My Journey of Transitioning into UX Design

I am an Engineer turned designer. I started my career at an MNC where I worked as a consultant. A few months into the company, I started exploring different fields. I took up digital marketing, learned to code, and did small projects to understand if I liked them. Well, I did like them but, something wasn't clicking. Around this time, I signed up for a design thinking course on Coursera and came across UX design.

To understand more about UX Design, I googled and read articles on how this field primarily focuses on solving problems and making products that users find easy to use.

The more I read about it, the more I got hooked to UX design.

I reached out to people on LinkedIn who work in Design to understand more about it and know their journey. That is when I found IDF. I enrolled myself in their UX designer from the scratch course and User research methods and best practices course.

At the time, I was interested in research. So, I started my first ever UX case study. I tried to apply all the things I have learned from my IDF courses. Now, at this point, I needed someone who's experienced in the field to help me with my design journey.

That's when I came across Rethinking UX. With the help of Aprajit, my mentor, I finished my first UX design Case study on Food ordering at the workplace and a research project on Rethinking Learning Management Systems.

These two projects helped me switch to User Experience design in the company I was working at. Over time, I worked on various domains such as data integration, FinTech, Field service management and designed experiences across multiple devices. ?

Now, as a designer who has experience in the field, I can reflect on my journey and understand what I've done right and what I could've done better.

So, my advice to anyone who's a budding designer or wants to transition into User Experience Design:

• Do your research on various fields in Design, understand what you like the most, and pick your niche.
• 2. Start working on mock projects and read a lot. There are multiple platforms you can go to, to read and learn about Design. Some of them are IDF (Interaction Design Foundation), Coursera, and Medium.
• You can also enroll in Boot camps that will help you get started as a designer.
• Understand the laws of UX, familiarise yourself with the terminology.
• Some of the books I'd recommend are The mom test (If you are interested in research) and Steal like an artist.

• Learn from the designers you like, study their design, understand their design decisions, and steal them effectively.
• Go to Awwwards, Behance, Dribbble, and stay up to date with the design trends.
• Some designers started Youtube channels where they give us some of the best ideas and advice to be a better designer. Some of the people I follow are Saptarshi Prakash, Femke, Mizco.
• Join design communities. Connect with fellow designers on LinkedIn. Network.
• Write cold emails.

Don't be afraid to make mistakes. One of the things that I wish I'd have done differently when I started is to experiment with my Design boldly. I was afraid to go out of my comfort zone. As I started experimenting with my design, I got better at it. So, experiment, make mistakes, learn from them. Ask for help when needed. You'd be surprised to see how many people are willing to help.

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