π 9. Findings of the week
From junior to senior: How to grow your UX skills, a mistake juniors often make, business concepts you should know...
Read time: 5 minutes.
Hello π How are you doing? We are about to get to our 10th findings wow! Thanks for being here we really appreciate it.
We can't wait to share this week's findings with you! We're going to learn how to leverage your skills, so let's dive in.
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βHow to grow your skills from junior to senior?βπ
This question is often asked and it's understandable: how can you develop your skills from junior to senior? We found a great Reddit discussion on this topic and here are the top tips from senior and experienced designers:
Go beyond UX and learn to communicate your design decisions: βOne of the biggest things is definitely expanding beyond just UX and also being able to proactively consider business, product, and tech use cases, workload, goals, etc.β
Learn to communicate the why behind your design decisions: βBeing able to both have, and be able to communicate rationale for your design choices. Taking that inner 'feeling' of why a design choice is right or not, and being able to summarize it in a logical way.β
Understand the real problem: βPut on your (more) PM hat and understand the problem you're trying to solve for.β
Fail fast and learn: βFail a lot, learn from mistakes, and organize stuff in a way that suits you. Can't find "inspiration" just copy a known design that works well and back it up with testing. I constantly tell people not to re-invent the wheel.β
Develop a solid understanding of your users and business goals: βA deep understanding of user needs and business goals, and the ability to think strategically about how to solve for both. Knows what success looks like, and how their designs will help achieve it.β
If you want to read more π
A concept explained βοΈ
The False-Consensus Effect
One mistake we see very often with junior UX designers (and the young entrepreneurs we mentor) is this: they think they are their users. If you've fallen into this trap, welcome to the club! We also made this mistake early on. Assuming that our users think the same way. This is completely wrong and is called β¨the false-consensus effectβ¨. This excellent article from the NN/ group explains it very well.
Here are the main takeaways:
The definition: βThe false-consensus effect refers to peopleβs tendency to assume that others share their beliefs and will behave similarly in a given context. Only people who are very different from them would make different choices.β
E.g: we assume our neighbor voted for the same candidate as us. And only others who are different from us (another background, socio-economic class, educationβ¦) may have voted for the opposite candidate.
When we make generalizations based on what we know, it's called the availability bias. It's a type of cognitive bias, like: negativity bias, loss aversion, narrative bias, and framing.
Why is it tricky for us, UX designers?
Because, we may assume that people who will use our interfaces are like us. And this is a big mistake.
What to do then?
Be aware of existing biases. Learn from them and be aware of them.
Always test your interface with real users.
Do your own investigation instead of validating your design. You can: research, test, analyze, study.
Cool tools for you β¨
#1 Business terms every UX designers should know
As a UX designer, here are some business terms you need to know to understand key business concepts and communicate well with your stakeholders.
#2 A personalized curation of colors
I think it's our favorite tool for colors. With Khroma, you can select all the colors you like and then, with AI, it gives you an infinite scroll of colors you might like.
Weekly inspirations β‘οΈ
#1 Michelleβs portfolio
Michelle is currently a product designer at Apple. You can check out her inspiring portfolio and explore the work she has done.
#2 Product selection
Hyddle is a great tool to diversify your UX activity. If you are familiar with ADP List, you will understand the concept behind it. You can charge a call to help someone else who is interested in your skills or field! You can discover it here.
Juniorβs jobs
Europe π
UI/UX Designer - Evolution - Riga, Latvia
UX/UI Designer - Kvass Norge AS - Oslo, Norway
America π
UI Designer - Hitch - Mexico - Mexico
UX/UI Designer - Qonkur Media, Ferndale, MI, USA
Asia π
User Interface (UI)/ User Experience (UX) Designer - MINDEF - Singapore
Africa π
UI/UX Designer - Valeo - Cairo - Egypt
Digital UI/uX Designer - HR Studio - Cap Town, South Africa
Thatβs all! Thank you for reading.
If you have a question, weβll 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