We all have unique paths. Nevertheless it is often beneficial and encouraging to learn about others’ journey.
Mine was long and boring.
I briefly talked about my experience of becoming a UX designer in This is not UX, but I feel like it might be worthwhile expanding my story in a separate post. So here it is.
In case you are wondering who I am, and why you should care…
My name is Michael A. Degtyarev (conveniently abbreviated as MAD).
I’ve been a Senior UX designer for the past 12 years. I work for Yardi, one of the leading real-estate software providers.
Before that I was a freelance Web Designer for 6 years (I had no clue about UX). I designed dozens of Web sites. I also ran several online projects of my own. One of them was bought out by a large CMS provider.
I am a self-taught UX designer. I don’t have a design degree. When I started I had very little knowledge about Web design, and absolutely no idea about UX design.
So my story is a story of two becomings:
- (1) from no experience to becoming a Web designer, and
- (2) becoming a UX designer
It took me a long time to discover UX design and become a UX designer.
Since you are reading this you are probably way ahead of where I was when I got started.
In any case, I hope my story will be somewhat of an inspiration for you, especially if you are looking to learn UX design on your own.
In the end, I’ll share some points that worked well for me in my journey to become a UX designer, and I think they might work well for you too.
My background
Growing up I was always drawn to computers. I picked up some very basic programming in high school, but I was not good at it. I was drawn to art, music and photography. However, I never considered those things to be something I could do for living. I had no clue about design.
In university I ended up studying linguistics.
During my school years I was working part-time as an interpreter and a translator, and in my senior year (2003) I got a part-time job as a QA specialist at Dulance (a long-tail shopping search engine that was bought by Google). That was my first exposure to the software industry. Still, I had no clue that design could be a valid career choice.
Becoming a Web Designer
I continued working as a QA specialist for another couple years. I was working in a team with designers and developers, but still didn’t consider design (nor development) as a career choice.
It wasn’t until 2005 when I started considering a career in design.
Frankly, I got tired of testing software. My creative side got the best of me. One day, I decided to become a designer!
I was 25. I had a wife and a baby girl to care for. We moved from Russia to Ukraine. I was still doing some translation and QA work, but I was determined to make a switch.
Learning design and gaining experience
There was no Youtube, nor Facebook. There were some design websites and forums.
I started consuming all the tutorials I could find, and taught myself Fireworks, Photoshop, Illustrator, and Flash.
I started working on fake projects: CD covers, posters, animated banners.
I designed 4 or 5 versions of my personal website. I had to learn some CSS and HTML for that.
One resource that proved to be invaluable was Before and After magazine by John McWade. There is also a great book by him that I still recommend to anyone interested in learning basic principles of design in a fun and practical way. I’ll leave a link in the description.
I connected with other designers on design forums early on. Perhaps a bit too early…
Some of the first work I shared on forums got feedback like “I wouldn’t show your work to anyone but your mom for the first year…” It hurt, but that didn’t stop me.
I continued to post my work asking for constructive feedback. I also started reaching out to certain designers personally, even the ones that left “mean” comments. Most of them turned around and were glad to help when they saw that I was sincerely looking for help and wanted to improve. I got my first paid work through those contacts!
By then I had enough projects in my portfolio to start bidding for work on freelance websites. Soon enough I had my hands full doing Web Design, graphic design and Flash animation.
Flash was huge back then, and so lots of my work was in Flash. Believe it or not, but back then Flash was used not just for banners or some interactive components. Entire websites were built in Flash! Accessibility nightmare!
Freelance success
Aside from animation work most of the Web Design projects that came my way required me not only to design, but also to code. You see, Web Design was very competitive even 10-15 years ago. Knowing HTML and CSS was (and I believe still is) a great way to set yourself apart!
I also started a number of personal web projects that were fairly successful. I quit my QA job, and focused solely on design work.
I won’t bore you with all the fine details of my freelance career. Let me just say that I still had no idea about UX. All the design work I was doing including web design was focused on aesthetics. I could get away with it because most websites follow a very simple formula. There are very few pages or pieces to work with, so it is really hard to mess them up. Things get progressively more complicated when we start taking about web or mobile applications, but I’ll get to that very soon.
Being a freelancer was great. I was free to live and work anywhere. In 2007 I moved with my family to Taiwan and lived there till 2009 when we came to Canada.
Turning point
This is where it gets interesting.
In 2010 I got my first full-time job in a software development company. On paper I was a content manager. I was responsible for digitizing a paper based training manual and adding interactive Flash components to it, but I also got a chance to participate in other projects as a developer and a designer.
Signup Form that changed my career
I worked on a small product team. For one of the projects we had to design and implement a sign up form. We figured there were lots of things we could ask the users at sign up. And that’s what we did…
We designed a form that was literally 20-30 input fields long…. a sign up form… We proudly presented it to one of the stakeholders. Needless to say, it didn’t go well. He walked us through the form field by field and questioned the need to ask for this or that piece of information. He made us think about usability and the impact our design choices would make on the conversion (and ultimately business bottom line). He was really talking about User Experience Design, but I didn’t know that yet!
Of course, we reworked the form and made it much more concise and user friendly. But this one interaction was a turning point for me. This was a completely different way of thinking about design. I got hooked big time. I wanted to know more.
This was a completely different way of thinking about design. I got hooked big time. I wanted to know more.
Adventures in Academia
In fact, I got so interested that I decided to go back to school.
The problem was that there were no university or college programs in UX design (or anything close to it) back then. My local university had a professor in Computer Science department that ran Accessibility and Usability classes, and he was interested in taking me as a post-grad student. I took both of his classes! I was surprised how much there is to learn about usable and accessible design. I took it all in like a sponge.
Looking back I realize that what I was learning was a very limited academic (frankly not very practical) perspective on user-centered design.
Transitioning from Web design to UX design
My adventures in academia continued only for couple months. I had to drop out of classes right before the finals, and went back to work. By then I already had 2 kids.
It was January of 2011 when I started at my current place of employment. I was hired as a Web Developer, but I believe what got me in was my experience in Web-design (again, thanks to my Flash/HTML/CSS skills), and my passion for user-centered design (still not much understanding of UX design as we know it).
I transitioned into the role of a UX designer shortly after I started when the designer who was there left the company. I was put in charge of redesigning company’s flagmanship product: SaaS application for real-estate agents. I was thrown into the deep end.
It wasn’t about restyling the existing application. The company was looking for a bigger change. We had to make the app easier to use. We were also looking to increase conversions and sales.
The app was nothing like simple websites I used to be working on. It was a complex application with lots of features. Some of them would have to go.
This was my first UX design project, and I had no idea where to start.
My academic learning didn’t really help. I had to frantically seek guidance. I read almost every single book on UX research and UX design (here are some of the best ones I found). Funny enough, none of those books were even mentioned by my former professor. I guess they were not academic enough. Who knows… The books armed me with practical knowledge that I could use and apply at my job.
During that time I had a lot of freedom to experiment. My boss and other team members were highly supportive, so I got a chance to try all kinds of things: user interviews, card sorting, design workshops, personas, user story mapping, paper prototyping, user testing, and all kinds of things.
During the next 3 years I had many more opportunities to experiment and learn on the job, and refine the UX design process. I worked on projects of various complexity mostly web applications, but also native mobile apps.
Now, almost 10 years later I have “senior” in my job title, I’ve also been a design team lead, but I am still learning. I also have a passion to share my experience and expertise with others.
Three things that worked well for me
Now, you might say – “You were just lucky, you just happened to be in the right place at the right time”. I completely agree! I also believe it was my background and experience I gained working as a QA specialist and then a Web designer that opened the right doors. Haven’t I had that background and experience it would be very unlikely I would be hired and then put in charge of a large UX project.
If I were to pick some points that worked particularly well for me, that perhaps could help you too, I’d choose:
- Get into the software industry in any way you can. Any relevant experience is a bonus: QA Specialist, customer support, technical writer, etc.
- Consider what skills you can use and develop to set yourself apart. In my case, it was Flash and knowing basic coding. Most of the projects I’ve done came to me because I could do more than just provide a design
- Gain the breadth of experience before you specialize. When I was learning I tried all kinds of things: graphic design, brand design, motion graphics, 3D. I settled on Web design and particularly Flash because there was a demand. Of course, I enjoyed doing it too!
Last point leads nicely into 3 things I’d do differently!
Three things I’d do differently
Looking back there are also some things I’d do differently.
1. Avoid Shiny Object Syndrome!
As many other aspiring designers I suffered from so called Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS). I’d discover some new technique or style, and I’d drop whatever I was learning at that moment and tried to learn it. In many cases I ended up going through the motions jumping from one thing to the other without learning anything well.
If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t chase the trends. I’d learn basic principles of design early on to know them cold!
I’d also be much more deliberate in what I was learning and practicing. I would focus on improving both my strengths and weaknesses.
2. Don’t go back to school!
Don’t look to an academic establishment to provide you with practical knowledge. Create a learning environment for yourself, and practice, practice, practice.
It might seem that you need more discipline to learn on your own, but the truth is you need no less discipline to do well in school. Sure, there might be a bit more structure and accountability there, but it comes at a cost.
3. Follow a proven study plan!
You don’t have to go back to school to follow a well designed and structured program. Of course, when I started there was nothing like it available. But now there is! And you will be surprised by how much you can find and learn for free!
A good place to start would be my article on how to become a self-taught UX designer.
Well, that’s my story. What is yours? What is your background and where are you at in your journey? Are you already a UX designer? What was your path to becoming a UX designer? Let me know in the comments.
