UX Classroom

BECOME

UX DESIGNER

IN 2023
6 practical steps
INFORMATION YOU WILL FIND IN THIS

E-BOOK:
What is UX designer role about (and similar roles

Key UX designer’s skills and character trait

Things you can do right NOW to start learning UX desig

Things you should do on a regular basis that will get you closer to
becoming a UX designe

List of useful resources and reading list

Which tools you need to know and how to learn the

How you can start practicing UX design TODA

How to choose mentored training (bootcamps) and UX school

Tips on building your first portfoli

Job hunting & career advic

More useful resources (links)

INTRODUCTION
What do UX designers do?
To put it simply, User Experience designer is an advocate of a user within
the organisation he works for. He or she is responsible for bringing in the
perspective of the end-user of any product or service.

UX designers care about users’ needs and ensure that they are
included in the design and development processes of a product.

However, the discipline has multiple facets and people often confuse

UX-related fields with the actual UX design. This happens even in
organisations that hire User Experience designers and have been
developing products for years. Let me give you an overview of some of
the most common ones. I hope this will help you get a clearer
understanding of each role and key differences between them:

UX Designer
Seeks to understand business and user needs
Relies on data to design/redesign user experiences
Plans and executes user testing sessions
Gathers and analyses qualitative and quantitative data about users
and their behaviours
Key deliverables: user flows, wireframes, low-fidelityprototypes, user
research reports, personas, user journey maps
UI Designer

Relies on the understanding of typography, colour and layout to

ensure that the interfaces are readable, esthetic and meet existing

branding guidelines

Is responsible for website or app’s design system (visual side of it)

Strives for visual consistency across different devices and screen sizes

Key deliverables: high-fidelity mockups, mood boards, colour palettes,

icons, typography, sizing and layout guidelines for developers,

animations, illustrations (varies from designer to designer)

Product Designer

The multidisciplinary role that is engaged in all stages of the project -

starting from the concept ending with the implementation of solutions

and even further by addressing future problems of a product or service

Similar to UX designer, however, inclined more towards business,

workshops, strategy and decision-making.

What are UX designers like?
If you are reading this ebook, you are probably someone who recently got
interested in becoming a UX designer. You might have been wondering if
this role is for you and that’s correct - we spend around 1800-2000 hours
at work each year, therefore new career path should be chosen carefully.

I have listed key (in my opinion) traits that every aspiring UX designer
should have to naturally do well in this role:
Learning-driven. The discipline of UX is relatively young and grows
constantly. UX practitioners should have a natural desire to learn new
things all the time to keep up with new trends, technologies and
research findings. Also, they should strive to be close to data about
their product users and keep learning from it all the time.

Communicative. Needless to say, designers have to work well within

the team and share their ideas in a clear, understandable manner. This
skill is also essential for running user testing sessions because
respondents should understand what is wanted from them -
otherwise the research results might not be reliable.
Analytical. User Experience designers make decisions based on best
practices and data. The skill of concluding qualitative and quantitative
data collected via user research is essential for designers-to-be. Of
course, this skill, like any other one, can be perfected over time

Detail-oriented. When employers assign a task or project to a UX

designer they like to feel assured that the work is going to be well-
thought-out and scrupulous to minimise chances of unwanted
surprises occurring as the project proceeds. As the saying goes:

“The devil is in the details”.

If you...

enjoy learning new things all the time

are curious about humans, their behaviours and motivations

prefer teamwork over working in a silo environment

...then the UX career might be a great pursuit for you!

6 STEPS TO BECOME UX DESIGNER
1. Immerse yourself in the field
I often hear the question “Can anyone become a UX designer?”. I would
love to say “yes” since I have a lot of faith in people, however, I don’t think
it would be 100% true and honest.

I saw people switch to User Experience from various disciplines -

ranging from graphic designers to psychology students or theatre actors.
On the other hand, I met people who have already worked in related
fields (software engineering, business analytics etc.) but ceased their
pursuit of transferring to UX.

They were hyped by the cool-sounding profession but soon realised it

involves performing activities they didn’t feel comfortable with (e.g.
talking to strangers or moderating workshops) or applying methods of
thinking that they were not used to (e.g. analysing subjective users
feedback).

It’s really important to understand what UX is all about before

deciding to pursue this career path.
To start with I recommend spending some time reading articles (the

internet is full of them) or watching YouTube videos on topics such as:

What is UX design? How is it different from UI or graphic design?

What is the history of UX design?

What do UX designers do daily? What does a typical day of a UX

designer look like?

Who do UX designers work with? What is their role in the process?

How are product teams organised and how does UX design fit into

the delivery process?

What is the value of User Experience designers work?

What are the advantages of developing products with UX in mind?

And so on

Check UserTesting’s “16 must read articles for UX newbie”.

Once you’re past this introductory stage and still feel that UX design is a

good career choice for you, then it’s time to absorb as much domain

knowledge as possible. To do so, you can:

Read UX books and articles. Topics you should get familiar with:

UX design process

User researc

Information Architecture

Interaction Design

Human-Computer Interaction

Psychology, sociology and human behaviour

New technologies and emerging trends

Recommended books for a good start:

Don't Make Me Think by Steve Krug

The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web

and Beyond (2nd Edition) by Jesse James Garrett

The Design of Everyday Things: Revised and Expanded Edition by Don

Norma

100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan

Weinschenk

Information Architecture for the Web and Beyond by Louis Rosenfeld,

Peter Morville
 Recommended websites and blogs:
UX Plane

Optimal Workshop Blo

NN Group Blog

Get familiar with popular design guidelines

Apple’s Human Interface Guideline

Google’s Material Design

Watch free videos

AJ & Smar

Stanford’s seminar serie

The Futu

Intel’s UX How-To by Luke Wroblewski

Attend webinars and local meet-ups.

These days there are so many UX-related meet-ups and conferences
happening around the globe - both locally in every major city and
online. It won’t take much to find an event within your reach.

Simply Google “UX event” or “UX conference” plus your country/city

name or search the “UX” phrase in Facebook’s events tab. Remember to
bring your notebook with you and to take notes of everything that
sounds new or interesting.
Finally, try to network with other attendees or even conference speakers

as much as possible. I know it doesn’t come easy to everyone (it didn’t to

me, at first), especially, when one is completely new to the subject and

doesn’t want to feel like a misfit.

To start with, it might be a good idea to join events aimed at beginner

designers - it should be easier to talk to people in a similar situation to

yours, e.g. recently decided to switch careers.

How much knowledge is enough?

Remember that you’ll never stop learning. You can verify what

you do and don’t know only via the practice - it will give you

signals to fill the knowledge gaps here and there.

Thus, you shouldn’t wait for that “ideal” moment when you think

you have enough knowledge and instead try to start designing

as soon as possible.
2. Learn the tools.
Go ahead and learn software that you will use to deliver your work. If you
have some graphic design or architecture or any creative-related
experience, learning the prototyping tools will likely come easy.

There are plenty of resources that can get anyone from zero to hero. You
can try video tutorials on YouTube (designers and software companies
are constantly adding new ones) or search for a paid course on Skillshare
or Udemy.

There is no need to learn all the advanced features of

prototyping software (at least at the beginning of your journey).
Many times wireframes or low-fi prototypes are produced by using
basic functionalities only, such as drawing a rectangle to represent
a button or a card.

Types of tools you should get familiar with:

Drawing & prototyping
There is very popular software you likely heard of, such as Figma, Sketch,
Adobe XD. I often get asked which one is the best and my answer is “it
depends” (of course, as all designers do, I also overuse this phrase).
I have had some experience working with each of the above-mentioned
programmes and they all allowed me to do what I needed. However,
Figma’s growing popularity might mean that in the future most of the
employers will expect their design teams to use this tool.
Also, Figma is free for personal use so there is no price barrier to start
learning. You will find free video tutorials on Youtube and affordable
courses on Udemy or Skillshare.

User research tools

It is helpful to get familiar with user research tools even if you’re not
working on a real project yet. Researching means collecting or browsing
real user data and I realise that not everyone has an access to it in the
early stages of UX career development. I recommend that you create

accounts in these services and watch some YouTube or Udemy tutorials

on how to use them. You might not be lucky to try these features out in
the real world at the moment, however, seeing someone else use them
and tinkering around with software will be great to start with.

Common tools for user research include:

UsabilityHub and Optimal Workshop - for user testin

HotJar - track user behaviour and run survey

Google and Microsoft Forms - for running survey

Reframer and Miro - for organising, analysing and sharing your

findings or thoughts

Task management (extra)

Product teams use task management tools to organise their work
efficiently. It’s not required, but familiarising yourself with popular tools
such as Jira or Trello will be advantageous. Not only will it look good in
your CV but also it will make you more confident while moving between
tasks and projects assigned to you once you land your first job.
3. Practice, practice, practice.
Please read carefully now because this point is, in my opinion, key to your
success in becoming a UX designer.

You may have a ton of knowledge, but no one will see it without putting it
into real projects and case studies. UX design is so much about the
practice that most employers don’t require candidates to have an
academic background in UX or any other degree.

Of course, it might be advantageous to have a degree, especially if it

somehow relates to User Experience - be it sociology, psychology,
software engineering, architecture - but it’s not a must. In fact, there are
two things that matter the most when applying for this role:
Attitude - how you talk about design, the way you think about
challenges, how you organise your work, communicate ideas etc
Portfolio that showcases examples of your work to-date

A portfolio shows the employer what you are capable of, how you apply
knowledge to real-life problems, how creative you can get, how you
approach challenges and so on and so forth.

Also, the way you present your work inside the portfolio can tell a lot
about you to someone viewing it.
“Okay, but how do I practice design if I am not employed

as a designer and have no projects on my roadmap?”

I get to hear this a lot. Let me show you some possibilities - you can try

them no matter how far you are in your learning journey:

Redesign a website or application that you know or use. Choose one

which seems imperfect to you in some way. To start with, consider

which aspects of it you will focus on, e.g. information architecture,

navigation, purchase flow etc. Audit it for potential usability issues (it

can be helpful to familiarise yourself with Jakob Nielsen’s well--known

heuristics if you haven’t already

Go a step further and run a small guerilla testing session with

friends. Don’t forget to document your observations and findings.

Make notes of how every bit of new information influenced your

design decisions

Run a hypothetical app or website project. Think about recent events

in your life and look for problems you encountered. Maybe you were

browsing the internet for a reliable local mechanic service but it was

hard to find relevant data and compare the offers? Or, perhaps, you

have completed a product return process via an online store and

remember the struggle of it

Go ahead and design a better solution for your own problem(s).

Remember that your work shouldn’t be based completely on your

preferences and assumptions. Create a Google Forms survey and

share it among friends or post it on a Facebook group. Analysing

the responses will let you find out what are other people’s

experiences with this subject.

To give an example - when I was working on my cycling app project I
created a survey asking about cyclists’ habits and experiences and
posted it on a Facebook group themed around bikes and cycling. I
received around 80 responses and that was the foundation of my
research. Next, I run 5 interviews (2 with my friends and 3 with their
friends who cycle to work or for leisure). I collected many insights that
greatly impacted my design process. Thanks to that my case study
looked professional and comprehensive even though it was a simple
hypothetical project initiated by myself.

Find someone who needs free UX design help. 


There are many people and organisations to whom UX services sound
like a luxury they can’t afford. Maybe you have a friend who owns a
music shop and wants to attract more customers via their website?
Know a software developer who runs a side project and wants to
release their own mobile app? Or, perhaps, you visited a local
business’s website that was hard to navigate

Go ahead and offer these people your expertise for free. Make
sure they understand the motives behind your proposal - if you
explain that this work is important for improving your skills and
building a portfolio to apply for jobs, they will be more supportive
and keen to share useful information with you (e.g. customer
feedback, website analytics data). Get in touch with those people!
Chances of getting a project will increase if you provide samples of
your work.
Never skip the research phase. 

Even if you’re running a hypothetical project and have little or no
money for recruiting respondents, always aim to find at least a few
volunteers who will spare some time to help you out. Find them
among family, friends, colleagues or by posting an invitation on a
Facebook group that is related to your project’s domain.

Small challenges. 

You don’t have to participate in big projects to get practical while
learning UX design. Implement your knowledge to completing small
tasks and exercises to keep the momentum going when you have no
assignments at hand.

This is very helpful, especially when you just learned about a certain
process or method and want to memorise/understand it better. You
can, for example, sketch a user flow of a banking app or an information
architecture diagram of a complex website.

Hey, I have a piece of good news for you - there are websites with
ready-to-use UX challenges that help designers practice their skills
and produce deliverables to use in their portfolios:

UX Tools Challenges

UXChallenge.co

Mentored training.

Consider participating in UX training where you will get a project (often
with a real client) and a mentor who will provide useful tools, advice
and feedback. You can read more about this in the next section.
4. Consider mentor sessions or a structured learning

programme.
Learning everything by yourself in such a broad field as UX design can
get super overwhelming at times.

When I was learning the craft, many fewer UX learning programmes were
available to candidates than these days. Furthermore, because of rather
low competition on the market at the time, the training did cost a fortune
and I couldn’t afford it.

Luckily for you, the UX education landscape has evolved. Nowadays,

there are many options to choose from and prices average $6000-8000
but in some cases they reach as much as $15000.

What you should look for when choosing a UX training:

The price you can afford. 


Try not to rank training options by the price as cheaper doesn’t mean
worse - at least when it comes to UX education. I saw mediocre case
studies from graduates of one of the most popular, expensive UX
Bootcamp and really outstanding portfolios of designers who trained
under the tutelage of a small, emerging UX mentorship company.
You should take into account your financial situation and set the
optimal budget you can spend on tuition fees that won’t affect your
living standard.
Instructor support & community. 

Having to learn everything from scratch by yourself can be
overwhelming. Try to find a course that involves regular support from
a tutor or mentor - they will provide feedback on your designs and
ideas, answer questions (trust me, so many of them arise as you move
forward) and might boost your motivation when morale is low.

Some programmes also offer membership in a student community -

this is a great opportunity to make friends with people who share the
same goal as yours. You’ll give each other advice and feedback - it can
also be motivating to see how others overcome challenges and make

progress.

Project-oriented learning and career preparation. 


Make sure that the programme of your choice is project-based. It is
essential to put your knowledge into practice to learn how to design.
To be honest, this is the only way to get good at it. Projects that you
complete not only will upgrade your skill set but will also fuel your
portfolio.

A tutor or mentor should also support you in your career preparation. It

is really helpful to receive feedback on your CV, portfolio and job
interview skills from an expert.
Bootcamp comparison
School Duration Dedicated mentor Cost

Flatiron School 6-11 months - $16 900

General Assembly 2.5 months - $15 950

CareerFoundry 10 months €6 210

UX Classroom 4-6 months* €1 399

*career support for another 4 months or till you get a job

As you can see in the table above UX Design Bootcamps have a really
wide price range. Seeing how expensive design training can get was
actually the main trigger for us to found UX Classroom.

You might think “What’s the catch?”

There is none. Well-established schools set high prices since they know
their reputation will attract many customers anyway. Also, over years they
became large organisations that hire many people (managers,
marketers, developers). To lower the entry threshold those companies
offer attractive installment or “pay after you get a job” plans.

At UX Classroom we are able to keep our prices low since we are a 2-

person team that works remotely from Poland - without renting office
space. Being a small company also allows us to deliver personalised
learning experience and provide maximum support for our students - we
teach a maximum of 30 students in a single cohort.
5. Put your portfolio together
You will need to learn how to present case studies inside your portfolio. It
is a topic for another e-book but for now, I will guide you on what
employers pay the most attention to.

Reading your case study an employer looks for

What was the problem you tried to solve?

What was your role in the project?

How did you approach the problem?

What was your journey to the final solution like?

What challenges did you overcome?

What has influenced your design decisions?

Did you run any user research?

Have you considered technological possibilities and limitations?

How did/could your design or redesign benefit the business?

How did/could your design bring value to the end-user?

Common case study structure:

Introduction.

Design brief and key project challenges.

Main part.

Description of UX research and design process - tools and methods

involved. Showcases key artefacts and may show photographic
documentation of activities involved, e.g. workshops.

Conclusion

Presentation of what was achieved, what you and your

team have learned and what impact it made.

Example case studies.

I’ve selected several case studies from various designers to give you
some good examples. Get familiar with these and notice how they’re
structured, what descriptions say, the presentation style, what visuals are
used et cetera:

http://simonpan.com/work/uber/

http://karoliskosas.com/cujo-3/

https://www.rosekuan.com/lendingtree

https://atharvapatil.github.io/kayak.html

https://spotify.design/article/how-spotify-organises-work-in-
figma-to-improve-collaboration
Choose portfolio format:

Website. 


It is common among designers to showcase their work in a form of a

personal website. The advantage of this is that anyone, including

potential employers, can quickly access your work. Also, this can be a

little real-life UX project by itself - visitors will pay attention to your

website’s information architecture, navigation, taxonomy etc.

This online format tends to give recruiters a quick overview of your

abilities, therefore it is a great medium to grab their attention.


Of course, you’ll be expected to present your projects in more detail if

they choose to invite you for an interview. These days, there are many

options to easily create a portfolio website without any coding. 


You can use services such as WIX, Adobe Portfolio, Behance etc.

PDF or slide deck. 


This option means a static presentation in a form of a file that can be

shared with hiring managers. Usually, PDF portfolios are used to

showcase your UX case studies in more detail than on websites. An

additional advantage of owning a PDF format of your portfolio is that

you can keep the master file of all your case studies and make copies

of it that contain only selected projects. This is useful when you want

to highlight different skills in front of different employers.

If you use both formats for your portfolio (recommended), it might

be a good idea to share a link to your website while applying for a

job and to send the PDF portfolio only to interested recruiters.

Read more in this article.

6. Seek opportunities and prepare for interviews.

In general, there are two main approaches to applying for jobs and

internships. You can browse open positions via Google or job boards

available in your country and apply for ones that sound interesting.

Another approach is to write a list of companies you’d like to work for (e.g.

because you’ve heard some good things about them or you admire their

recent achievements) and contact them directly to introduce yourself

and ask for work opportunities (so-called cold e-mail job application).

The first approach is more popular and, unsurprisingly, gives you a better

chance of being considered by the employer. Of course, there are more

methods to increase your chances of getting employed like, for example,

introducing yourself and networking with people during industry-related

events or exposing your persona via online activity.

UX jobs
 Read the job description carefully.

Always make sure you read a job description well before you send

the application. Sometimes, while posting job openings, hiring

managers confuse roles that are similar. For example, many times

the job title says “UX designer” or “UI/UX designer”, however, this

role’s description mentions mainly UI-related tasks and activities.

Therefore, pay special attention to the section describing

employee’s responsibilities.

To apply for a position you usually need to attach your portfolio, CV and

sometimes a motivation letter. To learn more about writing a CV and

motivational letters, I recommend these sources:

How To Write a CV - The Complete Guide

How To Write a Motivation Letter

Please keep in mind that CV best practices may vary from country to

country. For example, in certain countries, it’s not recommended to

include your photo within a CV but it can be almost a standard in other

places. Therefore, it’s best to familiarise yourself with your local

guidelines before you get started.

Okay, let’s imagine a company showed interest in you and invited you for

an interview. Hurray! This can be a sign that your portfolio appears

interesting to potential employers. It seems like you’re half the battle

already, however, you still need to compete for the role with at least a few

other candidates who got invited too (most likely).

Instead of focusing on the challenging and stressful side of interviews, try

to think about them as a chance to gauge your current skills and to get

better at presenting your work.

Things to do before an interview that can influence your chances of

success:

Learn as much as you can about the company (background, history,

successes, key competitors etc.)

Talk about yourself, your career motivations and portfolio work in front

of a mirror or run mock interviews with a friend

Prepare for standard questions like “Why are you applying for this

role?”, “What are your strengths?” or “Where do you see yourself in 5

years?”

Prepare your questions

Things to do during the interview:

Be honest and talk openly about your weak sides - admitting that

you’re not good at something at the moment but showing the will to

improve on it will put you in a good light

Emphasize how you used skills and knowledge learned at school or

previous job(s) in your portfolio projects

Ask questions that you prepared beforehand and show interest in the

company and your future role

After the interview, you’ll have to wait for around a week or two for a
recruitment decision (the recruiter should tell you the approximate
waiting time at the end of the interview). If the company rejects your
application or doesn’t reply at all within a few weeks, I recommend you
message them to ask for reasoning and feedback on their decision.

Remember to reflect back on every interview, pay attention to the

feedback you receive afterwards and aim to conclude what could be
improved in your next interview.

Don’t lose motivation when your application gets rejected. You will get
better at self-presentation with each interview and you’ll feel more and
more comfortable with talking to potential employers over time.
Bonus: useful resources

UX Pin - Free Ebooks


Repository of free ebooks on popular UX design topics

Laws of UX

Collection of best practices and laws that guide designers in their
daily wor

Medium - UX articles

An open blogging platform where you can find articles on any topi

User Defenders Podcast


A podcast that focuses on UX and personal growth matter

UX Booth

Publication by and for the user experience community

Nielsen Norman Group blog


Articles by one of the most popular consulting companies of the UX
design fiel

UX Archive

Repository of UX flows and screens from popular mobile apps to get
you inspired and familiar with established patterns
Are you ready to become

a UX designer in 2023?

Our 6-month online, project-based training will equip you

with skills needed to land your first UX job.

Max. 30 students per cohort

Career-focused Flexible, unlimited Affordable price,

structure mentorship installment plan

Learn more at uxclassroom.com

Junior

UX Classroom UX