Advice for New UX Designers

Always Be Learning

User Experience is a dynamic, ever-changing field. That’s what makes UX design so challenging and interesting. Always, continuously, and forever read to increase your knowledge. Be a sponge. Keep an open mind. I suggest using a feed reader, so every day you can quickly scan multiple publications for items of interest. I’ve listed my design-related, day-to-day reading on my mentoring blog.

Go to conferences. Maybe you could even speak at one. (See above.) Always attend at least one session that’s on a topic with which you’re not familiar or are even comfortable.

When I was at Intuit, we often spoke of getting outside our comfort zone to learn. It’s not an unfamiliar topic. The basic idea is that you could choose to live in your habitual comfort zone and basically cruise through life, but not learn much. In contrast, venturing into your panic zone from time to time can be helpful because it stretches you—a lot. Although this is not really a long-term strategy unless you enjoy being unhappy. Your optimal learning zone lies between these two extremes. It’s where you can gain the most benefit and growth. Try to live there as much as possible.

Try Many Ideas

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought I’d nailed it with the first version of a design solution. But, when my team has pushed me to explore multiple design directions, I’ve almost always found them to be better than my first approach. Force yourself not to get too comfortable with the first version of a design. Make it your goal to first go broad, then narrow. Then—once you’ve had some insights and received some feedback—go broad again and, finally, go narrow once again.

Don’t Be an Ivory-Tower Designer

By definition, living in an Ivory Tower means being in “a state of privileged seclusion or separation from the facts and practicalities of the real world.” To do design right, you need to involve your stakeholders and other disciplines such as Product Management, Engineering, and QA (Quality Assurance). Granted, there are phases during the design process when it is appropriate to put on your headphones and just crank out the work, but remember that design is a collaborative process. Don’t go off into a corner by yourself, then later emerge with a finished design and, drum roll, do the big reveal. Nobody who’s involved in a project should ever be surprised when you present your design directions.

Stop Trying for Perfection

Perfection is boring. It doesn’t exist—and even if it did, my idea of what it would be would undoubtedly be different from yours. Instead, adopt a launch-and-learn mindset. This requires a certain degree of confidence—even fearlessness—but if you have the right mechanisms in place for gathering data—whether usability testing, analytics, or A/B testing—then iterate, you’ll always be moving the ball forward and improving your designs.

Finally, Don’t Be an Asshole

Don’t walk around like you’re the arbiter of All That Is Visual. Have an opinion—after all, you are a UX professional, so you should have a point of view on design—but be humble. Realize that you don’t have all the answers and readily admit it.

Be flexible. Sometimes a suggestion from Engineering—though maybe it’s not quite as pretty—could be built in half the time and still achieve the desired experience outcome without sacrificing taste or usability.

Be helpful. Go above and beyond what your job description specifies and lend a hand with that banner ad or jump in and help QA test that feature! 

Get UX-Design Mentoring—Warren Croce has recently begun offering free, in-person, UX-design mentoring to small groups in Watertown, Massachusetts. If you’re in the Boston area and would like to avail yourself of his expertise, visit his Web site for more information.