How to move forward with UX

Careers & Mentoring
#1

[SIZE=14px]Hi guys,

Last summer I graduated college, unsure of what I wanted to do, studying completely unrelated subjects to UX design, although always having a huge passion for art and design. After a long period of time and various things happening/jobs/life events…! I have found myself working as a Junior UX tester for the Uk’s leading job board CV Library.
I am thoroughly enjoying my work, finding it so interesting, and have now decided this is what I would like to do as a career. Ideally I would like to learn to code with javascript, html, css3 etc, perhaps learn Python/Ruby and also become an expert in the use of adobe creative suite.
I am in full time work now Monday-Friday and while I don’t want to leave work, I really am interested in taking either various courses that would support my work and learning development, or perhaps even a part time degree course.[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14px]Do you have any suggestion as to what would be the best way forward would be and how to work my way up in the world of UX?

Thanks for your time![/SIZE]

#2

Hey @IsabelTaylor95 – sorry for the delay in responding, and welcome to the community, :slight_smile:

That’s a lot of learning!

On the code side of things, there are lots of options. I can vouch for learnable.com (but it’s not a free platform). Start with HTML. :slight_smile:

As far as the UX stuff goes, we’ve got a pretty comprehensive list of courses here, and we’ve reviewed a number of them.

#3

You already jumped one hurdle, getting a job in UX! Without experience it can be very difficult to land a job in user experience. The next step is to discover what you love doing within the UX field. There are many different paths you can take. If you want to learn how to code I would check out www.teamtreehouse.com. They have a wonderful curriculum across many different programming languages.

I would highly recommend not leaving your current UX role. You’re in a perfect position to grow your career in UX. Move from within and after a few years, you’ll have enough experience to move on if you decide to.

As far as moving your way up…that takes time. My advice is to treat every day as a learning experience. Be inquisitive and observe everything. The rest will follow.

#4

Hi Isabel,

I’ve been learning UX online - there are some great low cost (and sometimes free) courses available. I love this mode of learning because I can choose my own schedule and mix courses from different institutions, but you do need to be sufficiently self-motivated. I’ve found the more I put into a course, the more I get out of it.

Choosing is the hardest part as there are so many courses out there! The best course I have taken so far is the Ultimate Guide to Usability on Udemy - it’s more expensive than many other courses but well worth it (and still way cheaper than any in-person training you will ever find). You might also be interested in Coursera’s new Interaction Design Specialisation which starts in June . It consists of 7 modules that you can take individually or together to earn the specialisation, and it’s free (unless you want a verified certificate) - it looks pretty interesting so I’ve enrolled.

Lynne