the final product which will eventually end up in your portfolio, rather than a theoretical dive into the UX world.

A few case studies that I learned a lot from when I was starting out were Ariel Chan’s, Shavonne Yu’s, and Edmund Yu’s. Make sure that you understand the nuances of their design decisions and how it adheres to the UX design process. You should also start to gain some familiarity with prototyping and wireframing software such as Adobe XD and Figma.

The Next Step

Once you believe that you understand the design process well enough, you can start with your own case studies. I suggest finding a partner that is in a similar position as you or even a mentor that can help you throughout your project. I personally went on discord and Linkedin, looking for potential partners to help me with my initial case studies. Our partnership rotated for multiple case studies, where I did the research for one project, and for the next project, I worked on the UI design. Having a partner goes a long way since it holds you accountable and the quality of the final project would be a lot higher than if you were tackling it on your own.

The landing page for my very first case study of a local restaurant

Now after you have completed your own case studies and personal projects, you can consider the possibility of entering design competitions. Even if you don’t think that you are capable enough, design competitions are places where you can gain a lot of feedback and see what the industry standards are for good design. I recommend the Adobe Creative Jam for people just starting out. It is a free design competition hosted by Adobe where they collaborate with another organization and provide you with a prompt to start your design. Design competitions are one of the best methods to learn quickly since the deadline and competitive nature of the event motivates you to work harder. My first design competition was a disaster and I realized that I had a lot to learn but it got a lot better as I got used to the interface of the wireframing software. I received an honourable mention in my second competition and in my third competition, I made it to the finalists with the same partner I found online.

My submission for the Adobe x Amazon Creative Jam, view the full prototype here

Now, the next step is seeking actual commercial experience, I would look for pro-bono consulting jobs just to get your foot in the door with the UX industry. However, in order to effectively redesign the site, you should gain a bit of experience with WordPress or Wix, or other site builders. Alternatively, you can find someone to team up with that is proficient in creating WordPress sites and you can collaborate on these projects. Nevertheless, you should still get a basic feel of site builders so you can understand what is feasible and what is beyond your design capability.

Finally, in order to further improve your marketability, you should also gain some basic knowledge of web development. Again, this is to help improve your understanding of what is feasible. This can also help your communication skills with web developers when you eventually start looking for full-time positions at larger companies. I find that designers have a smaller voice during company meetings simply due to their lack of awareness of web development. You can gain some credibility for yourself as a designer by picking up some HTML, CSS, and JavaScript courses which I will link later in this article.

Becoming Industry Ready

Now at this point, you should feel confident enough in your design ability for commercial projects. If your design ability is enough to get awards at design competitions, then it is 100% ready for commercial designs. What you can do is contact local companies near you by emailing, using Linkedin, or even word of mouth. If you are a regular client at a restaurant, for example, you may already be familiar with the servers or managers and can use that to your advantage and ask them if they need a new site or a redesign.

Officially Entering the Industry

If you make it this far, congratulations! You can pretty much call yourself a junior UX designer. The possibilities are endless at this stage. You should try to apply for full-time positions or if you found that the consulting gigs you worked on earlier suited you better, you can even start freelancing. However, the work doesn’t end and the world of UX is pretty much yours for the taking. You should have enough commercial experience to enter junior design positions at any company and as your credibility grows with each commercial project, more doors will open up for you.

Resources

If you decide to do a UX bootcamp, I suggest the Google and Coursera certificate. I know a few people who took this course and it is a solid introduction to the world of UX. However, some criticisms that they have had with this course is that it crafts your ability to become more of a Google designer. It uses Google terminology and methods that are more suitable for someone working at Google with the resources they assume you have access to you. This is just something to take with a grain of salt but the course overall serves the purpose of an introduction to UX.

Here is a course that you can take on YouTube, if you follow along you should have a decent understanding of Figma; an industry-standard wireframing tool.

If you are looking for design competitions to get started with, I would suggest the Adobe Creative Jam mentioned earlier. However, these two sites also offer similar experiences.
Infodesigners
Crowwwn

For web development, this is where I suggest dropping a bit of cash since learning code is a bit harder than picking up UX. I would suggest courses on Freecodecamp which is obviously free but web development courses on Udemy and Coursera also seem to be well received. If you want to go a bit further into web development, I personally used this developer roadmap which has helped hold me accountable by setting deadlines as I move down the roadmap.