The UX Career Transition

After two months of looking, I’ve finally found an opportunity to work in the user experience field as an Information Architect (my previous role was Lead Developer, although I did quite a lot of UX there as well as in the previous company). It was certainly the right combination of my previous skills and experience along with my interest in UX, as well as a healthy dose of good fortune, that led me to this job.

I think there’s a real challenge here for not-so-UX folks who are on the ‘fringes’ of the UX field and are really keen on building a career in UX. I’ve met many of them – developers, designers, business analysts, producers – many of whom are very well-read and passionate about UX and are looking to really build a solid career in the field. These are people who actually ‘get it’, as opposed to people who just seem to think that UX is just another label that’s been plastered onto another job title for added kicks.

It doesn’t help that UX isn’t as universally accepted as a practice, and individuals who want to practice UX properly will face an uphill climb as they not only have to attempt to do it right but also convince their companies that it’s worth doing in the first place. Some people I know have opted to gain academic qualifications in HCI/IxD/etc. in hopes to increase their value in the UX job market, often in mid-career, sacrificing potential career opportunities and valuable time. When they graduate, they will face an increasingly competitive field, despite claims from companies and recruiters that UX people are always in short supply.

What they really mean is that truly experienced UX practitioners are in short supply, and a growing number of companies and clients who are starting to see the real value of UX are becoming more selective, as UX (as with any other resource) can be seen as a considerable business risk – but with obvious benefits provided they hire the right skills.

I think it’s much harder to hire a UX practitioner, particularly when companies want pretty much the whole package in an individual (user research, interaction design, information architecture, user testing, web standards, accessibility, etc.) – it’s no wonder that seasoned professionals are in such high demand. Seasoned pros have the ability to move back and forth between high-level strategy (concepting) to low-level implementation (deliverables), which makes them perfect for either deep or broad deployment.

To get a foot in the door, junior UX practitioners have the option of seeking out the few companies who understand what it means to build a UX team and know how to utilize a junior UX resource alongside its multidiscplinary teams. This is fine if you’re fresh out of a HCI programme, but is a tricky thing to navigate for someone who’s transitioning into UX from another field, some of whom have been in management/strategic/senior roles.

I think that freelancing and volunteering can provide some solutions to this – what’s important here is the value acquired from the experience of doing the work, rather than the work itself. For example, it doesn’t count that one is able to produce wireframes – he/she must be able to articulate the thinking behind that wireframe and well as the process involved in producing it. Experiential learning is quite important in this field, and Mozilla Labs’ Design Jam event looks to be a step in the right direction, but we need a lot more stuff like this.

This isn’t always obvious, which is an irony as there are now so many UX books out there, you’d think that we would’ve leapfrogged a few decades ahead in time. But we haven’t – UX and its sub-disciplines are often more craft than science, and that takes a lot of focus, dedication, determination, synthesis, learning and collaboration to gain confidence in that craft.

I am fortunate that London has a thriving and supportive UX community, which has helped a lot in my career transition. But I am certain there are individuals around the world to whom this would be considered a luxury.

I have more questions than answers to this problem, which I perceive to be a real issue if we really care do about the issues people face with interactive systems. This is why I feel really strongly about mentoring, community, participation, and advocacy if this field is going to really take root and make real progress. The only thing I can consider is to not shy away from this despite being a new entrant (formally) to UX, as ‘new practitioners’ sometimes do.

Maybe I should consider submitting a proposal to the IA Summit as a ‘fresh voice’ – but what will I speak of?