How can you gain relevant experience in UED?

Here are the best ways you can do that (assuming you know UX basics) - ask if anyone in your network is doing a redesign _ redesign bad UX with a focus on business goals - side projects with actual goals and some real research( nothing fancy) - make a pitch deck to a client you think they have bad UX - don't wait for a job to happen. You make it happen. That's it

Knowledge of UX is all around us. You can gain experience in UX a ton of different ways (and no "one" way is correct): 1. Lean into learning - Go to school for UX, sign up for a UX bootcamp, watch Youtube videos, read articles, and listen to the opinions of others. 2. Always be curious - Check out the apps that you use on the daily. How do they get users from point A to point B. How do they decrease friction in your workflow? How do you feel when using them? How could all of those things be made better? 3. Practice! - A lot of people learn best by doing and hiring managers want to see real impact. Get real world experience by volunteering for non-profit orgs, taking internships, and sourcing projects through friends and family.

➡️ Learn UED fundamentals like user research and wireframing. ➡️ Don't rush; build skills gradually. ➡️ Use what you learn in real-world projects to gain experience.

In my opinion, user experience design can be developed via practicing three core skills: empathy, experimentation, and engagement. Empathy is by the far the most important. One should constantly consider how their beneficiaries might think and act differently from you, based on differing values, aspirations, preferences, and challenges. Experimentation is necessary to ensure what is in your head, or on your whiteboard, works. Without testing experiences with your intended beneficiaries, you cannot be sure your designed experiences hold actual water. Beyond experimentation, engagement with beneficiaries to involve them in the design process as active participants ensures you are designing first and foremost for their benefit.

In my opnion, If you need to gain relevant experience in User Experience Design (UED), consider formal education, internships, personal projects, volunteering, networking, mentorship, engagement in online communities, continuous learning, UED certifications, and always apply a user-centered approach in your work.

I often tell candidates that the best thing they can do is to solve real problems for real brands and to create a personal project about it. Solving real problems will help you understanding your user and practice solving social and emotional jobs to be done. Additionally, using real brands will teach you the discipline of maintaining a preexisting visual identity as well as push you creatively to know the rules and break them. This will allow for you to show your design maturity and give you a great portfolio piece while doing it.

One way to practice and develop UED on your own is to [1] learn basic HTML and CSS to work on a personal site, [2] show friends your site and both observe how they are engaging with it (actual behaviour) and ask for their feedback (self-reported perception), and [3] iterate on observations and feedback to continually improve your site.

User experience design communities can take many forms: outside of a design or research department within your organization, engaging in your communities' issues as an active participant and citizen is an impactful and educational ongoing practice of UED. When advocating for the needs of a community, one is necessarily engaging in UED in uncovering, stocktaking, imagining, collaborating, testing, and implementing, to varying degrees.

It’s vital to do at least one real project with others (e.g., stakeholders, technology). In your portfolio, hiring managers obviously want to see “hard” skills like research, wireframing, use of design tools, etc. But more importantly, they want to see the “soft” skills that you need in your day-to-day. A gripe that many have about applicant portfolios is that they show “ideal” projects free of obstacles. In reality, you’ll have to work with others who may not agree (with you or each other), you’ll run into technical constraints that stop your design (or parts of it) from being built, you may run into legal or regulatory issues, and so on. Being able to handle these types of issues is a huge indicator of your ability to be successful.

To gain relevant experience in UX design, it is important to get hands-on experience by working on projects, internships, or freelance work. This allows you to experiment with different design concepts, learn from experienced designers, and gain exposure to different design processes and methodologies. Remember, the key to gaining experience is to get your hands dirty and solve real-world problems.

A skill/tool I haven't seen mentioned in other contributions is the importance of flexing your imagination. Oftentimes we default to what is out there or what has already been done, even if they might not / no longer serve as effective or desired experiences. Against conventional incremental wisdom that keeps us trapped in the same paradigms, starting from wild speculative visions can help us conceive of better designs not wedded to reproducing the same problems, whether its something small like a minor accessibility oversight for an in-app navigation, or something larger like the way we organize work and its ecological consequences.