Key Highlights:
- I found from one of my architeccture projects at university that my interest is so invested in people’s experiences, behavior, and perception within the space of my project
- There are lots of soft skills involved in UX design. I found listening skills, empathy, and a little sense of humor will help you go a long way in UX design.
- UX/UI design is a design created for people. It is undoubtedly that knowledge about human psychology will help a lot in designing those experiences and interfaces.
- You have to explore the world of design, business, and technology to fully understand how you can help your business clients find and serve their users with the right tech or platform.
As the UX/UI designer trend is on the rise, many people from different career backgrounds have decided to look into this career and the exciting path it has to offer.
With that idea, It inspired me to write about my own experience and I think it will be beneficial to some of you readers who are thinking about getting into UX/UI design, especially for those who come from the same background in architecture.
(Disclaimer: This is my personal experience in UX/UI and Architecture study, it will be different for other people and you too.)
Why do I change from Architecture design to
UX/UI design?
I do love architecture during my study but was never sure about which aspect of it. It teaches you how to think in many different ways, how to do research, how to formulate great ideas, and even ways to amazingly craft or execute the final project and present that project to amazing people.
Then, Year 4 is where it hits me, I found from one of my projects that my interest is so invested in people’s experiences, behavior, and perception within the space of my project (interestingly, the project is so deeply poetic and related to human life and death philosophy). This has shifted my design perspective and I have noted this finding in myself and continue with my uni life.
After graduating from Architecture school, I applied for an interior design internship for a duration of 3 months. It was really a good experience but I also found that I do not like interior design as I thought I would. So, I searched for a new path and undoubtedly found UX/UI. I was intrigued by the idea of human-centered design and curious if I would enjoy doing it. I figured the best way to find out is to actually be a UX/UI designer.
Fast forward to now, I have been working as a UX/UI designer for almost a year now. There are many experiences, stories, people, and skills I found interesting, and quite satisfied with my desire in the design world.
Finally, What’s great about being a UX/UI designer! (in innovation consultant firm)
1. People, People, and you guessed it! People!
This line of work does include lots of interaction between you and lots of people. From your work colleagues, team, and probably the most important one is ‘users’. There are lots of soft skills involved in UX design. I found listening skills, empathy, and a little sense of humor will help you go a long way in UX design.
You will be doing lots of interviews with new people with different backgrounds, this gives us designers lots of insight, new perspectives, and lots of fun secrets.
2. UX/UI designers are a great mix of design, business, and technology
Most of the time you will be helping business stakeholders meet their needs and their target customer happy about the product and experience that the business offers. You have to explore the world of design, business, and technology to fully understand how you can help your business clients find and serve their users with the right tech or platform.
3. If you love psychology and research, you might be in for a treat
UX/UI design is a design created for people. It is undoubtedly that knowledge about human psychology will help a lot in designing those experiences and interfaces. From simply how humans perceived different colors with different feelings to how we could form behavior patterns within the platform.
Another will be researching, as people are so diverse and our behavior always changes day by day, continuous interest in research and keeping up with changes in business, technology or trends will have a tremendous impact on how you design.
If you love to do both of these things, I am pretty sure you will have a great time working as a UX/UI designer.
4. It’s fairly easy to switch to UX/UI designer
In my opinion, UX/UI is one of the easier jobs to switch to as there are so many overlapping skills from other jobs. I have seen some people from different fields switch to UX/UI, from architecture designers, communication designers, software engineers, MBA,s and even accounting.
I believe it mostly came from the relatability of human-centered design that everyone can refer to, understand and align to its concept. Actually, lots of people have UX skills even without knowing such as a great ability to listen, strong analytical skills, or simply great at empathizing with people. I firmly believe that whatever career you switch from will provide you with unique points of view in the UX/UI field.
5. You get to invent!
This one will be a bit niche to innovation. As I mentioned, I work as a UX/UI designer in a firm specializing in creating innovation. Innovation also does have many types but that is a story for another day.
Long story short, most of the time the project is fairly new to customers, and as UX/UI designer in this particular field, you have this space where you have to invent from the ground up. This creates challenges where you also have to keep in mind how you would inform or educate users about new behavior. I am sure this room for creativity here will be appreciated by any designer.
I do think where you decide to work in, which industry you are doing, or who your users are will create another unique challenge for you, and the best is people always changing. I hardly doubt you will be bored at this job if you love new challenges.
To conclude...
So, if you are looking to get into the world of UX/UI I hope some of this insight will help you make a decision. If you enjoy any of my content or the company’s content, feel free to subscribe to our newsletter for a future blog post.
P.S. Hey! If you want to ask me anything about this post, you know where to find me!
