It was a hot summer day when I decided to change careers from becoming a software engineer to becoming a UX designer. And this happened only a year and a half after an idea struck me: switch from theater to programming!
I'd always been interested in it, but I'd never really taken action for one reason or another: maybe it seemed too scary or overwhelming, and I lacked the time or resources to learn how it worked. Things were tight in the cultural sector, so I thought maybe it would be a good time to start learning how computers work.
I knew it would be hard, but I didn't realize how much of a struggle it would be. The first year was the most difficult—I had to learn everything from scratch. But then something happened: I started to see results. I started to notice how much I was improving, and I was even able to develop my first desktop application. Then, instead of working on code all day long and feeling like I'm stuck behind a desk, I wanted to work with people who are using the product I've built—the one that helps them solve their problems—and make sure they're having a great experience using my product. So I realized that I needed to become a UX designer.
At first, it caught my eye as a field that seemed to have everything: creativity and problem-solving, but also business-oriented thinking and strategy. I've always been good at coming up with solutions to problems—even when I wasn't sure what the problem was yet—and the idea of being able to do that for a living sounded perfect. I did some research online and tried to teach myself because I wanted to save money, but I ended up getting really overwhelmed by all the resources out there and how to curate them. I thought to myself, I can either try to teach myself and put together my own curriculum (double the work!) or I can go to something that’s already curated and led, allowing me to focus on the skills I really wanted to learn — UX design. So I decided to go with a structured course - Google UX Design Professional Certificate program. And many smaller courses too because I was too excited and couldn’t wait to dive deeper into some topics. It was a tough decision: going back to full-time student meant more debt, no pay during the program, and taking more time off from my career. But I was excited to dive into the world of user-centered design.
After starting studies in UX design, it became clear to me that there's more to becoming an effective UX designer than just being good at problem-solving. You need to know how people think and behave; you need to be able to empathize with them in order to understand what they need out of an experience. This approach is so necessary because we cannot get inside other people’s heads; we cannot walk in other people’s shoes unless we talk with them and interact with them about what we’re designing in the process. I found that learning to consciously use that empathy was so freeing to me and my personal growth, I started to apply that same perspective to many areas of my life. And finally you need to be able to express this all in a way that makes sense to others, because no matter how much we may want it otherwise, humans are quite bad at understanding each other.
It's been a long road, and there were times when I wanted to give up. I am fortunate to have supportive people in both my personal and professional lives who never tire of cheering me up and reminding me of what I have already learned. This trip has been extremely motivating and rewarding for the most part. I realize how similar UX design is to the work I've been doing in theater and in my previous career as an entrepreneur, and it feels like this isn't a completely new career for me, but rather one in which I can apply everything I've ever learned and been interested in.
If you’re coming to UX later in life you will have more transferable skills to bring to add to your skillset. You’re not starting from zero – there’ll always be transferable skills. UX is about the user, so there’s a lot of people skills. You don’t have to come from a product, marketing or design background. So many people are using UX or UX principles in their roles without even realizing it.
You might not even know it, but it's highly likely that you have a lot of valuable skills that are transferable into UX design. If you've been working in marketing, for example, you'll have the user-centricity and the creativity that are central to the design thinking process. If you've been working in architecture or construction, you'll be adept at project management and have a keen eye for user flows. No matter your background, it's worth taking stock of what skills you'll be bringing into your new career as a UX designer. Businesses are being forced to invest more into their UX in order to maintain a competitive edge in today’s tech-heavy market and recognizing that it might be time for a career change into UX design is as daunting as it is liberating. While this revelation is the first step on your road to finding a career you love, preparing for a career change involves significant risk-taking, and a willingness to embrace change in some pretty radical ways.
My advice would be: trust the process. Trust the process that the course takes you through, and see it through. If you’re not decided yet on what course to take, the earlier you pick something and stick with it, the deeper you’ll go with the learning.
Today, I work for a company that is specialized in improving usability testing and user experience monitoring focused on health information systems, and I intend to further my studies in cognitive and computer science, and I’m waiting for those hot summer days to come again.