8 ways to get started in UX and Product Design for free in 2021 | Self-taught, no degree

[Music] so you want to be a ux designer but you don't know where to start well it's easy come on let me show you [Music] just kidding hi i'm rachel i'm a senior product designer working in malaysia i understand how overwhelming it can become especially when you're starting out in ux with no experience no degree i hope that this video will help you think of some ideas to start in this ux design field so grab a drink and let's begin idea number one draw inspiration so let me show you one of the websites that are useful is dribble this is the website i always go to and you can just filter by product design or web design another good site is called behinds so on the hands go to create the fields filter by uiux so draw inspiration from work that you find interesting observe how these amazing designs are done another really useful site is called mobin you can filter by apps and patents so as a designer you gotta know the common design patterns used in ux this pattern library on mobins allows you to do that so elements like bars container you know buttons floating action buttons these are all terms that as a designer you should know another site that i would like to recommend is ninja this is a brilliant design inspiration site for marketing sites landing pages and you can also filter by different categories another site that i like to go is called screenland.com this is amazing if you are working on marketing sites one more that i would like to share is called really good ux dot io this site what it does is sharing all the good products filtered by category as well they even help you analyze what makes this really good ux don't just browse mindlessly try to understand what makes the product a good ux open your digital notes at pen and paper or any place that you take your notes on drop down what makes these apps amazing what are the great ux practices that they did differently another practical idea for you to get started in ux is to learn a design tool my go-to design tool for this is figma so this is figma it's actually a collaborative design tool they have multiple features for design including prototyping design systems and plugins it's used by companies like slack twitter github so on figma play with the interactions play with prototyping this is my favorite tool on earth if i were to only pick one software to install on my mac it will be figma number three watch youtube tutorials like this one so go on youtube search for ux design and you will see loads of content up here that are free for you to watch so yeah just make use of the free content that you could find understand how other people present their ideas how people get through interviews what is the process like in their day-to-day life and a place on youtube that i really recommend is awards i highly recommend awards because they offer high quality talks by great design leaders in the industry step number four create a mock project one of the great ways you could get started with challenges is by going to a site called ux2.co you can find all the ux challenges that you can train yourself practice with real world exercises for example if you would like to understand how to do a usability test they will give you a scenario to start with with tasks tutorials and tools another great place that i would like to share with you is called ux challenge so ux challenge gives you prompts for example e-commerce could actually create a design case study for your portfolio based on the problem statement that they present you with all right tip number five check out job bots find out what companies around the place that you live are looking for in a ux designer and one way to find out is search for ux design jobs see what they're looking for this helps you get an edge of what's happening in the industry what are people looking for and how can you actually stand up don't worry if the qualifications of these jobs says like you need at least seven years of ui design experience for example when i got started i just applied without looking at the qualifications part because i didn't have a degree or a background in design so this is irrelevant to me all right tip number six so one thing you can start preparing is your portfolio and your cv what i recommend is go to bestfolios.com strategize and think your way backwards there are all these amazing designers resumes and portfolios that you could check out so study how people do their portfolios how it's being structured what kind of copy that they include in the portfolio that stood out amongst other people in the industry right and don't worry if your version isn't perfect yet so for your portfolio i recommend using notion this is my notion portfolio where i'm actually still experimenting with multiple different platforms and i find this is so far the fastest way to build my portfolio so tip number seven optimize your linkedin profile let me show you how i use linkedin to optimize my profile change your headline to let's say ux designer another way you could actually optimize your profile is to say open to work once you optimize your profile saying that you're open to work it will actually help recruiters find you on linkedin when you're on your linkedin profile and you change your profile picture switch to open to another thing that you could do is to share your design work your learnings on your journey to becoming a ux designer search for something like ux design a hashtag you can learn how other people are sharing their knowledge on linkedin right via this hashtag so yeah this is one of the ways that you could provide value stand out from the competition and share your learnings make friends along the way on linkedin so the next tip is to get a mentor go on adp list find mentors on the site you can even filter by what expertise and design that you want to learn more from say ux design so prepare your mock project your resume your portfolio or whatever that you have right now book the mentor session during the mentor session show them what you have done so far identify what you can improve on go back improve it and come back again another tip that i'll give is to go on skillshare i will share my free trial link in the description below on skillshare what you can do is to just browse for ux design and here you can see all the amazing tutorials that people have already prepared so next tip is to read read free articles online let's say nelson norman find anything that interests you understand what makes a good user experience one more site that i would like to share is called lawsofux.com you don't need to go and memorize all these terms one by one but more of just to go through the overview and the takeaways of these laws understand what these laws actually mean and how it can actually help you to design better another way that you could try is google about ux books and these are all the popular books in the market that can actually help you design better one of the other tips that i would like to recommend is to work on a real project i understand that when you're starting out you don't have a client to give you real projects yet but maybe you know reach out to a friend reach out to your local charity to offer and design their website for them so the last tip i would like to give out is to set realistic goals and deadlines try to commit to a three to six month deadline of achieving your goal let me know what do you want me to share more about in the comment section below and i hope this video helps you in any way if you like what you see just subscribe see you in the next video

Channel: Rachel How

Views: 42,803

Keywords: uxdesign, rachelhow, productdesign, ux design, ux design tutorial for beginners, get started in ux, product design, product designer career, user experience design, user experience

Id: 3Kuwc5xu58o

Length: 8min 12sec (492 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021