Guidelines on How to Transition to UI-UX Design Career and Get the Best out of Your UI-UX Designer Jobs.
As the pandemic-induced lockdown is gradually being unlocked, office goers across the country are preparing to go back to their offices. Working from home has been constant in many sectors across the country during the pandemic.
One of the perks of having an 8-month long lockdown was that people got an opportunity to upskill and learn new things. There are many who even used this period of inertia to explore more options career-wise through online courses.
Jobs that can be done remotely from the comforts of your home like UX-UI designer trended in 2020. This led to online courses like UI UX courses becoming a huge hit during the pandemic.
With the world becoming increasingly digitised, every field is looking for digital solutions to cater to their users. Keeping up with the evolving world, there are many people who would like to shift careers to become digitalised service or solution providers.
One such profile that has been in demand during the last year or so has been that of a UI-UX designer. UX design ranked 38th in the top 50 jobs in 2020 by Glassdoor. However, it remains a fact that there are none to very little guidelines on how to shift careers to UX designing or which course to pursue in order to become one.
There are many online and offline courses that are enticing enough to lure customers. However, the question arises how does one choose the best UI-UX designer course.
In this blog, we are going to guide you on how to choose the best UI-UX designer course from a plethora of courses available online and offline.
We will also guide you on what skills are required to become a UI-UX designer and how to acquire them. The blog will also delve into the financial end of becoming a UI-UX designer with respect to course fee as well as salary packages.
Why and how to choose a UI UX course?
For the uninformed, UX designing is a profile where you design user experiences for a company or product. So as a UX designer, you work on apps or websites or products to enhance it in a manner that provides an amazing and satisfying experience to the user, compelling them to revisit the experience. You also work on providing solutions to any problems the user may encounter while using the product.
The first thing to know about getting into UX designing or product designing is that it is not just sitting at a computer or a drawing board.
You have to be equally skilled at interacting with live users, prototyping and wireframe, as you have to be at software. So you need to have tech skills as well as interpersonal skills. Being a UX designer or product designer means wearing multiple hats of creativity, technical skills and social skills.
There are certain software and skills that you may learn to become a UX designer or product designer, however, certain traits also need to be developed to thrive in the profession.
You need to be passionate about the job. As UX designing or product designing involves patterns and designs you definitely need to understand them and have the intrigue to figure out how things work.
Empathy is another very important trait to have in a UX designer or product designer. A designer should be able to understand the need of the user by putting himself in their shoes. He should be able to gauge the emotions a certain design invokes in the user to enhance it.
Being a team player and enterprising is a given trait in all career choices, however, in UX designing or product designing, it is much more important as you have to collaborate with a lot of other designers, artists, executives, users, etc., while also taking point and self starting.
There are a lot of ways you can make a great career in UX designing or product designing. Whether you are a fresh graduate interested in the digital world or someone with a creative career looking for a change or someone with no technical knowledge but wants to work with his creativity, UX designing or product designing is a great profile to build your career in.
An aptitude for technology and software and a passion to use your creativity for the betterment of your users, is all you need as a prerequisite.
However, it is also a fact that you cannot simply jump into the job of a UX designer or product designer. You need to know what you are getting into and how to go about it before even thinking of applying for this job. There are few things that you need to do before you consider a career as a UX designer or product designer.
As is the deal with anything new, you need to read up and research on what UX designing is and how to go about it. As there is a lot of technology involved in this profile, it is good to read up on it as much as possible.
What kind of software is used, how to go about learning it, what kind of courses provide help in learning different software, what is prototyping and wireframe and how to go about it, all these need to be researched well.
Even designing has a lot of basic principles that you need to know before letting your creative juices work. You need to know the rules to be able to break or mould them, which is designing 101.
Another aspect to know about UX designing or product designing is that it does not always and/or necessarily involve computers. As a UX designer, you may not be designing apps or websites directly. You may be designing a table or pamphlet or a modular kitchen.
The trick is to know what works for your user and what kind of experience you are able to provide to the user through your design. So essentially you will be designing tailor-made experiences for your user.
Moreover, you will also need to keep at it to address the issues raised by the user, while undergoing the experience designed by you. This step-by-step process will be nailed through learning and on-the-job practice which will also help build your portfolio.
It would be ideal if you can find the best UI UX course to learn its intricacies in order to start building your portfolio. A solid portfolio will land you a lucrative and satisfying job.
Finding the Best Course to a UI UX Designer Job
When you are looking at a career in UX designing, one of the most important things that you need to do is to find the best UI UX course. There are a plethora of online and offline courses available, however, you need to keep in mind certain points while choosing a UI UX course.
You need to find a course that teaches you the most important basic concepts of UX design. The course should cover UX design concepts, tools, principles, and resources and it should allow you to practice and learn. The UI UX course, therefore, should be an ideal combination of theoretical information and practical usage.
While the knowledge of coding is not a requirement, those who know basic coding (HTML and CSS) do have an upper hand over those who do not, when it comes to applying for jobs.
If you already do not have a background in designing, doing a short term course in designing to understand the basic principles and concepts is also great. Many people who have successfully transitioned into UX designing, also offer coaching.
An ideal way to go about learning UX design is to find such a mentor and do the course with the help of said mentor. This will help you towards building a strong portfolio with real world experience, which is what the companies look at after all.
If you are in the process of learning while you are at a job, you need to find a self paces and affordable UI UX course, which gives you the freedom to learn and build your portfolio at your own pace.
If you are looking at a lucrative job as a UX designer, a course alone will not do the trick. You must build a powerful portfolio that showcases your knowledge as well as your creativity. This is where an internship or boot camp comes to help.
There are companies and individual UX designers who offer internships to those who are new to UX designing. These internships help you to build your portfolio by putting you to work on real projects with real team members, real deadlines and real problems.
When you start applying for a job, you will understand that the industry is not only looking at your knowledge of software or design, but at your skill in solving user problems and gauging user reaction.
This aspect cannot be taught; it can only be acquired through practice and hard work. The stronger your portfolio, the more practice you have had. Your portfolio, therefore, is the proof that you have what it takes to be a great UX designer.
There are some basic skills that you definitely need to learn and develop in order to pursue a UX designer job. You can learn how to use a certain software but how to apply it in a real world situation is something you can learn only through practice.
Prototyping, interacting with the user, creating user personas, conducting analysis and research and preparing wireframes are some aspects of UX design that you need to develop your skills for, through rigorous practice.
Transferable Skills and Transitioning
In many companies, design teams are a motley bunch of people from different career backgrounds. They may bring different ideas to the table and their collective input along with individual knowledge is what leads to a completed product. UX design is similar in this aspect.
This is why transitioning from any career or field to UX design is comparatively easier. For example, you may have trained to be an architect but if you are interested in UI-UX design, then it would be ideal for you to work with a company which designs homes. Your input as an architect would be an additional perk in designing a homely experience for the user.
Whether you are a graphic designer or a coder, whether you were working as an architect or a software engineer, once you have done your course and prepared your portfolio, it is easy for you to apply your previous skills to UX design. As a designer or architect in any field, you have the creativity and design knowledge.
All you may need to learn is the technical bit. Similarly, if you are already a software engineer or coder, you just need to brush up your design skills and let your creative juices flow.
Take a look at all the skills that you currently possess. Put them all together and find the missing skills that you need to acquire to understand UX design. Finally, look into UX design jobs to find the best role that utilises all your current and acquired skills. Transitioning is as simple as that.
Financial Freedom
As per Glassdoor, an average UX designer makes about Rs. 5 lacs per annum in India at an entry level in 2020. An experienced UX designer in India can earn up to Rs 13 lacs per annum. An entry level UX designer in the United Kingdom in 2020 can get a package of £26,068, while a senior designer can earn up to £43, 028.
In the United States of America, an entry level UX designer job starts from a package of $62, 558 in 2020, while an experienced designer can avail a package of $94, 893.
Where to Land a Job?
After you are done with the courses and have worked on your portfolio, it is now time to apply for jobs. While it depends on your specific skill set, UX design is a profile that is part of almost all types of industries.
Businesses all need new customers and retain their old ones. To do this, they need to design their products as well as their apps and websites to give their user the best experience possible. This is where a UX designer comes in.
A company needs to find an individual who can bring ideas to life and turn it into a tailored experience for customers and users through the designs.
There are companies who train their own design teams in UX design, but there are also companies which recruit an individual to guide their in-house team of designers to create a user-centric product. This is why they are always looking for a UI-UX designer with a strong portfolio.
As manufacturing and service providing companies are all undergoing a digital transition, they are eager to hire UX designers. Similarly, media companies are another industry who are always on the lookout for exceptional UX designers to make sure that they give their users exactly what they want.
Apps and websites have become a huge thing today. Any app or website that you open will invoke a certain feeling in you which will ensure that you either buy a product or return to the site repeatedly. This is a UX designer at work here.
As governments go digital and spruce up their IT teams, they recruit UX designers to ensure that their citizens know what the government is doing as well as to gain an insight into the general feeling of the population.
Basically, any and all companies and industries that at some point deal with users directly by providing a service or an experience, are always hiring UX designers to help convert their vision into an experience for their customers. A lucrative and much-in-demand profile, UX design is one of the best career options right now.
Conclusion
UI UX design or product design is one of the top career options in India and across the world today. It is a trendy career choice with much freedom to use your creativity as well as do the job on your pace, along with being satisfying and lucrative.
With no prerequisite degree or certificate in any particular course needed, all it requires is for you to know and understand the concepts of UX design, acquire the technical skills, and build an amazing portfolio through practice.
You must take a stock of what your current skill set is and then look at courses that will help you to gain the theoretical knowledge as well as try your hand at a real project.
Finding a mentor and an internship would be a cherry on the cake to help you stand tall amongst the competition. As design teams come from various backgrounds, transitioning from your current job with a different skill set to UI-UX design job would be very easy.
If you are looking at a smart way to enter the UX design industry, UI UX design career track program from Springboard would be an ideal choice.
Along with theoretical concepts, Springboard has various practical projects that have a project-driven approach, letting you build your portfolio with one on one guidance and mentorship with industry veterans. With such a hands-on method, you can be sure that you will land a lucrative, challenging and satisfying job.
