💯 100 Tips to Move Your UX Career to the Next Level

UX Designers are in demand. However, companies are looking for the people that are good specialists, and the level of their skills is high. The article Simple & Powerful Methods to Boost Your Career in UX Design got such a positive impact, so I decided to write a list of even more tips that may help you become a better designer.

While some of the tips may seem to be fundamental ones, I also gathered the ones that are not so obvious but may have a serious impact on your career.

Tips are organized in the following categories:

  • Education
  • Social
  • Productivity
  • Software & Hardware
  • Team & Company
  • Personal Branding
  • Unicorn Skills
  • Life hacks

Ok, are you ready? Let’s begin!

🎓Education

Education is always a starting point. However, our industry changes so quickly, so we have to constantly learn new things. These are tips from the category:

 

🤝Social

Being part of the design community helps to find the right path and inspire from others. To move your career to the next level you should:

  • Join local community. By a member of designers in your city, you will be able to get some support and help others.
  • Find groups in social media (Facebook, Linkedin). Participation in various groups will help you to know about new trends or events.
  • Join UX groups on Slack. Here are some useful UX Slack groups. Discuss with others and share your knowledge.
  • Follow other designers on Twitter, Medium, Dribbble, Linkedin and Instagram. Mentioned sites are great sources of inspiration. They also let you contact designers or even get hired. By the way, here are my Twitter, Dribbble and Medium accounts 😉
  • Talk with other designers frequently. Share your knowledge, get some tips. The other will also let you know what is happening in the industry
  • Do some networking during conferences. Meeting new people is essential. Thanks to this you will receive extra inspiration for your career.
  • Fill your social media profiles so that others will recognize you as a designer. If you want to contact other designers, let them know that you are one of them. It will be easier to find a common language.
  • Become a volunteer during the conferences. If the tickets are too expensive, try to volunteer to get to the conference. You should be able to listen to some talks.
  • Become a speaker at a local meetup. Share your knowledge with others. You will also be noticed by a local community
  • Become a speaker at conference. First, train yourself at local meetups. When your presentation skills are good enough, speaking during a conference may be a huge thing for your career.
  • Find a mentor. Find a person who will guide you and show you the path. A mentor may review your skills and help you to learn something new.
  • Organize a meetup if there is no such thing in the neighborhood. If there are no design meetups in your city, you can initiate one to meet other designers.
  • Share your work and your process. People like to know how others work. Thanks to this you will show yourself as a professional
  • Say thank you to designers that have taught you something. Email with thanks to a teacher, mentor or conference speaker is always a great thing. This may be the beginning of a valuable friendship.
  • Give feedback to others work. Asking for feedback is one thing. It is also important to get reviewed by others. They see things we may forget in our designs.

🚀 Productivity

Being productive is fundamental if you want to achieve more in your career.

  • Learn about getting things done methodology. This world-class methodology is crucial. It helps you organize your work and focus on priorities.
  • Find an app for GTD (for example Nozbe or Things). The right app is a great helper to implement your own productivity habit.
  • Note every idea in your note app. It is hard to focus on one thing if you have got lots of ideas in your mind. Note all these creative sparks in your notepad to clear your mind. You will be able to return to your thoughts later and rethink them. Maybe one will change your career for better?
  • Learn about Pomodoro – it will help you to focus. Pomodoro technique helps you to focus on one task. Accomplishing goals is crucial if you want to get better and better.
  • Learn to use TrelloThis simple tool is brilliant if you have to organize things. Check it on yourself.
  • Turn of social media and other entertainments when you work. The ability to focus requires sacrifices.
  • Use time-saving design resources. You do not have to create everything from scratch. Lots of designers use them to speed up their work. I have created Design System UI Kit and User Flow Template to help folks like you!
  • Learn to delegate and automate some tasks. Nowadays there are many tools (like IFTTT) that may automate some tasks. They are real time savers. You should also learn not to do everything on your own. Let your teammates help you!
  • Establish “focus” hours to work alone without any distractions. It does not matter if you work in a company or you are a freelancer. There should be a time turn off communicators, social media or even a phone and dive into the work for a couple of hours.
  • Turn off notifications on your desktop and mobile. The next thing that lets you gain focus. If you have to – leave only must-have ones.
  • Prepare a place to work. Do not work everywhere in your office or home, find the area when you will be able to focus better)

🛠️ Software & Hardware

The tool will not make you instantly a better designer. However, the right tools will accelerate the process and give you knowledge and inspiration.

  • Buy a Mac. If you want to use the best possible tools, macOS is the only way. Other platforms do not have so much various tools that may help boost your skills.
  • Get Sketch. Sketch is a real standard when it comes to the digital design of web and apps. By the way, you can get 10% off for Sketch if you decide to get Prime Design System Kit
  • Learn various design tools. Pick a few from different categories to start, when you learn them, pick the next ones. Here is handy list:
    • Sketch – digital design
    • Figma – digital design
    • UXPin – digital design, documentation, protyping
    • Adobe XD – digital design
    • Adobe Photoshop – digital design
    • Adobe After Effects – motion design
    • Affinity Designer – digital design
    • InVision – prototyping, design handoff
    • InVision Studio – digital design
    • Flinto – prototyping, motion design
    • Principle – prototyping, motion design
    • Origami Studio – prototyping, motion design
    • Zeplin – design handoff
  • Buy iPhone & Android. Mobile first design philosophy is the key to success. You have to know these two platforms to create natural designs for them.
  • Buy Apple Watch & Android Wear Watch. Smartwatches may not be so popular as smartphones, but if you are familiar with mobile UI, wearable should be the next thing. Watches are not smaller smartphones; they require a different approach.
  • Buy iPad. Tablet is great for content consumption, but they are also tools for creative professionals. With iPad and Apple Pencil, you can learn to paint beautiful illustrations – that are now on demand in web and mobile design.
  • Get a good note app. Notion, Simplenote, Evernote, Bear these are just a few nice solutions. Shape the habits of making notes for your tasks, ideas, and projects. Thanks to this you will not forget them, and your mind will be clear.
  • Buy a second monitor. Even if you have 15 inch MacBook Pro, the display may be too small when you work long hours on small pieces of design. Two displays may boost your productivity and help you to see more design details.
  • Get a good mouse. The touchpad is excellent, but for the precise operations, the mouse is faster and more convenient.
    Find a reliable one with good accuracy; I use Logitech Anywhere MX.
  • Buy good headphones. If you work on open space, the noise may distract you constantly. Headphones with noise reduction will let you focus better.
  • Learn shortcuts of frequently used software. Every shortcut you learn will save your time during the design process.
  • Find tools that help you automate various tasks. The process automation may free you from tedious works. Check if solutions like IFTTT may help you automate some parts of your work or even life.

🏢 Team & Company

Designers work in multidisciplinary teams. See how to improve your company life with these tips:

  • Be helpful for everyone in the company. Help your colleagues with their tasks if they need that. Thanks to this they will probably help you with your difficulties, and you will have the occasion to learn something new.
  • Help and educate designers in your team. Thanks to this you will structure your knowledge and refresh some tricks that are not used often.
  • Talk to developers and understand their challenges. Developers are smart creatures, but their challenges are different than designers’. Understand them, thanks to this you will be able to communicate your designs better. Finally, the implementation of your idea will be more accurate.
  • Learn to communicate with managers. Better communication with every group in your company may result in better projects. What is more, your meetings may become more efficient.
  • Think of a client as of the member of a team. Work with client and stakeholder to match his needs. Understand his vision, inform clearly about challenges you have and find the solutions together.
  • Learn about Agile, Lean and Waterfall. Why less and less companies use Waterfall as their project methodology, it is important to know all of them to work efficiently.
  • Learn to use Jira, Redmine, Bootcamp and Trello. Every complex project needs a tool to help manage tasks and track progress. Learn these solutions to find your tasks easily.
  • Get involved in various company activities. Thanks to this you will get recognized as a valuable person helping others, and you will get an occasion to learn something new!
  • Be active during meetings. By being passive, you will never be able to make a great product. What is more, you can train your persuasive skills only if you interact with others.
  • Ask team members for feedback. When you work on something for a long time you lose objectivity. Listening to other people will let you notice multiple things you even did not consider.
  • Learn to communicate to developers, business people and marketing specialists in their language and values. Usability, Excellent appearance, Accessibility are not the primary values of other people. Business wants to hear about money or return on investment. Developers often want to create something reusable and reliable. Learn these motivations and communicate your ideas by their perspective. Thanks to this you will convince others efficiently.
  • Learn to present your work. Articulating design decisions is fundamental. Thanks to this other will hear your ideas clearly, and you will be able to make better products.
  • Learn to work remotely. More and more people see that they can focus more on some tasks in their homes. What is more, the ability to work remotely opens you to work everywhere you want!
  • Run workshops. Collaboration is important. Learn to lead creative meetings, thanks to this you will improve your design process.

Sketch & Figma


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See How to Design Faster

😎 Personal Branding

To become a great designer, you should stand out with some skills. Here are things that will help you achieve that:

  • Show your work on Dribbble, Behance, Uplabs and Instagram. Practice showing your work. When you upload it to different portals, you will get lots of feedback and learn to make them better.
  • Build portfolio website. Some say that portfolios are overrated. However, it is good to have your “digital home.” Remember to include contact information so the other will be able to send you a message.
  • Write a helpful article on Medium. There are lots of designers reading articles. Try to write a useful tutorial or case study. Thanks to this you will learn to write your thoughts clearly, and you will be helpful for the community.
  • Share your design process. While there are some design methodologies, everyone is making it in a bit different way. Show your way of thinking and inspire designers like you.
  • Make your Linkedin profile to look professionally. LinkedIn profile is a modern resume, but the professional network may be helpful also to learn something new. You can also find interesting people there – become one of them!
  • Create a freebie for other designers. Share something that will be useful. You will get noticed and get lots of feedback on your work.
  • Create a premium design resource for designers. Try yourself as the seller and marketer. You will be able to learn lots of new things.
  • Find your niche (become specialist in a particular area). Know all disciplines and platforms, but become a specialist in one. I specialize in native mobile apps for finance; some make great game designs or medical solutions. Find your topic within the variety of UX areas.
  • Share your knowledge (Organize workshops, meetups, live videos). People will be grateful if you will help them to learn. Thanks to this you will build your reputation.
  • Find your “why”. Why are you in the UX industry? What do you want to achieve? Being conscious of your motivations will help you shape your career decisions.
  • Plan your career. Ask yourself: where you are? Where you want to be? Plan what you want to do next year and within the next five years.
  • Validate the career plan every year. Do you still want to be there? Maybe plans have changed. Review your goals frequently.

🦄 Unicorn Skills

Unique skills will make you an extremely precious person.

  • Learn to code. Not every designer know how to write apps or websites. You can learn with Design+Code courses.
  • Learn about marketing. Every discipline has got its own rules. Learning marketing techniques will help you sell your premium products or present designs better during meetings.
  • Learn about running a business. Being an entrepreneur means focusing on multiple things. Understand what obstacles and challenges your boss have so you will be able to communicate with him better.
  • Improve writing skills. Thanks to this you will learn to write your thoughts clearly.
  • Learn how to manage the projects. Knowledge about Agile or Lean is one thing, but managing a project is much more. Sometimes designers may lead the team successfully. Try it on your own.
  • Learn to create a music. Thanks to this you will learn something new and become more creative.
  • Improve drawing skills to make illustrations. Illustrations are now part of great designs. Look at your favorite websites.
  • Learn 3D software. This may be helpful for Augmented Reality design. What is more, 3D compositions may be the next thing after a flat illustration trend.
  • Learn to create reality distortion field. This combination of charisma, motivation and good speech may help you move the mountains with other people!

🍎 Lifehacks

We are all humans after all… 🙂

  • Eat healthily. Things we eat have got a significant impact on our mood. Healthy food means better results, efficiency, and creativity.
  • Workout every day. This will help you keep healthy. You will have more energy for your passion – UX design.
  • Sleep 7-8 hours a day. This amount of hours is needed by our body and mind to rest.
  • Establish daily routine. Daily routines that boost focus and productivity will help you work better.
  • Do not work hard – Work efficiently. Sharpen your axe before you cut the tree. Some tools help you achieve the same or better results with less amount of time, take a while to figure out how to do the work instead of diving into the task immediately.
  • Take care about work-life balance. Thanks to this you will have more energy. You will increase creativity and productivity.
  • Learn a new thing every month from different discipline. This will open your mind to fresh ideas and inspire you.
  • Even when you will become professional, stay a beginner. Do not ignore even weird ideas; they may lead to an outstanding result!
  • Learn to say “No” to many things. The ability to choose the right thing to do is critical. If you participate in too many projects, you will not be able to focus to make them good enough.
  • Travel to different countries. Discover new cultures. This may help you learn to design better for others.

 

 

Huh… that was a very very very long list of tips! I hope you found at least a few things that inspired you to improve your career in UX.

Let me share with you one more thought…

During my professional work, I have found that the time is the most precious asset. We shoud not to start everything from scratch. What is more, creating something new with strong foundations boosts the speed of design process. That is why I decided to focus on preparing resources that will save the time of designers:

👉 Prime Design System Kit for Sketch – The UI Kit Framework that may be your UI Library for Design System. It is much more than the set of UI controls. Prime includes charts, vector device templates, UI Kit with over 40 web section templates and for the first time – Illustration System. You customize it in minutes and use in all projects. Learn more with Quick Start Guide.

👉 SQUID – Sketch Library for User Flows creation. The tool already helped thousands of designers with the efficient diagram creation. Thanks to this you will create User Flows in Sketch within minutes. This tutorial demonstrates how efficient the tool is.

 

To conclude

The career is a long path everyone has to pass on his own terms. This 100 tips should inspire you to become better designers. It is your decision which of them you will choose and who you will become in the future.

Good luck!