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11 Valuable Tips on How to Become a Successful UX Designer

UX design is an excellent profession, especially for creative people passionate about the tech world. However, being an expert UX designer is difficult since it requires a high level of hard work and patience each day.

As time passes by and organizations realize the importance of user experience quality for success, this is where they shift their focus to UX designers.

However, what are the most valuable tips you can follow to become a successful UX designer? Let’s find out more in this article!

 

11 Tips to follow for becoming an influential UX designer

• Do research

Like most other industries and professions, becoming a powerful UX designer requires extensive research. However, not only does it help you understand what you are going against, it minimizes the chances of running into any surprises while you are on your journey.

Even in your early days, you can always try different things, such as reading books, blogs, articles, and even watching videos that can provide you with enough insights about your career.

 

• Explore UX design job boards

If you are a freelancer or unemployed, job boards are an excellent method of finding open positions at different companies, from small and mid-sized businesses to tech giants.

There are different types of job boards you can use, but the best job boards for UX designers are:

• Uxcel
• Dribble
• We work remotely
• LinkedIn
• Indeed, and more

 

• Try to brainstorm and solve problems

Design’s essential components are finding, defining and solving a problem. Problem solving skills can be something you naturally have in you, or it can be something you learn from experience. However, even if you don’t have the experience, you can still learn it.

Identifying opportunities as needed is important, and solving problems should be your primary mission. Most UX designers, whether a freelancer or someone who works in a company that provides React Native development services, have the same issue: trying to solve a problem. Whenever you try to solve a problem, you need to identify where the problem is starting from initially. It may seem simple to identify, but you would be surprised how many UX designers fail to dig deep enough.

The best way to solve problems is always by asking enough questions so it can give you more arguments to find the right solution. But, of course, if you don’t ask enough questions, you can’t find the right solution and this is some of the main reasons why many products and services fail.

Brainstorming and problem solving come from doing enough research and investing the right time.

 

• Set personal goals

Like any other profession, you need a personal goal to reach new heights. As a UX designer, it’s going to be your duty to continuously work towards achieving your client’s goals. However, it’s always important to push yourself to the maximum and set your own personal goals.

How do you ensure you always reach new heights when setting personal goals? First, you must continually challenge your personal goals to uplift you to the maximum.

 

• Always keep learning

You can’t ever succeed in an industry if you fail to learn more over time. The same goes for UX design; it’s important to always keep up with recent trends since technological advancements, cultural changes, and more are always involved. In addition, we must understand our role in society to know which adjustments we need to make.

Learn new skills and improve your knowledge by conducting online training courses, watching webinars and even reading articles. However, always avoid focusing on too many things at once. This way, you’ll lose focus and might not help you develop your skills as much as you need.

 

• Build up your UX portfolio

Building your UX portfolio is one of the best things you can do in the UX design industry. Not only does demonstrating learn skills, but this also helps you have much better insights into your career as a designer.

Never mistake yourself in thinking that UX portfolios only count for those who have years of experience. Instead, include all of your products, from the ones you took in UX design courses to those you can work on using your own apps.

 

• Fall in love with your users

To succeed in the UX design industry, you must fall in love with your users and care about them as much as possible. Once you fall in love with your users, you need to give the maximum energy to understand and get to know them. How do you do this? You try to listen to them as much as possible and help answer their questions.

In other words, listening is observing. Observing what your users think and want can be done through a set of surveys and interviews. You can explore more about what fits your client’s boat by doing a survey or interview.

Additionally, set up user personas to fully understand their goals and needs. Also, this will point out what their problems are and, thus, help you brainstorm new solutions to solve the current issues they are facing.

 

• Tell stories

While UX design has to be well polished and attractive for users to stay interested, it’s always crucial you don’t make them lose interest. Your main goal here is to bring your users closer to you, and you can only do that once you take them on a journey.

Before you get into your visual ideas, you need to become familiar with the story behind a brand and its message. After, map these stories onboard and ensure the message is effectively communicated.

Above all, building storytelling skills help designers become better communicators, and their ideas are better constructed in story form. Once you create a story, people will automatically engage with your content. Statistics show that people who listen to stories will automatically get engaged, which is an excellent way to avoid boredom.

So, what can we distinguish here? Having a good idea is one thing, but being able to communicate effectively through a story is another.

 

• Take criticism positively

While many people enjoy being praised and don’t like criticism, it helps us improve our actions. Especially if you are a UX designer, if you don’t undergo criticism, growth can’t ever happen.

Criticism might hurt from time to time, but it’s an excellent way for finding clarity and being a perfect upper hand for progress. It’s difficult to say good words about your own work because they might either be true or not. Your best bet is working with other coworkers and UX designers. Sharing opinions is never a bad option to consider.

Criticism is something professionalists take, so use it to your advantage and don’t let it get to you personally. Positive feedback comes alongside criticism in any industry.

Also, remember to always crave feedback since it’ll help you know where your biggest mistakes are.

 

• Build a powerful network

No matter which profession you choose to pursue in your career, building a professional network matters a lot and directly contributes to your professional career. Nowadays, it’s even easier for professionals to learn more since you can join different online communities, use LinkedIn, exchange stories with other professionals and much more.

The best, above all, would also be to meet professional UX designers in real life. Again, you can look up any events you can attend in your local area.

If there are many designers in your area, that’s even better for you. Professionals love to give out help, so separate some time and have lunch with them. It never hurts to ask and use other stories as an influence to help you grow.

 

• Don’t forget about technology

Technology is the backbone of how the world is working nowadays. New technologies allow you to recognize your place in society. UX designers are one of the primary people that help you experience new technologies, user flows, etc. Therefore, staying updated on the latest technologies and seeing how they impact your user experience is important.

Prioritizing users’ needs and abilities is important regardless of the medium or technology you are trying to use. Reading technology articles is an excellent way to stay informed. However, finding inspiration in the offline world can be done at museums by reading books, experimenting with technology, and more.

 

Wrapping it up

That’s about it for this article. These are our eleven valuable tips on becoming a powerful UX designer. But, of course, every industry requires you to stay updated with the latest trends and desire to learn more about your UX design.

At the end of the day, two things are super important: trying to understand more about your users and having enough confidence to accept criticism for good.

 

Author bio:

Tony Ademi is a freelance SEO content and copywriter. He has been in the writing industry for three years and has managed to write hundreds of SEO-optimized articles. Moreover, he has written articles that have ranked #1 on Google. Tony’s primary concern when writing an article is to do extensive research and ensure that the reader is engaged until the end.