Get Into UX

Book excerpt: Get Into UX book is a career advice book written to help new and experienced designers get unstuck in their pursuits to get UX jobs. The UX field has been booming for years, and as a result, a landslide of new talent has been flooding the market. All of the newcomers want to learn user experience design or research as fast as possible and get paid professional positions. However, only a fraction of them breaks into the field. On the one hand, you have young designers struggling to find jobs, and on the other hand, managers who can’t find enough experienced talent. Often this is attributed to uninformed gurus, hasty bootcamps and other get-into-UX-quick schemes that overpromise, but never make anyone fully market-ready. Why do they not work? As a discipline, UX is too complex to graduate into overnight. It requires months and often years of commitment to do it justice. That doesn’t mean you cannot shorten this journey. This book is a foolproof guide to correct course and help UX researchers and designers like you focus on the right things to get the job you want. Every chapter is written to give you insights and practical tools that you need to: Set yourself apart from the majority of entry and junior-level applicants by genuinely understanding what UX is and what it isn't; It's time to distil user experience design into an effective workflow that adds clarity and pulls you out of the crowd of the unsure. Set up your UX career for long term success; learn the craft that is challenging, rewarding and futureproof. This means buckling up for the long term development but starting now. Overcome the self-sabotaging actions by focusing on the right things. Have you ever wondered why some UX designers get ahead quickly, and others don’t? Hint: it's rarely to do with external factors. Shorten your journey from beginner to pro by using field-proven strategies and specific tactics. You’ll learn how to go from awareness to 'can do' without getting stuck. Ace your UX portfolio, resumes, and interviews by showcasing your skills in the right way and for the right audiences. We'll unpack the essentials and the small yet critical detail to get your foot in the door. In this book you will find a few sections with the following progressive to your journey chapters: I: Understand what UX is and what it isn’t II: Plan your future in UX III: Gain a deep understanding of UX IV: Practice UX and collect the evidence along the way V: Demonstrate the evidence VI: Get the job VII: Build forward momentum About the author Vy (Vytautas) Alechnavicius is a design leader, seasoned and award-winning user experience and user research team manager, hiring manager and design educator to many. Over the past decade, Vy has been involved in UX driven projects from public services, healthcare, finance, transport, retail, and many other industries. Vy has established and grown small-to-large experience design and research teams, mentored and up-skilled the up-and-coming UX designers, and helped shape local and wider-reach design communities. On a typical day, you’ll find him in his office working on the next project, most recently that’s been focussed on giving back to the wider experience design community.