What I still don't know about being a UX Designer?

Hi again

Since I knew I want to be a UX Designer, I tried to mimic and do what UX designer do: design stuffs and improve it. I’m a PhotoShop guy, barely an Illustrator guy. But on those 3 years since I already knew what I want to be and what I want to do, I evolved myself and learned so much. From just using PNGs and working on pixels first for all things including the icons, and learning not to resize bigger the PNGs because the quality get’s destroyed and it blurs, to being organized on your work to be more productive, read and immerse on discipline, metaphor, consistency, principles on my first discovered design guidelines,b develop new workarounds, discovering and finally adapting the intimidating at first vectors, paths and shapes, and so much other more things both disciplinary, principles and on productivity.

But I’ve always do the art based on my design intuition, on what I think is the best. No matter how I try to make it better for all, it’s still objective right? Now that I’m seeking for legibility to my talents, I’m thinking of joining a online program, and as I’ve discovered my options, I finally knew I have still so much to learn.

But I need a watercooler on that program. I need a primer or summary of what I still don’t know about you guys, your work, your industry, how you work, what’s beyond what I just perceive as being a UX designer by now. Or even the whole UX scene? I’ve heard UX designers do research too, surveys, human test? Lol I think that’s too boring for me, but how that works, how is it important, does it applies to all design process or design projects, like our own scientific method? As of my perception for now, I think I just want to practice my art, discuss it with my colleagues, defend it, collaborate with them, am I gonna do things like that, do I have the choice to not do it myself, instead by others? I heard that the practice of UX is like machine too, just like a UX designers, what are the other jobs related on that fine tuned design team machine? Are we all essentially a UX designers? How are the relationship of the UX to the engineering/development team? Things like is the myth true that there’s always a conflict and tension between the two? That the design guys are different to the real work or engineering guys? How much of the design process is really caught up and loyal to the final product? Lastly, things like what’s the status of this scene? I always perceive us as the invincible heroes in this information and digital age, but in reality we, our art and our work is getting hot. The opportunities are growing fast, but how come education can’t still support mostly our art yet unlike on what curriculum did to the IT trend on the 2000s.

In advance, thanks for all the reply to all my stupid curious questions

Hi Steven,

Before I answer you need to understand that my background is not in UX itself. I am a people person and I’m here for the community. I think that I can answer this part of your question though.

The way you ask the question, it feels to me like there is a good guy and a bad guy. But life isn’t that simple and you can always expect to have to give and take when you are dealing with other people.

Very simply, as I understand it, the goal of an engineer and a UX designer is to produce a product. The designer may want something to look one way in the end but the engineer is unfortunately able to accomplish that. The engineer and the designer have to work together to figure out what they can do and then they work toward that.

Tension isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Musicians wouldn’t be able to produce sounds without tension. It’s all perspective.

Does that help? From a people side of things?

2 Likes

Hey there,
Your curiosity is great – don’t apologise for that.

I have a tip for you to get the most out of a forum like this.

Your posts are very wordy and most people will be put off by that and leave without reading.
State your 1 primary question as briefly as possible. You’re more likely to get valuable (and multiple) answers. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Oh I thought it was just me and my autistic brain! That’s great advice from @HAWK - I couldn’t follow it and I was unable to read the whole post and comprehend what you were asking. Curiosity is a good thing though, and just by being here, you’re already on the right track! :slight_smile:

3 Likes

Don’t want to burst your bubble, but that sounds a lot like what UI or visual designers do :slight_smile:. As a UX Designer, you can be involved in that work as well, but that shouldn’t be your specialty (or you shouldn’t call yourself a UX Designer).

UX Design is a very broad field. Like you already mentioned, it does involve doing user research as well. But also things as establishing a product vision, or a design system, are things many seasoned UX-practitioners have dealt with in the past.

Recently I have read the following article: https://library.gv.com/everyone-is-a-designer-get-over-it-501cc9a2f434
The author has a very interesting point of view on who is a UX Designer, and he makes some fair points. The TLDR; for ya: the moment a Netflix performance engineer decided to decrease the video quality to keep the video playing, he influences the user experience of the viewer.