In this blog I would like to share my experience about UX (User Experience). When I started my career 10 years ago as a Front-end developer, I didn’t envision this switch. During my initial days as a developer even though I liked my work, I never had a sense of curiosity or passion for coding like my other developer friends. I longed for a change but was clueless about the path I should pursue. I always used to like seeing my brother work on design(graphic/branding/packaging). During my interaction with designers in a project I got to know about the techniques and the whole process that goes into design to make the experience better for users.
My design journey
I started my transition into design by going through various branding and rebranding videos, taking a full-fledged course about Research & Initiation of Design on design lab which involved hands-on designing of projects, interaction and one-on-one discussions with a mentor. Decoding our daily use apps such as Whatsapp, Facebook etc helps in understanding the user journey of an application.
After taking up the role as a designer there was definitely a struggle but it is a constant learning and improvement graph. My background in development did help a little as I could understand the technical aspects of the designs that were done.
As a designer it is always important to have your user personas ready in the beginning of the design phase as it helps you categorize what the users require in the product. This goes without saying for any designer be it graphic, visual or user experience. The next key point is to always draw the design (wireframe) on a paper first before going to the screen as the tool might restrict your thought (tools can be learned easily but it is most important to remember that the logic that goes into design is the key). Ensure when you start designing on your computer to initially do a black and white wireframe before moving to actual visual designs, otherwise the focus would be on making these prettier than on the user experience.
Always remember to do a thorough research on the feature that is to be designed on different sites as inspiration can help in shaping our product’s design. Also, get ready to take multiple feedback coming your way as it’s not easy to satisfy a client. Design is fun and I’m so happy to have landed up here. I would like to end here by saying it’s never too late to follow your dream in design.
