๐ 8. Findings of the week
How to optimize your UX learning, where to find real UX projects, survival kit for your new role...
Read time: 5 minutes.
Hi, how was your week? ๐
We just started to mentor young entrepreneurs in their project and help them with our UX design and Product management skills. Itโs a big challenge but weโre pretty excited! This will allow us to give you some concrete tips for the future news.
And welcome to those who have recently joined us!
You can join us on Twitter.
Break into UX ๐ป
Where to find real UX design projects for your portfolio?
Getting started with UX can be difficult, but we'll give you some tips to make it easier. When it comes to your portfolio, more and more companies are looking for real experience.
But how do you land a first UX job that asks you to have real UX experience but doesn't give you that experience? The answer is: do real UX projects by solving real problems to optimize your chances of landing your first job.
In this article, you will find some ideas where you can find real projects.
UX design for non-profits
Most nonprofit organizations do not have user-friendly websites. You can volunteer to help them. You can simply search for a list of nonprofits in your city and filter them according to your affinity.
Hackathons
It's a good way to explore real world problems. We recently participated in a hackathon and gained a lot of experience, a good UX design project for our portfolio and some contacts. You can search for hackathons near you or online on Eventbrite for example.
Startups
You can also offer your services or volunteer for a startup. Generally, they have a strong need for UX design. You can meet them at events or online. It's best to attend a local event, as you can talk to them directly.
You also have some platforms where you can volunteer like: UX Rescue, Technology volunteers, Benefit design, Digital for good, Catchafireโฆ
How to optimize your UX learning? ๐
With all the informations around there, it can be very hard to know what exactly to learn! So we tend to learn a LOT of things and feel overwhelmed. We got you! In this video, youโll learn how to optimize your UX learning with concrete advice.
โThe worst thing you can do is to commit or overcommit on learning options and materials and thenโฆ not get anywhere".โ Hard truth.
So here are the main takeaways:
Donโt fall into the trap where you take a lot of courses and doing only that. Youโll become โgood at taking courseโ BUT not good at UX.
Reflect on what youโre learning and how much of that youโre applying? โUX is a lot of practice, itโs doing. Itโs not just observing.โ Doing > learning.
Change your mindset: learn to solve real problems. Not for your resume, not just for learning.
Final note: applying what youโve learned is much valuable than just taking a lot of courses. Start practicing now.
More details in the video below:
A concept explained โ๏ธ
A beginnerโs guide to Lean UX
More and more companies are adopting Lean UX. If you're not familiar with this concept, this article explains the basics.
But before we get to the heart of the matter, why do we need this approach?
Because we spend a lot of time planning, determining the user's needs, doing research and writing it all down. Sometimes this planning takes so much time that by the time the team is ready to move into the development phase, the needs have changed or the research is outdated.
That's where this concept is interesting.
Here are the key points:
Lean UX is based on 3 main phases: build, measure, learn.
Lean UX starts with finding a solution to the problem โ then measuring the feedbacks โ enhancing the previous solutions based on these feedbacks.
Lean UX is based on Agile development and is a user-centric approach that focuses on reducing the waste produced during the design cycle.
Lean UX requires a LOT of collaboration of the team to solve a problem.
You also have this short video that explains the concept well. It explains that the process goes like this:
Think โ Design โ Test โ Think.
Goal: To be able to move faster towards your goals with minimal time and resources.
This method is especially suited for startups because they don't have many resources at the beginning.
Cool tools for you โจ
#1 Your survival kit for your new role
If youโve recently got a new role, congrats! Hereโs a Notion dashboard that may help you in your first month.
#2 A virtual coworking session
Focusmate is a software that changes the way you work. It matches you with an accountability partner for a virtual coworking session. This could be interesting to develop your network.
Weekly inspirations โก๏ธ
#1 Huiranโs portfolio
A really cool portfolio from Huiran Li, a product designer at Meta. Her case study are well crafted, you should check them!
#2 Product selection
We just found a really good and visual tool for you! Itโs called Ultra.
Juniorโs jobs
Europe ๐
UX/UI Designer - Kvass Norge AS - Oslo, Norway
UX designer - TMC - Nice - France
America ๐
UX/UI Designer - Qonkur Media, Ferndale, MI, USA
User experience Designer (UX Designer) - Mindseeker - Vienna, Canada
Asia ๐
UI/UX designer - Antal International - India
Africa ๐
Digital UI/UX Designer - HR Studio - Cap Town, South Africa
UI/ UX Designer - Marsa Maroc, Casablanca, Maroc
Thatโs all! Thank you for reading.
If you have a question, weโll answer it in the next newsletter. Feel free to ask it here.
And if you find this newsletter useful, you can share it to your people :)
See you on the next news,
Mialy and Michel