Entry Level Career Advice

[jolly widget]

@covert panther @surreal oyster @dim merlin Thank you guys for getting back to me. I like Minh approach about trying to identify what I want in the next few years.

As far as what AstroPoro mentioned I would say I'm pretty proficient at tools at this point, and have strong leadership skills.

I think I can improve strengthening my visual design skills and my design process / strategy. My current job said they would like to see me have more technical knowledge... back end stuff particularly ?

I would say in the next few years I would like to work somewhere where I can wok on more challenging problems, test designs and other UX design practices. Not a crazy goal at the moment, but its a start lol. Also not sure if a thread is appropriate for this, still trying to grasp discord lol.

Entry Level Career Advice

[dim merlin]

If they are talking about back-end knowledge, it'll probably be learning how to collaborate with developers and knowing dev constraints. I think the quickest way is to learn how to code, I came from a programming background so this wasn't really an issue for me.

[surreal oyster]

I've honestly never found myself in a situation in which having back end knowledge was especially useful for communication, despite how often people seem to talk about it being useful.

Imo buttoning up your visual design skills could be a good help for you to move on to the next place, where you may be able to learn a better process through being inside of a more mature organization.

[jolly widget]

I communicate with developers quite often and I've kind of grasped as what is practical and not practical.... but nothing in greater detail?

As far as visuals I dont even know where to begin. Daily challenges perhaps?

[surreal oyster]

Do you ever feel like your knowledge is a blocker to getting any of your feature or function ideas implemented?

And I've heard good stuff about the Shift+Nudge course, if your work is interested in investing in a class for you.

[dim merlin]

I think brand design helps a lot, practicing visual design using UI screens becomes a bit repetitive at some point because of design heuristics. But with brand design, you'll be able to innovate a lot more. Just something I thought out, what do you guys think?

[surreal oyster]

Brand design is useful if you want to be a brand designer? I don't think most UX designers need to be especially innovative visually, just able to lay out and present their thoughts well.

[dim merlin]

Good point. My work is more of generalist role and I did brand design before I did UX, it helped me a lot with doing moodboards and articulating design decisions with stakeholders during discovery meetings. I do agree it's more of a UI designers job to handle the visuals and aesthetics of the design

[surreal oyster]

Yeah, I also started as a graphic designer, so I find strategic brand design fascinating. But from Chels post, it feels like she's more interested in the testing and solutioning aspect of UX design. So visual design would be more of a means to the end.

[jolly widget]

I definitely feel that it can great repetitive doing ui mobile screens at times @dim merlin. However @surreal oyster I've heard of Shift + Nudge but never looked into it! Definitely going to check that out now 🙂 Thank you!

Do you guys know anyone that have taken these masterclasses before ?

https://www.awwwards.com/masterclasses/

As far as the backend stuff im going to ask what exactly they are looking for

[surreal oyster]

Hmm unfortunately not, I think they're a relatively new offering. I wish I knew more!