Career advice for designers

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Common problems with design career advice

Career advice is common amongst designers. Often from respected designers. But I see common problems with some advice.

  1. The advice reflects an ideal situation/perspective: Many designers who give advice work for closer-to-ideal companies than the majority. The company they’re associated with is doing things in the right way. This advice isn’t as useful to designers who, statistically, will probably apply to/work for companies that don’t do things in the right way. e.g. “Your portfolio doesn’t need to be beautiful, it just needs to explain your process” isn’t helpful when most companies do seem to be impressed by beautiful portfolios.
  2. The advice is from someone who doesn’t decide whether you’ll be hired: Career advice, especially about how to get a new job, should come from people who decide whether or not designers will be hired. Other designers might not have enough insight into the hiring process.
  3. The advice reflects that designer’s career path only: Designers often give advice about what skills to learn, what topics to dive into, or what kinds of companies to work for. Generally these represent the career path of the person who gives the advice. But other career paths are possible, and might be better for the advice-seeker’s situation.
  4. The advice reflects the designer’s current focus: Some designers claim that X is most important (e.g. research, people skills, documentation). In these cases X is generally what the designer who gave the advice is currently focused on. They feel that other areas of design are less important because they’re less important to them, now. In fact those other areas may be just as, or more, important. Especially for people in other situations.
  5. The advice reflects the designer’s current view: Some designers notice that changes are happening. They give advice based on what they’ve noticed. And it might be true that “everyone they know is going through this”. But they probably know less than 1% of the design community. Their advice might be irrelevant to people who are not part of the design industry slice they can see.

The five minute design curriculum

You’re guaranteed to be a good designer if you put these five lessons into practice.

  1. 1. Learn like a beginner: Always assume there’s more to learn, whether you’ve been a UX designer for one year or one hundred. Learn about your colleagues’ work, and the fields related to design. Be humble.
  2. 2. Find good design: You develop your taste and personal style when you look at good design. You improve your craft when you pull it apart to understand how it was made. You can use a personal catalogue of good design as inspiration.
  3. 3. Explore a lot: When you need to understand, research for as long as you can. When you need a solution, come up with as many ideas as you can. Once you’ve chosen an idea, iterate until you can’t.
  4. 4. Make a lot: As much as you can. Quantity leads to quality, so practice regularly.
  5. 5. Share your work: Ask your colleagues and community what they think. The feedback will help you improve, and the exposure will grow your network.

What outsiders look for in a good designer

Usually when I ask designers what “good” means, they don’t want to define it. This fascinates me, so I hunted for definitions and found eight.

This list is supposed to be cynical and practical. It lists the factors that other people might rely on to figure out if you’re a good designer. You might feel they’re not fair.

  1. A good designer gets results: The designer moves whatever needle needs to be moved. Perhaps the conversion rate goes up by 5% when their design is built and released, or internal teams get their work done 50% faster because of improvements to internal tools.
  2. A good designer gets stuff done: The designer’s output is very good, regardless of the outcomes. They have a productive attitude to their work and are willing to get stuck into anything and see it through.
  3. A good designer makes impressive design: The designer makes design that is beautiful, has lots of impressive details, and represents the skills of a good craftsperson. This is about visual design but also interactivity details that impress people. Fluid animation, fun microinteractions, etc.
  4. A good designer is creative: The designer comes up with ideas that others don’t.
  5. A good designer is knowledgeable: The designer knows everything about design. If you have a question about design theory, this is the first person you go to. They recommend books, articles, videos, other designers, websites, and more. They have a vast library of design patterns in their head.
  6. A good designer has social proof: The designer has, for example, lots of followers on Twitter; gushing testimonials on their portfolio; a strong referral from another good designer; respected design awards; or has worked with impressive companies like Apple, Stripe, and Nike.
  7. A good designer works well with others: The designer is humble, and a good listener. They understand their teammates’ work, needs, and language. They’re able to present their designs effectively to anyone. They can sell their work. This is about good collaboration and communication.
  8. A good designer is a good product manager: There is already overlap between the work of designers and product managers. In smaller organisations where there is no product manager, a good designer might be expected to deeply understand the business, its customers, and the problem (and reframe it where needed). They might also be partly responsible for product vision.

Factors of a good interface designer

Knowledge

Experience

Creativity

Quality

Technical skills

Wider picture

Communication

Defensible visual design

When you show your visual design to people, they might ask questions or challenge your decisions. Here are some notes on how to make your visual design easier to defend.

Note there are steps you can take to avoid questions/challenges in the first place, e.g. managing expectations. They are not covered here.

  1. It’s possible to design by taste/intuition alone. But that’s best when everyone trusts you. If you work in a low-trust environment, it’s harder to fall back on taste.
  2. Tie every visual design decision back to a project goal or the brand of the organisation/system.
  3. Some organisations have secret goals they don’t like to admit (e.g. “we want to look like the industry leader”). Your visual design might be judged against these goals. The better you understand them, the less vague feedback you might get.
  4. Every decision in your visual design should be intentional. You should be ready to explain the decision behind every pixel if necessary.
  5. If every value in the style (e.g. spacing, colours, text size) is related to every other value in some way, you can explain why you chose the values you did.
  6. Prefer accessible values whenever possible. If someone doesn’t like a decision, it’s better to point at an objective goal like accessibility than a subjective one like “I like how it looks”.
  7. You want to avoid any situation where it’s your opinion versus the opinion of someone with more power than you.
  8. Tie decisions to clarity. Whether people can understand something is universal and easy to measure. Something like beauty is much harder to measure.
  9. Look to industry and competitor standards where it’s sensible. That’s what many of the people who use your product will be familiar with.
  10. Tie decisions to how your company or product already does something. It’s easier to argue against something if it’s novel.
  11. Explore as many options as you can. Even ones you don’t think will work. If someone suggests one of those options, have it to hand so you can show why it doesn’t work.
  12. Tie visual design decisions to interaction design or commercial benefits, e.g. “this helps guide people’s attention to the call to action”.
  13. Don’t only use styles or techniques only because you saw them somewhere else/they’re popular. Find another reason to use them.
  14. Make sure your visual design choices are technically possible/easy.

How to look impressive without impressive projects or jobs

Some designers have worked at companies like Airbnb and Nike. They have impactful projects in their portfolio. They glide into new jobs.

But what if you’re an absolute loser like me?

Here are 10 (not at all easy) ways to look good and impress other people.

  1. Become an expert in a niche/specialist topic: Learn so much that you become the go-to person on accessibility. Or visual design (it me). Or design systems (it everyone else). Read all the books. Seek out the forbidden knowledge. Build a moat out of the stuff in your brain.
  2. Perfect a niche/specialist skill: Really good animation looks cool. So learn how to do that. Or be the best information designer. As long as other people value it. I believe in you. It’ll only take you five years of gruelling effort.
  3. Make a beautiful portfolio: Craft a website that designers swoon over. Pixel-perfect details in every corner. Like that one scene in Pulp Fiction, where they open the briefcase and golden light shines out? But with a web browser, and it’s your portfolio.
  4. Make beautiful mock-ups: Everyone finds good visual design impressive. So make the best, and share it around. You think people are going to be annoyed that you’ve shoved something beautiful under their nose? NO. They’re going to thank you and fall at your feet.
  5. Make impressive interaction demos: Design the best interactions. Full of fiddle factor. Record videos of them in action. Whack ’em on the internet.
  6. Become a mentor: Share what you know with other designers. Not only does this show that you know things, it also helps you refine how you share what you know with others.
  7. Network with community regulars: Go to all of the events. Speak to everyone. Show interest in their work. Talk about your work, but don’t boast. Keep in touch with them.
  8. Get impressive testimonials: As you impress people more and more, they’ll say impressive things about you. Write those things down. Put them in public places. Social proof, baby.
  9. Gain a lot of Twitter followers: You know what everyone loves, even if they won’t admit it? Big numbers. 10,000 followers on Twitter? People assume you must be doing SOMETHING right.
  10. Create a popular design resource: Write a book. Create a course. Make a wallpaper pack. Give it away for free. Or charge for it. Either way, make something that other people want, and make a note of how many people wanted it. More big numbers.

A practical career approach for generalist designers

There are as many career approaches as there are designers, but this is what I’d recommend to a new designer.

Work experience

Portfolio

Exposure/networking

Signs that an organisation values interface design

An organisation may not meet all of these, but may still value interface design.

Company structure

  1. Enough designers are employed
  2. Design is represented directly at the top of the company
  3. Designers are expected to work closely with other teams

Culture

  1. Designers are seen to be experts
  2. Developers are willing to spend time on the small details necessary for good design
  3. The company has a strong design culture (e.g. celebration, understanding)
  4. The company’s products are opinionated (i.e. they have strong opinions about how products should be, and they stick to them)

Responsibility

  1. The company sees design as a source of significant commercial value
  2. Designers are relied upon to affect outcomes, not produce outputs
  3. Designers are empowered to work effectively and efficiently

Priority

  1. The company spends significant amounts of time on design
  2. Quality is prioritised over other things (e.g. scope and deadlines are lowered before quality)
  3. The company believes it should prioritise good interaction and visual design, even if there’s not an obvious commercial case
  4. The company believes accessibility is important

Understanding

  1. Design work is informed by discovery work
  2. Design work is validated (e.g. usability testing, analytics)

Quality

  1. Iteration after release is normal
  2. There are few to no paper cut bugs in the product

Professional development

  1. Designers are paid well
  2. Designers are helped to improve their skills
  3. Designers can easily work with their preferred tools
  4. The company has good retention rates for designers

Community

  1. The company shares public knowledge about its design practices
  2. The company’s products set design trends
  3. The company has made a name for itself for “good design”
  4. Designers want to work at the company

Cynical advice for designers

I do not follow all of this advice. But it’s clear that some designers take advantage of it.

Visual design

  1. “It looks good/interesting” is a valid reason to make a visual design decision if you want to impress people.
  2. The more structure and imagery (including icons) you add to a design, the more “designed” it looks.
  3. The more expressive your design, the more impressive.
  4. The more effort your design apparently took, the more impressed people will be.
  5. It’s often enough to make a simple design and put in an impressive visual centrepiece.
  6. It’s easier and usually nearly as effective to copy someone else who’s better than you. Don’t copy one person directly. Mix inspiration together.
  7. Lean on the good work of others, e.g. use high quality imagery and typefaces.
  8. You can impress people with simple design if you do a series of small designs, which belong together as a set, with small variations between each one, e.g. a series of home screen widgets.
  9. Some interfaces (e.g. a calendar full of colourful blocks) are more visually interesting. You can impress people more with the same amount of effort if you focus on those.

Presentation of work

  1. Put more than one related mock-up in the same image. More visual design is more impressive.
  2. If you have many mock-ups, put them in an orderly grid of some kind. It gives people’s eyes something to explore, and they’ll be impressed more.
  3. Annotate your mock-up with call-out lines, etc. This allows you to add technical/fiddly elements (the annotations) even if your mock-up doesn’t have any.

Career

  1. Good visual design impresses customers, colleagues, and hiring managers.
  2. It can be helpful if people believe design is magic. When you are vague about your process it promotes that idea.
  3. Post impressive work consistently on social media to get a following.
  4. People who screen job applications often don’t work in design and look for key words. Your application should use the words they know, not the “correct” words.
  5. Many hiring managers look at your application for a minute. First impressions count.
  6. If you are impressive in one area you can be less impressive in another. e.g. if you’ve got a prestigious company on your CV you don’t need an impressive portfolio.
  7. 95% of software is boring, and 95% of us will work on boring software. You don’t need to learn impressive new technologies or skills to work on boring software.
  8. If you have strong opinions and good taste in software, you won’t be able to express those fully at 95% of companies. You’ll either need to accept that you can’t produce your best work, or start your own company.

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