In this blog post, I mentioned becoming a UX/UI designer in just 6 months. Well, time is was up! (At least 6 whole months of work is.) Want to know what happened?
tl;dr
I have been designing on my own for more than 2 months now. UX/UI Design is a never-ending learning process. I still have a lot to learn, but I am still having fun!
I started with the basics, and even after months of being in the job, I need refreshers every now and then. That’s normal. At some point I even need to take a step back and ask myself What have I been doing? But that is all in the days’ job. I easily lose myself in designing, and that is totally fine. Sometimes I even like it. To not overdoe it though, I try to give myself time boxes for tasks. Am I nearing my deadline? Then that’s when I take a step back.
The basics were not enough though. I need more! I mean, come on. Most designers took courses over longer periods of time, some took boot camps. And I am learning by doing. I still want to take up a course, even one that costs me something. Soon! But there is just a long list of what I want to try out.
The job
In the whole interface design cycle, I realized that prototyping is the hardest for me. Not the actual prototyping in itself, but the UI design of pages. I just have too many ideas that I want to put together at the same time. But as soon as the design is in a good state and it gets implemented, everything gets easier.
The second hardest would be user research. But not because I do not like it. I find it time-consuming especially with external customers. We work in sprints, and at times it is difficult to get what I want from the users if they do not have time. So I try to do the best I can with what I have.
What’s been so fun is finding a problem that needs a solution. Prototyping a narrow selection of solutions possible. And discussing the prototypes with the team. When I think I have thought about everything, that is when the team proves me wrong! And then again, the team can also tell me what is possible and what is not (technically).
As a bonus, I get to play around with some cool tools, like Photoshop and Illustrator. XD is an essential part of my daily work, it’s just a shame I can’t add videos. I tried out In Design for that, which worked okay. But my recent favourite tool would be After Effects.
(This is in no way an Adobe advertisement. I have the license, so it’s what I use!)
So what now?
As much as I would love to talk about what I really create at work, it is hard. What can I write that would be interesting? What can I write that won’t get me in trouble? So maybe I’ll try and post things in general. We’ll see!
Silke 