Hey! 👋What skills do you feel are often overlooked by UX / UI Designers, particularly at the start of their careers? 👀What key skills do you feel designers often lose track of? 🔍 Please share your thoughts in the comments and let's start a discussion! ↙️🤔 . If you're starting out in UX / UI Design, you might find these videos helpful too! 1️⃣How To Get From Junior To Senior - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SJCITn3TFYM.html 2️⃣Our five ESSENTIAL UX Tools - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1FyWSHs9ObU.html 3️⃣UX / UI Design Inspiration (Tools, resources, links) - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-dWZNtpNRpG8.html
Most Jr Designers are letting themselves treaedt by their Product Managers like a puppet just to end the day. Basically whatever the boss said just design it regardless if it's breaking any design principles or UI guidelines.
@@AJSmart Oh multiple times. I've been consulting start up companies here in the SF Bay Area and whenever I had a conversation with their in house designer or sometimes I witness it, product managers are literally dictating the designers on what to do and what to iterate without data to back it up. I normally hear PM, oh this looks good eventhough it breaks the iOS or Android guidelines. Junior Designers normally get frustrated and just do it for the sake of finishing the task. I had also an experience after the 5 User test on my very first Design Sprint years ago where the decider still insisted on his solution eventhough it failed during the User Test. "Oh that's only 5 people, I'm sure 1,000 other people agrees with me" Eventhough I presented the reason why 5 people user test based from Nielsen. By the way I took your Design Sprint masterclass and I saw that you guys added my OBS and RU-vid Unlisted Live approach :)
@@wowprogression ahhh sorry to hear that! Yeh sometimes people don't seem to grasp the whole 5 testers approach and want to push through their ideas / concepts. It's where ego can overtake the facts unfortunately haha. Glad to hear! Yeh they're working well!
it's like push and pull between me and the client, but i always win because of my digital marketing knowledge, the moment i ask about his/her business value proposition i already won the battle and took the lead, the client became like a fan listening to my advice.
I can suggest a very crucial skill for agency/company prosperity that a lot of upper level (senior, lead etc.) designer lack: teaching skills. When new designers come to work for a company, most of the time they depend and rely on senior level designers as the main source of valuable knowledge in their work environment. If the company's senior staff lack skills to pass on knowledge, then it will be hard for the company to develop top level talent.
Hey Aivaras! That's actually a great point, glad you shared it! It's great to instil those traits in younger / junior designers so they can pass on knowledge and advice as they progress. Brilliant point! Thanks for sharing!
Empathic Listening. Basically it's about actively listening to the client and asking the right questions to make them keep talking and reveal to you what they really need. The key is to relay their words back to them so that they feel understood. It does wonders for building trust.
In my opinion, junior designers spend most of the time beautifying things/playing with colors while ignoring business goals and overall purpose of the product they are working on. In addition, they also emotionally attach to their work and cracks when client tell them for major changes.
This is so incredibly helpful! I watched a few times to help me prepare for my upcoming UX/UI Bootcamp with Georgia Tech as I am shifting my digital design career to do UX Research and I am so excited! Thank you!
Very good points! Taking good notes (especially in design review sessions) is a must. I've seen too many junior designers forget to change elements of design just because they didn't write them down. It becomes a nuisance in the following reviews that is very easy to avoid.
Hey! Agreed, sometimes the simplest things get left by the way-side. Taking notes and reviewing them later is a sure fired way to remember amongst the busy bustle of an agency!
Amazing points guys! For me, as Junior Designer, one of the most valuable things (technical) I learnt in my last job was to document your design decisions in a user flow format such as Confluence, so that the developers have a backup document and don't get lost only with the Prototype flow.
@@steelstunners1862 I meant providing the developers not just a final prototype with the flow you designed, but to create an image of screens connected by arrows so they can see clearly how the user navigates through the product.
Great points here. When it comes to design fundamentals, or design 101-type stuff, a huge ignored skill or trait that I've experienced in many young designers is being open to constructive criticism, correction, or "suggestions" that other designers with more experience give you-you do not know it all, Pup! We are only suggesting things because it will help you out and we want the best designers on our teams. In my early years of learning design fundamentals I took EVERYthing that any other designer with more experience gave me like I was just handed a golden nugget of advice. Even present day, as tech and certain aspects of design are always evolving, we all need to stay positive, humble and open to suggestions from fellow designers.
Really good points! Especially the one by Amr.. I think another skill that is good to have is the ability to put design work in context with all the other pieces, so you can showcase one point of view but it needs to align with the other points of view (business, capacity, direction you want to go).
One I'd have to add is understanding of agile principles and lean methodologies. I see a lot of designers who have worked for agencies or who have moved over from graphic design getting a bit too precious with deliverables like presentations, wireframes etc, trying to make them so perfect and beautiful! But that doesn't impact product success or outcome in anyway. The perfectionist mindset that might have served you well in advertising or graphic design can be a hinderennce, especially when you design an elaborate feature with many bells, whistles and animations etc for a minimum viable solution and then developers rip it apart in sprint planning and then they become demoralised. Understanding how your design vision can be be delivered in chunks or stages for agile development and then how to sell that vision to your internal team is also a key skill, as well as understanding what the minimum is you can deliver to test a hypothesis or solve a usability problem.
Hey Steel Stunners! 👋That's a great point, wider understanding of the Design Thinking Toolkit will only stand you in good stead! Particularly if you're from a Graphic Design / Visual Design background too! Agreed! Thanks for sharing!
Hey Igor! Thanks for the comment. We're looking to do more case-study videos on RU-vid. But do you mean a written up case-study to present / share to people?
Also: Typography! There is a lot of good advice in the video, but I think part of being a junior designer is having the opportunity to develop all these skills naturally. The issue with that is: if the team doesn't have these values, then there is no role figure to really learn from. So it's more a matter of picking the right work environment to thrive in, rather than trying to work on a check list on "how to become a better UX designer". In that regard: I think it'd be really insightful to have have junior designer in your studio interviewed every now and then about their progress, or episodes about feedback of work from applicants. That way I as a viewer could get a sense of actually applied hard and soft skills, that you as a creative agency are looking for. Technical rambling: Dee's lighting is perfect. I don't like that some of the notes are blurred out, would've been a lot better (in my humble opinion) to use a lens with wider aperture like a 1.4-2.8F, to just have the lens do the blur of your secret stuff. I also would appreciate a more consistent color grading. 🎥🎨👍❤ Keep those wonderful videos coming! 🎥
Much needed topic....thanks for covering... Can you create a video for junior designers not from design school transitioned from other profession. So they would know the things they should read and learn before entering design industry and also mention references 😊
Super cool tips! I believe designers should try to learn strategy as soon as possible. That is something we don't learn in college (I didn't) and it's super important.
For sure Matheus! Great point! For anyone reading, and looking to get into some great strategy content, check out A16Z (their podcasts / videos / Articles) for a great head start! Got any recommendations Matheus?
@@AJSmart Yes! A16Z podcasts are great. I would also recommend "the futur" in youtube. I love this medium article: hackernoon.com/wtf-is-a-strategy-bcaa3fda9a31 Also this video from Dan Olsen: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-11b2JdeHoGM.html =D
@@matheuscardosogomes Weird you mentioned that as we're aiming to release segments of our podcast on RU-vid to see how well they fair, and the Chris Do one was top of the list!
Bruna, I am sure that being Brazilian you are the best in improvisation! I am also a graphic designer, based in Ottawa, Canada. Wish you all the best! Raquel.
One thing a lot of people all across the board seem to forget, is every new business is essentially bringing something new to the table in some way, shape, form or fashion that didn't exist prior to them creating it for anybody to know it soooooo well already. A lot of people feel super pressured to know everything and be experts at every aspect of everything to justify why they're worth the money, but they sometimes get too caught up in "fluffing" people to convince them of their caliber of talent that they never step back to really think about what this business is other than "another starbucks" or "another facebook" or whatever. They're too afraid to be curious because they think it'll come off as inexperienced, meanwhile the client keeps running into people who do indeed try to make them the next starbucks or facebook down to the color schemes just a couple hues off. It's better to show the client you want to understand their business and what new technology, processes, flavors, materials, etc. they're bringing to the table and how it's going to make all their customer's lives a lot better than to assume you already know what's best for them because you've designed 50 other starbucks like brands for people which must by default mean you reeeeeally know that industry. That just tells the client "I just want to show you whatever you think you need to see to let go of your money". So I feel a lot of people could get better results by first understanding just how close to the rift into the future they are by being in this type of industry and finding good ways of reminding their clients of that if they sense them feeling discouraged in their level of experience with such things.... a "strong skill" to emphasize to combat that is our experience journeying into the unknown and charting it out for others to safely enter and operate. so yeah.. that's my 2 cents on it :)
Hi Smarters, loved the video. I'd say that an underestimated ability (I'd call it more awareness than ability) that juniors should acquire in order to level up, is the understanding that you are part of a STRUCTURED ORGANIZATION with layers. It can happen that you disagree with your boss on a specific way to do something, but that doesn't mean s/he's an ass**le or that you're better than him/her and s/he doesn't deserve the rank the structure. If s/he's higher than you in the structure, MOST OF THE TIMES there's a reason for that and MOST OF THE TIMES s/he's right about what s/he told you to do. A senior have a wider vision and more experience so there's a good chance s/he's right when you don't agree on something. So be patient, take a deep breath and try to understand WHY you don't agree with your senior supervisor, MOST OF THE TIMES you'll learn something. ;-)
Hey Alessandro, great points! We just released a video on these topics last week ( ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SJCITn3TFYM.html ) . It's very true, a lot of juniors are very eager to progress quickly and as such can get frustrated. It's when that frustration isn't poured into something productive that issues can start and resentments start to boil! Agree with your points too, patience is key and learn from pain points or frustrations with your seniors! (where possible)... Thanks for watching and commenting!
@@AJSmart yes, I saw that video :) I put my reply in Junior and Senior terms because I remembered that. BTW the short-link you shared isn't working. The regular URL works Thank you again guys
Question for your talented team- How realistic is it to get an entry-level UX job at age 43? I am in a process of a career change, coming from real estate sales and a small travel business owner background. UX design is quite interesting for me however battling with imposter syndrome that don't have the proper background and my age to succeed in the field. Thank you in advance!
Another minor add-on to this topic is the world "ego" or bubble which some designers live in were they think they know everything about design and are immune to criticism and not discussing with other designs or even developers..
Hey, thank you for the video. I guess another skill you forgot about is "writing", writing is very important in any field because as the quote says if you could write down a problem clearly then it's half solved, Stil I don't know how to improve my writing skills LOL
1. presenting your work- use simple words to explain why your design is good to your client. Read design as a job by Mike Monteiro chapter 7 how to present your work. 2. understanding of typography. Read elements of typographic style 3. Facilitation- bring people together from different background 4.Professionalism. 5. Soft skills.
Could u kindly make a video for how to understand perfect size when we start UI design.I really appreciate your effort. This is really helpful video.I am beginner in UX/UI.I want to grow and want to create flawless design.Thankyou.
Thanks Amr, for the book tip! It's gone on my Must-read list. I'm wondering, as a graphic designer just starting to learn product design, what is the most valuable graphic design skill I can take with me (and communicate on my resume) in my new career?
Bruna, esse sotaque não me engana. Hahaha. Btw, the part of professionalism I think is fundamental, but for sure lack of attention from most part of the community.
Here's a question: When you're starting off and specializing in a particular aspect (such as UX Research or UI Design); how much do we need to develop the skills that would make us more well-rounded? For instance, I'm specifically interested in UX Research and come from a psychology background - but I understand that the visual design aspect plays an important role in presentations and in getting hired. How much work do I need to put into visual design skills before I'm ready to apply for my first research position?
Hey Rodrigo! Great point, not enough people practice this well either! Thanks for sharing. Mike has gone back to Australia! But he'll be back soon enough though!
Improvise = “BS “ to the client before they understand you messed up and have no real answer. Take theater classes? Yes so you can BS to the client while doing the presentation. It seems like it’s all about “smoking mirrors”. “Soft” skills like professionalism is a must have by default in any profession, anyway. Learning how to translate and relate the design solution to common business terms and the client’s language is a good one.
Hey, perhaps, but in this context it was more intended to mean 'thinking on your feet' and not letting situations or rapid changes overwhelm you. Professionalism is fairly general here, but you'd be surprised how many people lack certain core soft-skills. Hope you enjoyed the video!
Hey aj & Smart, I’m so glad to have found your channel. I feel like, I can really trust you guys on Ux! Hence my question: do you think it makes sense to complete the career foundry Ux course?
Hey Mehmet! Great to hear and there's lot's more to come! Career Foundry offer great courses. It depends on what your budget and timescale will allow for though surely?
I am right at the beginning of all this. The very first topic mentioned was "how to present your ideas DIRECTLY to the client. Any suggestions on how to prepare for this obviously strategic requirement?
Will you make a video on how to be story teller, when you are presenting something to your clients & what type of question we should we ask? Have a great day :)
Hey Interesting suggestion Rajesh, what do you mean when you say 'Storyteller' though? Do you mean in terms of pitches or researching the clients needs? Have a great day too! Thanks for watching!
Read Inspired by Marty Cagan and UX Strategy by Jamie Levy. Trust me, both of these books will help you become not only a better designer but also help you think about your products in a whole new way. 👍
Amazing video as usual.. I know how important is to use the right font size, type, spacing, and colour, But what I have found in books that it is a crazy deep dive even to teaching how to create new fonts. Do we really need such level of skill? Is it possible really to be in need to spend time creating new fonts, while we are barely fighting with clients to convince them to have more time to apply user research or usability testing?
Hey Arend, that's a great question. At AJ&Smart we work on projects for no more than a few weeks usually, using Design Sprints. So our designers always have fresh creative challenges to work on! But having a great company culture which supports the designers when it gets tough is a good start!
Wow I love this video. I’m your new subscriber. Right now I’m currently a student at lambda school studying UX design. I’m in my 6th week and doing a mini project! My question I have is that as a deaf person how would clients view me as a deaf UX designer where I do not speak but I show my work visually and use sign language. Would that be something that is missing in the field of UX design - I am more visual than auditory. I am trying to start my career in that field and my greatest fear is my deafness and lack of ability to speak but I have the skills and work ethic to show for it.
Hey Jibril! Thanks so much for your lovely feedback! Firstly you will be fine here! Some of the tools we mention in this vid, such as Basecamp and Miro (RealtimeBoard) are great ways to correspond visually with clients and showcase work and progress to them. There are also lots of areas within UX / UI such as accessibility standards which would provide lucrative career opportunities too, still very much in the fields of UX / UI. Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any further questions too! Hope this helped?
Welcome! This is a great video. I had to watch it over again. I am polishing on several projects I want to present to build my portfolio. If I wanted to get into internship, should I have everything ready to showcase why I am worthy for an internship. How do you get your inspiration? I needed a lot of coffee to get my inspiration!
im a simple man i see brittni i like and share... im already fan i think the basic 8 / 16 grid rule is the very basic to know. would you also teach us about content of the app like text wise how do you create an engaging content on the app? I am always having problem creating a welcome screen content or an onboarding screen.
This isn’t about the video however why do most ppl try to say you need knowledge of programming languages like HTML or CSS ? because that isn’t needed unless your a web developer there’s a difference between that and UI/UX which is focused solely on design
Offft great question! We feel the main divider between those two is - Understanding of product strategy, and the 'bigger picture'. Also being able to communicate well / build lasting relationships with clients is key!
Hi guys ! I have a query, which tool can we use for screen wise user guidance ? For instance, click here for that, chick here for this in web applications?
Hey Harry! Not too sure of the specifics that you're looking for, but we use Appear.in for our user testing / recording. ➡️ appear.in/ It's a super easy tool to share video links and record footage. Is this what you are looking for?
how can i go deap in learning UX Design ? - I mean by just beeing smart and thinking about why you put what where and keeping a look at hierarchy i feel like you can already break down the UX of even big projekts. But i also feel like im overlooking some important aspects - Have you got any book recommendations maybe that go deap in the ux of software websites or apps? :) Anyway thanks four your content
Hey Jonas! So, as for UX books: This list is great and has been compiled by Ryan Warrender at Google- www.ryanwarrender.com/design/best-books-for-ux-designers-and-product-managers We'd highlight these 3 though... Don't make me think - www.amazon.de/Dont-Make-Me-Think-Usability/dp/0321965515/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TBSE402FJYAJ2JC8QD7M Hooked - www.amazon.de/Hooked-How-Build-Habit-Forming-Products/dp/0241184835/ref=sr_1_1?s=books-intl-de&ie=UTF8&qid=1553430882&sr=1-1&keywords=hooked Design of everyday things - www.amazon.de/Design-Everyday-Things-Revised-Expanded/dp/0465050654/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=TBSE402FJYAJ2JC8QD7M Hope some of these come in useful!
as a lone designer in my organization, when i get stuck to problems i often struggle to find the appropriate solutions. If you can suggest how to tackle this, UX stack is there but it's not that helpful..
Hey Surojit, are you working with others out-with the design field with these problems or completely alone? Design Sprint exercises such as the Sailboat exercise and Lightning Decision Jam (see the video bio for a downloadable PDF with instructions on this) are great ways to align teams and figure out the issues you're facing together!
Thanks for replying. I have read the entire book and pretty much fascinated by the process and want to implement it, but sadly my seniors don't approve it. For them design is more of UI design, I had many discussion and arguments regarding that, blame my convincing ability but I couldn't make them agree. Hope someday will join some org which values the design processes.. Anyways thanks for the video.
@@surojitgupta9854 Hey Surojit, sorry to hear that's the situation, sometimes it can be very challenging to change ideas and culture in an organisation. But we're sure you'll be able to do this one day! Best of luck!
Hi my name is Shankar and I'm a mechanical engineer and I want to shift my career in UX/UI design so I'm actually confused that how to start or from where to start in this new field. So I'm here to take some suggestions from you guys... I'll be very helpful and thankfull if you guys just help me out and I want to know the initial steps to start this new career
Actually Tim suggested the most important skill and that was to be professional. Facilitating your ideas and knowing how to present them to others for discussion is also important. Improvisation is the art to bullshit so I will disagree here. If I don't know something, I'd rather be straight with my client and say I will look into it rather than trying to mambo jumbo and bullshit them, sometimes this can and will backfire. I'm no expert on UX as I'm just beginning but I would say a key skill is to be able to collect information and evaluate that information in such a way that it will help you find the path to provide a solution. Also simplicity is the best, do not overcomplicate things, nobody likes busy UI
Hey Geenay this seems to be a very popular topic, we'll look into doing some of these! Thanks for commenting! P.s We post most new openings on our LinkedIn and Instagram so check those out!
Hey nice video and it's very helpful for me actually I want to use some human flat vactors for my UI design so any source or site so can get easily and free and it's editable like SVG so I can change colours Thank you
I think taking notes is overrated. For me, I rather listen and think and progress at the same time. I know so many people who think taking notes make them seem to be very good employees, on the contrary when asked, you can easily understand that they already missed very important points of meeting. As a Junior Interaction Designer, I guess I have lost my chance to work with you with this comment:)
One of the best ways is to look at agencies you want to apply for, what kind of roles / skills are they looking for in their job ads? You can then create work around those areas and build up a portfolio that way. Depending on the area of design you want to go in, think outside the box in terms of how you present that information to them too, is it simply a PDF or a Dribbble account etc? Or can you get their attention another way? At an event or on their least crowded social channel etc. We have a recent video catered to this exact problem - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-4mIr6CvW1nY.html Hope it helps!
No, is the short answer, but some basic understanding, or at least how the development process works, particularly at handover would always be beneficial!
