Living the Life (after leaving UX)

A short while ago - or what seems to have been as time has flown by, I wrote an article about leaving the lucrative field of User Experience Design. If you haven't read it yet and have a few moments, you can find that here: Goodbye UX, (I thought) I knew You Well.

Yup, after a long stint (15 years!) of doing UX, I decided it was time for a career change - in my 50's!! And to be honest I couldn't be happier.

Making a career change can be a scary thing, especially when you decide to get into a whole new industry - one you've always dreamt of being a part of, but feel no where near ready or even capable of doing, no matter how much you've done in your past work life that pretty much aligns with where you want to go. In fact, all the planning, learning and doing doesn't make one feel ready, at least in my case it didn't.

Yet here I am, boldly going where few dare to trudge. I decided if I was going to do a career change, I was going to chase my dream to its fullest, and that even meant working for a lot less pay, moving back to entry level positions, and not being an expert by any means at what I was wanting to do, but instead be willing and ready to LEARN NEW STUFF.

With that attitude, you'd be amazed at not only how much you can learn, but how that also opens more doors to amazing opportunities one would never even imagined.

Yet everything I've done that I just loved doing - things that were for fun or as home projects (from building a droid to building a scratch-built barn) over all those years not only got me to where I am, but help me in doing things I've really never done before.

One tends to know that there's a time when things just don't seem right anymore, and you have the choice to either stay on the track you're on, or switch tracks. The one you're on may seem like it's the right thing to do because it's easy and you've been on it for a long time. It's comfortable, not scary (for the most part), and it's what you know. But you get to where you know it's just not you.

That's where I was with UX. I loved it, made good friends, and worked on some amazing projects that made great impact. And then somewhere that excitement, the fun of creating those kinds of great experiences went away as those who were in charge wanted what they wanted, and not what the user deserved.

So here I am helping to make experiences that people can touch, stand next to, get wowed by, take a selfie with, and have lasting memories - or at least a really cool Instagram post.

THIS is truly everything I dreamt as a kid being able to do someday, and I couldn't be any happier.