#66 Getting started in UX design in 2023
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Don't look for this easy way in. The way in will be only harder and harder moving forward, and that's all right. We're selling this image of after six, 12 months in the bootcamp, you're going to find your job. This is wrong, and we still have to keep busting the myth. This is not going to happen. I think you did like the research, right? On average, people finding their first job after one year and a half, just embrace it. But that's still okay because a lot of people study medicine or engineering for five, 10 years, and

then only starting to look for a job and without experience facing the same difficulties.

Hello UX friend and welcome to a new episode of Honest UX Talks. As always, I'm joined by Anfisa and today we're going to be unpacking one of the most popular questions we get. How do I get started in UX design? Basically, what we're trying to achieve today is to help aspiring designers navigate the first steps or preparing for the first steps that they're going to take in the design industry and basically figure out what are the questions they need to answer, what are some fears that they might want to overcome,

and essentially what are the ingredients that they need to make their first step towards a design role. So a very interesting topic, and we're going to try to frame it for 2023, because it seems to be a particular kind of year. And we're going to try to address that shortly as well.

So stay tuned. And before I go into that, I just want to take a moment to thank figura.digital for supporting our honest UX talks. It means a lot to us, but the truth is that figura.digital really is an amazing place for freelancing designers. So if you're a designer or

that's freelancing currently, or you want to start freelancing, figura.digital is the ideal place to do that because they have a very mature process for vetting designers and they select the best clients and top companies to freelance for. So it's essentially a very curated space where you get rid of all the noise and all the stress and all the back and forth that comes with freelancing most of the times.

So make sure to check it out and sign up on their platform. They probably admit only 1% of the design top talent. So if you're in there, you're definitely in a place where you want to be. Thank you for supporting our chats. And now let's move into our classic. How was your past week, Anfisa? Hello, everybody. Welcome to the next episode.

Indeed, a very juicy topic. We're approaching 2023. With everything that's going on in the world, this is still a very actual topic. So I'm excited to get into it. My last week was, I don't even know, I think it was okay. What was last week? I don't even remember, to be honest.

The only thing I would still mention, if you haven't checked out, I'm going to run the Design Thinking Workshop, particularly about whiteboarding challenge, if you're listening on Tuesday. Come in Sunday. And I think at the moment when I'm posting it, there might be still one or two places. We will see. So check the link in the description or in the show notes. Maybe there is a chance of you to join. If not, there will be also a link to sign up for the next announcements or the next workshops. Other than that, that's it on my side. How about you, Ioana? I believe.

personally had a pretty good week. I think nothing out of the ordinary, nothing went different than I planned for. So that's the most I can ask for these days. I'm doing a lot of work on my job at UiPath. As I've mentioned in previous episodes, I'm working on a very exciting project where I unpack the world of AI and how we might use AI in our business processes and

It's very exciting that I get to work with this space. A lot of consulting work, mentorship work. I've been doing a lot of things, just the regular stuff, nothing out of the ordinary. So I would say let's jump and focus on the topic for today. Let's start unpacking it. So the first question most people probably have these days is, is this a good moment to start a career in tech or UX design? Because we all see if you open LinkedIn, it

It's depressing and it's horrible that so many people have to go through layoffs. We're all experiencing this economic downturn. The outlook for next year isn't very positive at the moment. So in this climate, can a junior or aspiring designer hope that they will be able to land a job if they don't have any experience and they're just starting their transition journey? So will there even be design openings next year?

So that's a question that I think is stressing everyone out. So in this climate, can a junior designer even hope that they will be able to land a job without having any prior experience? Will there even be junior openings next year? What's your feeling?

Yeah, many people are asking this question. If we're talking about a moment, if we are framing the question as, is it a good moment? Maybe moment, not, but you always have to think long-term perspective. To me, again, if you think about the UX industry, it's still on the rise. There is still a huge demand. Moving forward, it's one of those professions that a lot of people talk that it's

going to be a very demanding job. There will be a lot of need for designers. There will be a need for us designing the future. There is so much technologies and platforms raising. The tech landscape is just evolving every single day. So there will be need and we just have to remember this high level perspective. But of course, the moment is probably not going to be the easiest one. And

If you're embracing this journey, that's going to be okay. So for me, it's just really about the mindset you're entering this zone, especially the next year, 2023. Understanding that might be not the easiest time for you to find a job if that's the goal. If your goal is to just get in the paycheck, maybe you have to really double think, okay, if you don't have any money coming in, maybe it's not the right moment.

But if you're thinking about it from the perspective of finding what's right for you, if you are looking into the profession that will be fulfilling for you, if you feel like your skills, your natural interests and talents and curiosity are matching this profession, then for sure there will be need for you. And the more excited you are about the

profession, the more eager and enthusiastic you are about this profession, the more chances there will be for you to find your spot in the market. But yes, definitely, it's very important to embrace the current situation. We are still post-pandemic. We are still in a moment when I think a lot of people started transitioning to UX. So there was this

surplus or a huge income of people, I guess. I don't know if that's the right framing, but there was a lot of people trying to transition into UX during the last two years. And a lot of those people finished their bootcamps, are still looking for a job. And today we're still facing the situation where the amount of junior positions in the market

are so not equal to the amount of people trying to find their job. So it is a tough time. It will be a tough time for a little while, I believe. Also, with the recession, it's not going to be as easy. But the good news is that long term, not maybe next year, but in general, design industry will be needing you

especially if you are honestly interested in this profession, especially if you do have the skill and what it takes and interest in this profession. I've seen a lot of people already finding jobs after like one and a half years in the programs, even less, six months in the programs, and finding job really right after, you know, the bootcamps and stuff. It's definitely possible, but it's really, really dependent on your enthusiasm and how you will be doing this. If it was quite easy to do maybe five years ago when there was just practicality

not enough talent in many countries. It will not be as easy. It's not the cheap, easy thing to quickly do anymore. But if you think about medicine, people study for 10, 20 years sometimes to actually become professionals, right? So don't look for this easy...

way in. The way in will be only harder and harder moving forward. And that's all right. We're selling this image of after six, 12 months in the bootcamp, you're going to find your job. This is wrong. And we still have to keep busting the myth. This is not going to happen anymore. It maybe could have happened five years ago, but not anymore. And we're still selling it for some reason. So this is not going to happen. But if you still think about it, I think you did like the research, right? That on average, people finding their first job after six to 12 months, maybe,

One year and a half. Okay. So you see, it's not even half a year anymore for a long while. It's one year and a half. Just embrace it. But that's still okay because a lot of people studying medicine think about engineering for five, 10 years, and then only starting to look for a job and without experience facing the same difficulties. I guess my bottom line is everything depends on your mindset and how you set yourself up. Embrace it, keep it, do your best job,

Definitely we'll discuss some tactics and steps how to get there, but it's going to be all right as long as you're into this profession and you're going to do it right. Okay, so that's my take. How about you, Ioana? I actually have two points I want to make. And the first one will build on top of your idea about the medicine study taking up to 10 years and everything. So my first point is you can start today.

So you can start learning UX design, start learning slowly, start setting up the right foundation without any pressure, without any deadline, and just exploring this field at a very relaxing pace and setting you up for success for later on. So you can start today, but once the economic climate is more friendly, is more predictable, you can start actually considering doing the jump from your current job to UX design. So you might want to just begin.

And then when the moment feels right or when you find the right opportunities, actually leave your current profession. So that's one point that you can consider. And then another interesting point I want to make or bring a new perspective to the conversation. I personally believe or I tend to observe it in some companies around me. Because of the economic downturn and the entire economic climate, there are a lot of

budget constraints and companies, of course, want to cut costs and make sure that they're competitive moving forward and they can keep up with the market demands and all the fluctuations and everything. So because of these budget constraints, I think it's counterintuitive, but we might see more junior roles than in the past because for them, it's more economically efficient.

efficient to pay less for someone. So I see that at least from talking to my industry peers, the limelight or the level in which it's hardest to find a job these days, it's in a very, very senior level of designers' leadership roles. So essentially, you can think about it that way. A head of UX or a VP of design in the US can earn up to $400,000 per year. So that's a huge cost

And with that amount of money, they can hire four junior designers. Of course, you can't do good work without good leadership. That's clear. But some companies choose to prioritize just doing something like not sitting, waiting for the crisis to pass. And so sometimes I see companies that prefer working with the junior designers. Junior designer, it's less costly. Of course, probably we won't see more jobs than in the past because we won't see more jobs in any industry.

level. But it might be that some people will swap their mid-senior requests for more junior folks because of the budget constraints. So that's also something you might want to consider, of course, without over-promising or setting your expectations too positively. I agree with you that there might be more opportunities. I mean, not for like specific type of companies, some companies, again, we will talk about like

positioning and segmenting your journey in that would be important for you to focus but some companies will probably not open up spaces for like juniors sometimes hiring juniors are more expensive to the company because they need to grow quickly that's why we can see senior designers are in demand more but at the same time i'm believing that again with every crisis as we have seen it in a

past, I don't know, 20 at least years, a lot of new startups are like booming and rising. So from my perspective, and for example, you can think about Airbnb, Uber, what else was brought up in the previous recession. So if you think about it, there will be a space for more opportunities, more markets opening up. And for you, it's good because with these opportunities, you can actually jump on it. And not always the early stage startups will have good budget for

for seniors. Sometimes they will, if they're lucky, but sometimes they will not. And maybe if you will be very self-aware about your skills, your background knowledge that could be transferable, the specific industry, niche industry knowledge that you can carry on from your previous profession, you can actually leverage it

with the fundamentals you're getting around UX design. And that could be a very good way into UX, maybe specifically targeting those niche startups, niche products where they don't have a great budget, but you can definitely gain your experience finding that opportunity. So again, the perspective is very important for me at this point. And good thing that when you are transitioning to UX design, oftentimes, not always, not every once,

but you will have some background experience or some previous experience in other industries that would potentially be transferable. So yeah, let's get into it, I guess, more in depth.

Let's do that. I think we covered at least high level the context we're currently in and what 2023 might mean for a transition into UX design. So a couple of valuable points in there. And now I think the first step or the first stage in starting your transition journey is to figure out whether you want to be a UX designer in the first place. So I think that this is after the question, is this the right moment, like in this economic context now?

should I even consider a career in UX design? I think the second question that comes up is, but do I even want it? I mean, would I even like it? And so how do we help people navigate this question? I have my own recipe for navigating and answering this question, but I'm curious to pick your brain around it. So how can a person tell if they should even start pursuing a career in UX design?

To me, the answer was always like, give yourself a bite-sized experience and exposure to the industry. And there could be less time investing options and more time investing options. The best wellness for me is to like, obviously watch out some videos, watch some, I don't know, day in the life of a designer or something like this. Follow designers, just kind of expose yourself to this industry visually in probably some social networks. But at the same time, for me, what was the key

when I was transitioning. Maybe something has changed and I'm curious about your answer. But for me, the key was to actually practice it a little bit and embrace this in action. So for me, it was a hackathon, particularly an offline setting hackathon. I don't know. I think there are still a lot of hackathons happening. I'm not sure about the offline. I think we are moving into more hybrid model at the moment, but you can definitely still find some.

depending on your location. But I'm pretty sure, yeah, you can still kind of find either online or offline some sort of opportunity where you can practice design, design thinking, design collaboration in action. You can also look into the Lightning Decision Gems. I'm pretty sure they're running pretty often, at least once a few months. And this is more specific to design thinking. But if you go into hackathons, which are

really happening everywhere all the time. This is where you will be actually collaborating with engineers, with PM, with marketers and building a product from zero to maybe not one, but to something, to MVP, to MLP, if you will. Yeah, for me, the key is to always practice it.

experience if that's something you'd like to do, because in UX you'll be very collaborative, you'll have to be creative, you'll have to think about business, you'll have to think about engineering constraints, you'll definitely have to test it with users, think about user, think about product market fit, you'll think about marketing strategy and kind of user acquisition and stuff like that. So

Having this very intensive 48 hours experience will give you a glimpse on what it could be like, and it will either stick with you or not. But that's particularly about the product design or UX design. We can also talk a little bit later about the niche specialties, which may be a big thing moving forward. For example, if you will be specializing in design systems, or you will be specializing in

visual design or, I don't know, information architecture design or service design. Those are also like those niches that I can see more opportunities coming in that way. And more people are looking for specialty designers rather than generally product designers. But yeah, bite-sized experience for product designers and for specialty designers, I guess you'll have to be a bit more creative and still give yourself extra projects to practice it, looking for opportunities elsewhere, like internships and stuff.

What about your take, Ioana? I love your point about hackathons. I think they're like a demo of what the UX industry and the UX role is. And they offer you the collaboration experience, which is something that's very hard to obtain in the first steps you do in the design industry. For me, understanding whether a UX design career is good for you is sort of a tricky question to answer because I feel that to every person, there's a different answer. So it's very personal. It's a decision that has to do

with a lot of reflection that needs to be done, a lot of introspection effort. You basically start working from yourself and then figuring out whether this is right for you. So I think that it has to be a mix between introspection and self-work and also the external information or the external factors that might influence this decision. And I think that now is the right moment to mention that I actually build a course that's meant to help you make the first steps in the design industry.

Its initial title was Learn How to Learn UX, but now it's called Create a Learning Strategy and it's on Domestika. So we're going to link it in the show notes. And essentially, I'm referencing the course now because when I was building it, the biggest question was, how can I help people understand whether they want to put six months, one year, one year and a half into something that they're not sure is good for them? So I spent a lot of time in this problem space.

I'm sure you did that as well. We're going to talk about into UX in a few moments. But so in my Domestika course, I spent a lot of time trying to solve this problem, right? To have an answer to give people on should I get started in UX design? And so I created what I called a Who I Am Canvas, if

Think of it as a framework. In the Who I Am Canvas, you will ask yourself questions like, what has been my previous experience? Are there any transferable skills? What are other resources or, let's say, advantages that I have? Do I know someone who's already a UX designer? Do I have experience in a field that needs a lot of UX design, just like you were mentioning? Am I a very curious person?

Have I worked handling customer complaints? And so I'm able to understand how to solve a problem. So look at everything that might work for you, but also look at the goals that you have. Why would you want to start changing your career in the first place? What are your dreams? Where do you see yourself? Right.

It's an entire orchestration of personal exercises that need to happen to set that proper foundation. But the bottom line is that you need to start from yourself. So essentially, I build an entire course about that. You can imagine that it's hard to answer all your questions in a podcast episode. But if you want to go deeper into the self-exploration and building the foundation for a

successful transition to UX design, I really recommend wholeheartedly because I put my whole heart in it, this Domestika course where basically that's what we'll be doing. Create a personalized learning plan and a journey that you can take on your own. But we'll move into that later because we're going to be also talking about the resources needed to transition into UX design. And we have a lot of ideas around that too.

I wanted just to add that I totally agree with you with starting from yourself. I think that's the key. If you ask me one thing, if you have to remember from this episode specifically about transitioning into UX design in 2023, I think the key takeaway is to always start from yourself and really start from reflection and understanding who you are, what you've got to bring, what are your strengths and what things you need to improve, where you want to go. And it's really, really important. If without segmenting it and doing this like very thorough exercise, it will be very hard. You will spend a lot of time applying to hundreds of jobs.

By the way, we have an episode called applying to hundreds of jobs. Definitely check it out. It will spend a lot of energy and it will be a very devastating process to find the right place for you and to build the portfolio that will get you to the right career, I guess. So for me, it's also always a key. Also, I would actually say the same exercise applicable. So first, when you're on a transition, secondly, when you're looking for a job, you'll probably have to repeat this exercise with a bit more specifics into the skills and into the perfect

company you're looking for, into the company values you're looking for and stuff like that. But again, everything has to start from yourself. And without this, by skipping this step, you're almost dooming yourself into this very devastating process of applying to multiple things. There are so many things, many companies and opportunities out there in the market. And without having the strong trajectory where you're moving, you're moving into all sorts of a direction, but it's definitely going to take much more time and much more effort to find the right opportunity.

Still trying out different things, but as a hobby, not as the career track where you're leading specifically to a right place. But yeah, starting from yourself is the key. And also I would say my main message for today's episode. I think mine too. I'm so passionate about it that I built a course for it. To your point, I just want to add one more thing that doing the self-reflection work and all this, let's say, orchestration of internal and external resources and planning and everything, this effort will help you build

clarity and intentionality. And these are two of the most essential words you will need as a UX designer. So as UX designers, that's what we do. Essentially, we take intentional design decisions with the hope of producing a certain outcome and

we have to have a lot of clarity throughout the process. And the UX design process is very ambiguous by nature. So building the clarity is the trickiest part. So if you do that exercise in the beginning, it's going to set you up for success, even in your UX role, not just in your professional trajectory. Okay, so now let's say you're all set. You figure out that it's not the best climate, but you're going to take the chance. You know that you want to go for it. You trust that you have a good future as a UX designer. Where do you begin learning?

And I think that we have a lot of tips around that and a lot of resources that we can point our listeners to. So Anfi, I'm going to let you start. Oh, well, the Pandora box. All righty. So I think a lot of people transition into UX. It was like this basically 10 years ago, five years ago, three years ago in the beginning of COVID. And today I still see this as happening very often that a lot of people start by Googling, how do I get into UX design? How do I transition? Yeah.

And what you end up having is opening 55, if not 100 tabs on your browser with different bootcamps, different courses, different mentoring programs, finding different mentors, looking for books, you're looking for universities, maybe hackathons, YouTube channel, internships, Instagram posts, podcasts, etc.

That's what a lot of people would do. Not to say that I don't encourage you to do. Definitely, curiosity is a great thing to have. It's a virtue. But at the same time, remember, you just did this self-reflection exercise. And that self-reflection exercise would also have to direct you in a better place. An unfortunate answer for you would be that there is no single recipe. There will be no set of things you'd have to definitely do that will definitely get you to the right place. Unfortunately, there is no specific course, no specific bootcamp, there is no specific

Project you have to do, not specific. Mentor you have to talk. I wish there would be an either way, but we are all humans. We're all very different. The companies are very different, looking for very different talents, looking for specific set of skills. And it's your recipe to build, experiment with, figure out, and then pave your way to the, again, to the ultimate goal wherever you're targeting. For me, the fact...

factors, if you want to simplify this journey and kind of give yourself an answer as to what do you need to have or what do you need to prepare for that journey? How do you actually start transitioning to UX practically? What are the steps? For me, you always have to remember four key components.

And those are the components I'm actually drawing from my own experience. I know that you want to have your own extra component. I'll start from myself. So for me, formula is not, again, the secret recipe. No, but it's a formula that is based or built on four key pillars. First is always theory. You can always figure it out in the dark, but it will take you a lot of time. So you definitely rather start from theory and understanding the fundamentals, build strong fundamentals and backbone.

Second, very important is to practice it. Don't learn more than you can practice. Otherwise, again, you're doing yourself into having this imposter syndrome. I've been there. It's very important to not learn more than you can practice and being able to digest information you're learning. So theory, then practice, then very important.

feedback. Without feedback, I was also struggling with imposter syndrome. I was wandering around, guessing, afraid to open up and show it to the user. And being protective of design, it's very important to be open to feedback from different perspectives to the users, but at the same time to other mentors, people with experience in this profession, because they could direct you and show you better ways of doing things, something that you

couldn't figure out in the first time. So third one is feedback. And the fourth one for me would be always to still back to reflect. Reflection is always, for me, the nail on top of every project. It's very important to understand what I've learned, what I could do better, what I did great, what are my strengths, I guess, things I want to improve more. Maybe I have a natural interest into something I haven't tried before and I want to find more information about it and stuff like that. So reflection and even like...

Building the case studies in a way are an act of reflection. You're building the story that helps you to understand what you've learned and what you didn't. For me, the reflection act was when I started teaching and in the evening courses, I realized how much I knew. Whereas before in the past, I just had no idea. I knew all this stuff and I thought I knew nothing. So reflection helped me to understand that I knew a lot. It just was messy in my head and I had to sort it out and thus become a bit more, like you said, you want to intentional and better in my process.

So these are my four pillars, theory, practice, feedback, reflection. I know that you and I will have another one, but we'll get there. But with these pillars in mind, practically, again, where do you start? I think you'd have to reel back to that self-reflection exercise and think about now your learning style.

what are the ways for you to better learn and transition into UX? And it would depend on many factors, such as what's your learning style? What are the ways you prefer studying? Do you need people to encourage you and stay accountable for the process and the results? Do you just need books? Do you learn by reflecting while reading? Do you prefer videos?

A lot of things, right? Then tangible goal. So where are you targeting? Again, the exercise of self-reflection should answer that question. Your timeline. Sometimes you have children, you have other work, you don't have time, you only have two hours per week, and that's all right. Just embrace it. You

can do it in like three months if you're working and you have family. So your timeline is a very important factor. And of course, your budget and ability to reinvest in your education. Because again, without mentor, and mentoring is actually a lot of times it's not free. So your budget will be also an important factor. For example, when I was transitioning to do design, I had to figure things out in the dark. I didn't have any budget. It took

me longer, much longer. But as soon as I started having mentors and like ability to start talking to designers in a professional way, not just like give me a tip. But when I started having an opportunity to actually gain feedback from professionals, I started growing so much faster. And I would say that, you know, the factor is really coming back to where you're targeting and knowing what's the best company for yourself. You will still have to play around in the industry, talk to different people, figure out what feels best for you to know where you're targeting. But

you know, like depending on the context, it will also have different transition journeys. For example, freelancer, design agency, product company, niche designer, general designer, all of those questions you'll have to answer. And then essentially they will be contributing to that secret formula on how to transition to UX. So sorry for throwing a lot of things on you and it's definitely a big topic, but to sort of conclude on everything I said, the key things are the pillars, theory, practice, feedback,

and reflection, and then think about the factors that will help you find your perfect educational program and help you build in those pillars. So your learning style, your tangible goal, your timeline, your budget, and then the segmenting. So where are you actually targeting? What's the company and what's the type of work you are most interested in having? That's about my answer. What about you, Yona?

Yeah, so you've mentioned a lot of interesting things in there. I also remember very clearly when I was building the Domestika course, I kept thinking about this recipe and talking about what are the ingredients. So the main chapter or the main, let's say, part of the courses is around the four ingredients that you need. We can't call it a recipe because everyone's journey is different. And so we don't want to...

put things into this one size fits all kind of approach. But I feel that from my experience, of course, I totally agree with your points about feedback and reflection. They're essential. But my combination of pillars, the one that I've created for the course is theory. How can you get the theory? I think this is one of the biggest challenges of 2023 and of 2022 as well.

It's really interesting and intriguing that all the information is out there. So it's incredible that you can get the information for free on the internet. Everything has been written. Everything is sort of available for free. The biggest challenge around that

is that there's no structure to this information. So a lot of junior designers, like you said, tend to open like 100 tabs with interesting articles, with topics, different design themes, and they listen to podcasts and then they feel overwhelmed very quickly because how do you have the critical thinking skills?

and the internal criteria for navigating all the information that's available online for free. Again, it comes down to yourself. If you're the kind of person that likes to solve puzzles and is very self-sufficient and is able to sustain a self-paced learning journey and sustain and hold themselves accountable and just solve the puzzle of navigating the theory that's available online for free and building it into a

their own structure, you can do it on your own. So you can learn UX design on your own if you're that kind of person. And it's also absolutely fine if you're not that kind of person and you just want the whole theory in a course, in a structured way, and something that's been thoroughly thought by someone who's senior. And so you might want to choose a course like Into UX by Anfisa. IntoUX.design.

So that's one thing you can also go for interaction design foundation, which is a platform that will give you access to over 30 courses about UX design and a proposed pathway into those courses. And that's also something you might consider or the Google UX certificate. And now I'm just listing courses that will give you the theory in a structured way and that are pretty affordable. So for the theory, bottom line, you can just.

For example, use my Domestika course where I mapped out all the topics that you need to learn about and then put your own resources, do your own research and just fill in that notion template, the structure that I give you. Or you can go for low effort, high efficiency kind of decision where you choose on FISA scores or interaction design foundation or Google UX certificate. And then you get the theory that has been curated and selected to help you build that theoretical foundations.

And now, yes, the most important part, I think, is practice, because all that theory will feel very abstract and very intangible if you don't put it into practice. And so how can you practice as a junior designer? We also have a lot of conversations where we tackle that. We have a lot of ideas and a lot of experience around that. But essentially, practical projects are something that you can either find in hackathons, in

volunteering websites like democracylab.com or uxrescue.org. Those are places where you can start volunteering your work once you kind of figure out what design is about. Or you could even reach out to your friends, family, your network. Maybe someone has an app

idea. Maybe someone has a website that needs revisiting it from a UX perspective. So you can find practical projects in the real world or even solve a real problem as much as possible. Plus doing exercises like replicating design, doing copywork, looking at products, unpacking those products, understanding what goes into their design and so on. So you can practice in a lot of ways, but practice is essential.

And then my two other ingredients, the one that I recommend people working toward, I think feedback is pretty similar to mentorship. I'm thinking more of mentorship because I feel that sometimes it's important that the person that's mentoring you is more senior than you, right? So that relationship of seniority is really essential because for example, in the Google UX certificate, and it's one of the most controversial points about the course is that the feedback that you get is from peers. So how can someone who's in the same level as you

who's in the same stage of the journey, be able to provide meaningful, critical feedback that will help you grow because they don't even know how to grow themselves, right? Because they're on the same journey. So feedback from peers is probably not the best idea as a junior designer. So you might want to get feedback from seniors. And you do that either in a mentorship relationship or you can do it

In design communities, which leads me to my last point, that it's really important to feel part of a community and meet with people who are on a similar stage like you are, but also meet with people who are more advanced than you, like even a couple of months ahead or people who are a couple of years ahead. So community support is very important. And luckily, the Internet is full of that as well. You just need to experiment maybe with different places. For example, I'm a huge fan of a Facebook group called Women in UX. Sorry, guys.

I'm going to think of an alternative that's more inclusive. But for example, on that group, you get a lot of support, you get a lot of critique, a lot of advice, a lot of guidance. And so the internet is filled with these kinds of communities. And you really need the community because in communities, you'll get access to more interesting resources, you'll get to feel less lonely. And learning can be very lonely, especially in the remote setup where you have a real job that you go from eight to five, and then you start learning and you're on your

own and there's no classroom, there's no learning relationship, there's no teacher many times. So it can really feel difficult and discouraging after a while. So communities will kind of help you prevent that in a way, at least feel that you're part of a social group that's on the same journey as you are. So

So I think those are all the points that I wanted to make. I do have a question to you before we're wrapping it up. So you mentioned the Google certification. And I think a lot of people are still asking themselves, do they need to get a certification? Do they maybe need to get even this, I don't know, diploma, degree, certificate? Is this important, do you think, in 2023? Do you think certification is the thing that people should target?

I love this question and I'm happy you asked it because I think that a lot of listeners had it on their mind. For me, certifications feel a bit old concept that's not very relevant in the present times. I feel that most companies will not demand a certificate in any way. I don't know. I think most of the jobs out there don't have anything to do with the description where you got to have a certificate.

or you got to have formal studies. However, some jobs, and I've even seen jobs at Google, for example, that want you to have the formal background education and that you study design at university. And that's because they probably get like thousands of applications and they need to filter them out somehow and increase their chances of finding the right people or the people who are best prepared. So certifications, I think, work in a similar way. Companies kind of feel that they're reassured by the fact that there was the stamp that was given to you, but...

Essentially, what will help you stand out is a strong portfolio. And by strong portfolio, I'm saying strong product thinking skills, strong thinking skills, essentially good critical thinking skills, and just being able to articulate how you went from identifying and unpacking the problem to the solution. So that journey is what whoever hires for a design job will want to see. There might be some jobs that will want that.

certification or something. But also, I see a lot of people putting on LinkedIn, Google UX certified or certification. And at this point, like if 1 million people have the certification, does it mean anything anymore? So it became sort of demonetized. And the concept of certification is basically a bit outdated, I think, for me personally, and by judging what's going on in the market. So I would say don't focus on that.

but focus on the learning. So if the learning is good, if the outcome of your learning efforts is good, meaning a good portfolio, then not having a certification will definitely not stop you from finding a job. But the other way around, so if you have a certification, but you're not able to sustain a good case study and walking people through your thinking and your work, then you're not going to land a job even with 10 certifications. So that's my take on it. What are your thoughts?

I absolutely agree. A hundred percent. Same here. I actually got an official degree in UX design. And unfortunately, like in 10 years, nobody ever asked me about it for some reason. I was waiting for that moment. I was waiting to throw it into somebody and say like, look, look, look what I've got. I spent like so many years. Actually, I spent like

total eight years, but also in UX specifically only four. So, I mean, I've been looking for the moment and somebody asked me about it. And for some reason, nobody asked me. And I wish, I wish, because, you know, I wasted, not to say wasted, it helped me with mindset. And it was definitely my path and my journey, which taught me a lot. So I don't have regrets. But at the same time, I wish somebody would need it. And yeah, that's not the case in IT simply because

Today, the UX design industry is still not regulated and pretty new industry. There are trusted institutions like NNG and other. I would not even say Google is an institution. That's why I don't know if the value is as big. I think it looks great, especially for those not UX mature companies or business people that looks cool that you have Google. And I think it works still for some audiences and segments of market if you're targeting it. But generally, if you're targeting UX mature companies,

companies, I don't think that would contribute to a success of your application. That's my take. As well as the master degree, especially if you have an PhD, maybe it could look a little bit more outstanding on your CV or on your portfolio. But honestly, that's not going to define your success. Most of the people I know, most of the successful designers that don't have a degree, they were figuring out everything on their own and with the other educational programs, learning from other, having the growth mindset every single day, not just finishing the degree and then having the certificate

and I'm done. No, it's really an ongoing process of constantly learning new things and reiterating yourself and adapting to the market landscape that has grown in a very intense pace. So certification today is just a little nice badge that sits on your CV, but definitely does not make you outstanding and standing out candidate. Portfolio is your key. And if you didn't spend time doing the certification, that's totally all right as long as you invested this time in your portfolio.

And also, I think just a little disclaimer here, so I don't want to make anyone super misled. I think I only have seen that few demographics in the world could require the master degree, for example, not like those courses certifications, but really like a master degree. And mainly, and again, take it with a grain of salt, I didn't do deep research, but

But I've seen that some corporations could require it. So big corps that are still living in the more of a traditional mindset, they could ask you for that. I think also in Germany, for some reason, I don't know why, it's a big thing. I think it's also a traditional mentality thing where people have to have certification in order to start practicing something. So it could require...

extra research for you to understand if you need the certificate. But bottom line, 90% of the times you will never be asked for this. I don't know many designers who have certification. They were successful. I have it. I never ask for it. And that's unfortunate. And so my take is that it's great to have it, but it's not a definition of success for you. And you can easily skip it in your agenda, especially if you have a short timeline. All right. That's all I think for today.

I would say so. Just really, really quickly, two more points. I would say that other, let's say, ingredients or things that you might be curious about, and maybe we unpack them in a future episode, are the tools. So many people start learning UX design and think that to learn UX design, you need to learn Figma. And that's just...

a little partially true because yes, you need to learn a design tool, but the tool is just the means to an end that facilitates your thinking. So focus on building the right thinking, and then the tools will just come naturally to represent your thinking. And so tools are something that maybe we can discuss in a future episode. I think we did in the past, even years ago. Yes. And another thing that people are pretty worried about is

How will they be able to understand the vocabulary, the language, the design slang, everything? And that's also something that will be part of your learning process as a natural byproduct. So even just by listening to our podcast or listening to conversations that designers have or watching YouTube videos, reading articles, you're going to build that vocabulary. You're going to start understanding what it means when we say breadcrumbs or chips or

or hamburger menu or stuff like that in UX design. You've mentioned design systems, just going through design systems will help you build an understanding of UI components and patterns and everything. So these are in a way, they're very important, but they're secondary. The most important part is understanding how to solve a problem, right? Which seems very broad and very abstract in a way, but that's what we do as designers. So do you want to add to that? This topic is just so big, we can keep going. I start having more and more points.

going for like specific clients or specific company types. No, but we don't have enough time. Definitely guys, if you have questions, please just submit them. If for example, you thought we didn't dive deep enough on any of the topics or you still have questions or you're facing a specific question, please submit it either in a Spotify notes or specific questions under the

Spotify episode. Or also you can feel free to submit your submissions or questions in the anonymous forum we have in the show notes or just reach out to us in Instagram. And again, you can find all the links in the profile. So please feel free. We don't want us to make it one-sided. We want to have a conversation and add value to it. I believe there are still so many topics we can talk about in this episode.

But I believe we're already over time. So probably let's get into the top three takeaways. Yeah, let's do that. And I can go first. I know that you want to start from yourself. Takeaway, you said that it's your main takeaway. So I'm going to leave that to you. Second to that, I feel that it's really important to understand that

It's a marathon. It's not a sprint. So you're just starting to learn UX design. So maybe you want to set some goals for yourself in the near future. Like in six months, I want to start applying to jobs. I want to have my portfolio ready and it helps. But you shouldn't think about it like a stage you go through, but more like...

I'm starting this journey that's going to take for many, many years, right? I'm still learning. And if she's still learning, everyone, senior designers, even designers with 30 years of experience, hopefully they're still learning. So it's a very long journey. And what you should be focusing on in the beginning is learning

getting the foundation right. So exploring the theory, practicing, understanding yourself, understanding your goals and where you want to get at. So all of this foundation work is what's your focus. You're not going to master all UX design in six months. It's not going to happen in two years, nor 10 years, to be honest. So start with building the foundation.

And the second takeaway would be, I'm just going to answer one of the most hot questions. Should I go self-paced and self-taught? Can I be a self-taught designer or do I need to take a course or bootcamp or whatever? So I feel that depending on your personality type, depending on how much time you have available, depending on how determined you are and how easy it is for you to stay accountable.

you could even learn UX on your own. We have a lot of examples. I think we are self-taught UX designers ourselves. I didn't go personally through any bootcamp, neither did Anfisa. So you can learn UX design on your own as long as you are able to sustain that effort, right? So be prepared for when. So initially you start off with a lot of

of enthusiasm. You're super motivated. You want to conquer the world. You're going to be a UX designer in two months. Yay, yay, yay. And then that enthusiasm starts to fade in a couple of months because you're just doing work and you don't know if you're going to get anywhere. It's lonely many times. That's why community support is super important. If you're able to sustain that effort and push through the harder, less exciting parts, maybe you're going to run into something in UX design that you don't like. Maybe you don't like the research part. Maybe you don't like running interviews. Maybe you don't like

processing all the research insights and building affinity diagrams and different ways of representing what you've discovered in research. Maybe that's not your favorite part and so you get demotivated. If you're able to push through that, you can learn UX design on your own with a good structure. That's one other takeaway that I want people to feel empowered about.

It's harder, but if you find a mentor, if you find someone to guide you through this journey, if you go to my Domestika course and take the structure for what you need to learn, if you take Anfisa's course and get the structure and her mentorship, you can definitely do it without having to invest in a master's degree and an expensive training and education. You can do it on your own with affordable options and an affordable set of elements that you bring together, right?

And then my last takeaway would be, I haven't mentioned it yet, but it's just like, let's say a mantra that I want everyone to believe this episode with. Be kind to yourself. Just understand that it's not easy. You're switching careers. Like Anfisa said, sometimes you have to

kids. I have a mentee. She had two small children and she was 38 when she started her transition journey. And so many times she couldn't make it maybe for the mentoring calls. Things were unpredictable. She had two kids in the background where we weren't discussing, but it took her even with two kids and being 38 and having a no design background. She worked in journalism before. In a couple of months, I was able to connect her with a startup that was hiring a designer. And so she got the job.

It's totally possible as long as you respect yourself, your needs, your mental health, essentially. And I see many people getting burned out from trying to transition into UX design and they feel so much pressure, so much anxiety. What's waiting for me at the end of the line? And it can be very stressful. So my main takeaway would be just explore this. Take it one day at a time. Baby steps like with everything, like small efforts every day will add up.

And eventually you will get somewhere, but just be kind to yourself on this journey. And Amfi, I'm done. Please feel free to take it from here. Okay, I'll try to be brief. I'm sure there's a lot of things we already covered today, but I guess I really want to sign up onto your point with this is not a sprint. This is a marathon. And this is a very important mindset to start your journey from. Because if you're thinking, if you're still believing some of the bootcamping

marketing slogans like transition into UX in six months and get 100k a year salary, this is super wrong. Pretty much it will get you to be disappointed. So don't set yourself up for failure. Definitely embrace that it's not going to be easy, especially in the next year, in 2023, when the market is

probably going to be a little bit shaky, but with every crisis comes an opportunity. So think on a positive side. Think perspective. Don't just like whine and think, oh, you know, it's hard. Everybody's transitioning. Why should I even start? No, literally be enthusiastic. If that's something you figured out, that's

the right thing for you to do, I'm sure you will get there no matter the time. It's not going to take you six months probably, but you'll definitely get there. And just like you want to mention this beautiful story that even if you have kids, if you have absolutely different background, you can definitely still make it. And with more opportunities, I believe more opportunities coming in terms of startups and new products. We all start from scratch. In the moments of recession, I feel like we're almost like resetting our market and our

Really, new markets are building up. In the past recession, we have started, I think, peer-to-peer sort of trend. Maybe that three will be the next trend. I don't know. I don't want to throw the trends here. But there will be space for opportunities, and everybody will start from zero square there. And you will be probably also on the same page, just not maybe with enough UX maturity, but

you will have very good chances as well. And think on the positive side, you will be able to get there. Just, you know, embrace that it's not going to be as easy. Second point would be to always focus on your transferable skills because we talked about the recipe, the theory, the practice, the mentoring, the community. It's all very important.

But at the same time, you will be learning those things and you will be going through this process, like intentional process, as you start transitioning to design and as you start taking the educational programs. But what's the core for you is your transferable skills and the background knowledge from your past experience. And so if you actually ask me, I think that

60% of what we do are not specifically just typical design job. It's a lot of the things that we do that are not just design related and only in design industry you'll get those things. And I'm talking about skills such as presentation, working with data, critical thinking, analytical thinking, workshop facilitation, communication skills, storytelling skills. A lot of those puzzles you can find anywhere.

In your industry, for example, journalism, you mentioned storytelling is probably a very strong skill of her. And so there's definitely spaces for you to leverage your past experience and make it a part of your portfolio and make your portfolio stand out in that way. So I definitely recommend you to start from yourself, definitely reflect and focus on those transferable skills, because a lot of things we're doing are not market unique skills. It's the skills that we use in life as well.

And the last takeaway will be super brief. So if you want a shortcut, if you don't have time playing around and let's say you do have some budget, just take my course in UX Design because that's the course that actually takes you through the whole fundamentals. I'm not only sharing the theory there, but also practically showing how I'm going through the project, showing my examples. I'm recording myself as I'm going through the project, sharing all the templates and

sharing all the questions I'm asking, all the Miro boards, this project, literally everything you need to do to revert, engineer the sometimes secret projects of designers. I'm sharing that and it's an open book for all the students of into UX.design. So if you don't have time figuring it out and asking people, share how you do the design process, just check out this course. And by the way, there will be Black Friday discount starting from Monday. So probably when you're listening to this episode, the course is already on sale until the end of the week. Alrighty.

That's all for today. I just want to thank our listeners. Thank you, dear UX friend, for listening to this and good luck in your learning journey. And if you want to have our support and just be part of our community, make sure to follow Honest UX Talks on Instagram. Give us a rating on Spotify. Support us in any way you can. But most of all, ask us questions.

because we want to make these conversations as relevant as possible. We want to answer real questions. We want to have honest conversations. So please send us your questions and ideas for future episodes. And that's it. We'll see each other on LinkedIn, Instagram, whatever you want to connect with us. And we're super available and happy to be UX friendly. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye. Bye.