How to Stand Out in the Expanding Field of User Experience

Demonstrate Your Value to the Business

“The short answer is: by demonstrating your value and experience to those clients,” replies Adrian. “A mistake I see inexperienced folk make is trying to differentiate themselves by communicating how many practices or tools they know. Anybody can list skills such as Expert at Sketch or Facilitated usability tests on their resume. Anybody can put up a lovely looking customer journey map on their portfolio site. Anybody often does. The problem is that most clients don’t care. They care about improving their business. So you need to talk about the value you’ve delivered first.

“Instead of focusing on practices, tools, and artifacts when communicating what you do—tell stories about what those practices, tools, and artifacts enabled you to do. Don’t lead with the customer journey map—no matter how pretty it may be. Lead with the fact that the redesigned checkout process led to a 5% up-tick in conversions and made the company an extra £250K last quarter. Tell stories. Get referrals or testimonials. Provide some kind of social proof that you provide value.”

“As the foregoing advice shows, different hiring managers and companies may look for very different things in a UX designer,” responds Pabini. “So you’ll need to try to discern what they really want from their job descriptions, then make a determination about whether it would be worthwhile for someone with your expertise and experience to apply. Is it a type of company you’d want to work for? Does the company understand and value User Experience?

“There are many types of business value. While it may be relatively easy to measure the money a company makes or saves because of design improvements, it can sometimes be difficult for UX designers within a siloed organization to obtain this information. Plus, it can be challenging to quantify the monetary value of UX research or design in isolation from the contributions of other functions—for example, the value of research that has great impact on product strategy or a highly differentiated design that users love or a well-designed product’s innovation premium. Being able to do that requires the cooperation of Finance and Marketing, as well as the availability of analytics data. Hiring managers should be aware that some dysfunctional businesses are not willing to share the data that would let UX designers express their value in monetary terms. Thus, choosing to work for the wrong company can have a negative impact on your career going forward.”

Exhibit Your Soft Skills

“The most important predictor of the value a particular UX designer can potentially provide to a company is that designer’s soft skills,” states Pabini. “(Of course, the same is true for workers in any role.) A designer’s soft skills demonstrate that person’s character, maturity, and work ethic, all of which matter way more than experience with a particular domain, platform, or tool. A person with diverse experience and a strong work ethic can quickly learn new skills. But certain soft skills may be unattainable for some people—or at least take many years to develop. While these are the skills that really determine a UX designer’s ultimate success within an organization, too few managers give soft skills the attention they deserve.

“In my UXmatters article ‘13 Human Qualities You Must Have to Succeed in Work and Life,’ I wrote about the value of some key soft skills: empathy, intuition, creativity, passion, being a life-long learner, listening, persuasiveness, responsibility and kindness, leadership, honesty and integrity, courage, self-awareness, and being wholehearted. These are the sorts of soft skills hiring managers should look for.

“The ability to collaborate effectively is perhaps the most important skill a UX designer should have. But, if you consider the barriers to collaboration that I described in my recent two-part series on UXmatters, ‘Overcoming Common Barriers to Collaboration,’ Part 1 and Part 2, most of them result from deficiencies in teammates’ soft skills:

1. A lack of respect and trust
2. Different mindsets
3. Poor listening skills
4. Knowledge deficits
5. A lack of alignment around goals
6. Internal competitiveness
7. Information hoarding
8. Organizational silos
9. Physical separation

“Becoming a consummate collaborator requires the right mindset—those soft skills again—a certain degree of maturity, and lots of practice.”

Be flexible in your approach. Yes, be innovative, but don’t be rigid about making a perfect UX design your #1 goal. Remember, businesses exist to make money. Our work must fit within the complicated web of goals that define a company’s larger success. If a design is not practical for the business, it is irrelevant.

One way to make yourself stand out as an excellent UX designer is to show respect for your colleagues in all departments. People in every role bring an important talent to your company, but sometimes people can lose track of the fact that they are all on the same team. Our first UX clients are our colleagues.

Communicate Your Value

“Think of this problem of differentiating yourself like any other problem you solve as a UX designer,” answers Csaba. “It all comes down to communication. You have to convince companies and potential clients that you understand their needs and problems better.

“Personally, I’m happy that more and more people are becoming UX designers. I’ve never experienced this as a setback for me. The more a company understands and realizes the importance of User Experience, the more they will invest in it. Plus, when you’re working with many inexperienced designers, you can give them a lot of the simpler work and keep the most challenging problems for yourself.

“As somebody who often trains and evaluates UX designers, I can easily spot talented, experienced designers. My primary focus is the business. As a UX designer, you have to understand that every design decision must be based on user needs and business goals. An aspiring designer might have some great thoughts on product design or even the ability to create something beautiful. But UX design is about the business and meaningful design. That’s not a level of understanding you can acquire after just a few months of training. You need to find the companies and clients who can benefit from your skills and expertise.

“You might want to reposition yourself to communicate your value better, concludes Csaba. “Focus on UX strategy instead of design. Show clients how your designs impact their business. Share case studies that showcase your expertise. Focus on solving problems. That’s easier said than done. Every UX professional I’ve met has told me it’s vital to focus on problems. But inexperienced, junior designers can’t demonstrate this talent because it takes time and practice to develop it. These are the things that can set you apart from the competition.”

Reflect on the Long-Term Implications

Dan and Jo offer this an excerpt from their UXmatters article, “Reflections on Making Meaningful Work:”

“We need more moments in our work when we can consider the data we’ve gathered—not just the short-term implications of our observations, but what they’ll mean in the long term. We must consider what questions we need to ask and their answers’ implications for the product roadmap, people, their lives, and how our work impacts others’ work. The practice of reflection can afford us moments that encourage the practice of curiosity, prompting new thinking right now and informing a better future.

“The questions we ask need not speak to an immediate—perhaps misguided—digital focus or provide an instant—though misinformed—answer that fits into a sprint cycle. Instead, reflection can spark other practices that take us beyond a focus on now to a place where we can make enlightened decisions about a better future. By slowing down, we can gain greater clarity and perspective and look further ahead.”

Apply This Advice to UX Research and Other Fields

“You’ve asked this question about UX designers, but I think it applies equally well to UX researchers,” replies Carol. “These days, it seems that employers are looking for a one-size-fits-all solution for UX design and research. Yes, they want a designer, but they think they can also get a researcher in the same hire. It’s easy to understand why this happens when many people seeking work claim to have both skills.

“While I have met and worked with some people who have both design and user research training and experience, it is more often the case that they don’t have the user research experience and expertise that their resume might suggest. In a best-case scenario, they have gotten a certificate, attended a conference, or taken a course that covers the basics of user research. But they may not have had much hands-on experience doing user research. Plus, their employers may not know what to expect or how to judge the results. After all findings are findings, right?

“My job as a user researcher is to help prospective clients understand what they get from experience and expertise and why it matters. Similar to the challenges that UX designers encounter in presenting the complexities of UX design to potential employers, UX researchers must explain the complexities of conducting user research. That means helping clients shape the design of their research, promoting the best approach from the many options in a UX researcher’s toolkit, and conducting the research in a proven, unbiased, reliable way that produces actionable results. Doing this takes more than reading a book or attending a conference or course. Developing this know-how takes practice and continuing education to grow in your profession and stay abreast of new methods and solutions. That’s not to say we should not welcome new people coming into the field. We have to grow the profession. But, at the same time, we must showcase to prospective employers what our experience can mean for the success of their product.”

Go Somewhere Else If A Company Doesn’t Value UX

“If you’re applying for a position at a company that doesn’t understand the world of UX design in general or the complexities that come with it, you may want to search for a job elsewhere,” advises Mark. “You know what your experience is worth, and you want to a feel a connection with a team—just as they want to feel a connection with you during the hiring process. So make sure you dive deep into what the company is looking for in terms of User Experience. A company might be integrating UX design into one project, or they might be bringing in a full-scale UX team. By researching the various types of UX employers, you will be prepared to answer the kinds of questions they will ask you during an interview. This research will also help you to ask them insightful questions about the work environment, culture, products, processes, and more.

“In terms of distinguishing yourself among the competition, let your work speak for itself. Embrace your capabilities. Bring tangible examples from your portfolio to the interview. Be prepared to explain your design process in detail, specify your field of expertise, and don’t be afraid to show off your personality.”

Publish!

“One way to build your brand as a UX designer—or as a UX professional in any specialty—is to publish books and articles. Write for UXmatters!” invites Pabini. “We always need authors who have new, interesting ideas and approaches to share.”