How I Became a Self-Taught UX Designer During Quarantine

what's up this is literally take four because i don't typically do this but i'm filming this vlog today just because i quit my job about four days ago on january 17 2020. i was working land development i wasn't happy and so i decided it uh why waste any more time there try to learn something new and move myself into a new career path where i can find fulfillment but basically yeah like i wasn't happy with my job um and because i do this photography thing on the side as a hobby i thought why not try to delve into that a little deeper and do freelance photography so that could be like real estate or concerts or i don't know like even like i have a project coming up with a buddy he's opening up a restaurant and he's got me helping out with some marketing content so i'll be helping him um and i'll tell you guys all about it if i end up posting this vlog yeah other things i want to explore include web design and graphic design so maybe i can find my way into like a ux position once i learn html and css as well as well as like javascript and i honestly don't even know at this point the reason i'm filming this today is because say like i post this in six months or so or whatever the time frame is and and i make something for myself and of myself then i think someone out there can perhaps watch this and share kind of the sentiments that i have right now um and like find some inspiration and also perhaps learn a thing or two if this goes through but yeah that's basically it again well yeah hope to see you guys soon and uh i guess i'm wishing myself the best of luck but this is kind of like uh maybe i don't really know peace okay so that was me just over a year ago and today i signed a contract extension as a ux ui designer for a small startup i'm filming this to share how i got from that maybe i don't really know so where i am today as someone starting new on their career in ux so if you're going through something similar or you just want to hear someone else's story on how they transitioned into ux then you should keep on watching so when i first quit my job i wasn't really sure what i wanted to do but i thought it was a good idea for me to just take an online course on learning html and css it was like a basic web development course that i found on udemy and i spent a month and a half doing that and playing video games on the side my friend then reached out to ask me to help him build a website and he knew that i had no idea how to build a website but he introduced me to this thing called webflow and i found that it really helped let me apply some of the knowledge that i learned through the web development course into a real world practical example um and so i did that for about a month following that i began to focus more on ux design because i liked the design aspect of web development but it was like the coding that i was not such a fan of and so naturally ux and product design was where i turned my attention towards from there honestly all i did was just read case studies that i found online and a realization that i had while reading these case studies was that it felt like i could do it too by this point it had been about two months into quarantine and as someone who enjoys music festivals um there was like this thing going on like with like live streamed events and i realized there was no platform to really organize this information and so i thought to myself okay it was something i was interested in and i used it as an excuse to jump into figma just to like play around with all the different offerings that the software has and i think that's what really got me started is like having an idea and just trying to like almost just having fun with it and so i created multiple frames for edm streams which is the name of it and halfway through i was like you know what let's just turn this into a real case study like let's just gun for it so with that mindset shift i decided i needed a more formalized process and so this involved defining my design problem coming up with research questions that i could ask potential users um doing research into existing platforms that serve the same or similar purpose so i can understand what solutions are already out there and then with all that information i would go back into figma and start designing my own screens with the end goal of being able to put together a prototype that would be functional i then wrote up my case study and formatted it on my website with my very advanced html and css skills something that was very valuable to me was the write-up process because it really makes you have to rationalize everything and every decision that you've made in your design so i find that as you're creating your case study you're going to learn a lot about what works and what doesn't work or what makes sense was it perfect most definitely not but what mattered was that i got started in figma and i began creating screens and trying to understand how to make these screens good and then i circulated it to some peers of mine that were already working in the ux field just for comments and for feedback and i found that this was incredibly insightful because these are people that are doing what i want to be doing and they help kind of bring to light different things that you might not have thought of and before i knew it two months had passed just for context my plan was originally to have a website completed with three case studies done by the end of summer and by this time i think it was around june and had one case study done so after completing edm streams i identified another kind of idea um and that was in revamping instagram shop's shopping platform or instagram's shopping platform i personally thought this was a great project for me to do as my second case study because it would require me to take a look at like an e-commerce platform instagram being instagram it already has an existing look and feel and so with that i figured it would help keep me in check and not let me just design whatever i want like i would have to design something that was in brand with their existing design system right so i thought that was a very fair limitation to place on myself and on top of that um at the time i thought being a product designer on instagram would be super cool and so i kind of instilled the mindset that i was a product designer working for facebook or instagram so that was just like a fun little thing to keep me motivated i then assessed the platform also based on my own prior experience with instagram and then i developed my own opinion of the platform came up with research questions that i could use to validate some of my thoughts as well as to better understand how existing users use the platform from there i set out to work around my design problem that i first defined which was something along the lines of users need a more reliable and streamlined way of connecting with the things they love that second part is like from instagram shop's mission statement so it was something along those lines with that i replicated basically what i did with edm streams and within about a month and a half two months time i had a prototype that i could actually put into people's hands and so i got a few friends to see how they would work with it whether it was functional and usable by the time i had my instagram shop redesign online and kind of finalized on my website it was already the end of september so i had missed my own deadline of coming up with three case studies by the end of the summer i was feeling really anxious and also very impatient and so i just thought to myself i can start applying to different jobs that i come across on linkedin and whatever networks i find and if nothing really hits then i can begin working on a third case study and so that was my plan just to give it a test run to see if i could get any bite and then if not then i would keep doing what i was doing already but only it would set back my own personal deadline of finding a job by the end of the year and so i started applying to jobs that required like zero to two years of working experience i mean the ones that require zero experience like there's not very many of them so you kind of just have to pick and choose your fights here i feel but i've also been told that it doesn't really matter how many years of experience they're asking for as long as you apply and you have work to present then you also have a fighting chance regardless i stuck to the ones that i felt comfortable with and i waited and waited and waited until i think around mid-november and that's when i first got an invitation for a call i personally feel like i lucked out because the startup happens to be in the content creation space which is a space that i do have some experience in given my interest in photography and videography and so that was something i included on my cover letter that i sent in and they took notice of that um that was one of the reasons that they took an interest in me despite my lack of work experience i went into that call super candid and openly discussed how much ux knowledge i actually had how i've come to learn my ux knowledge midway through the call it became very apparent that they weren't fully confident in my ability to deliver good work or to deliver like usable work so we both agreed on doing a design challenge that consisted of creating user flows based on user stories that they already came up with and so they gave me a few days to do that and i delivered i worked like basically the whole day both days just to get that perfect and as refined as possible and within a few weeks maybe like a week i got a call back saying that i had come out as their number one candidate and so yeah i got a part-time ux contract job with no work experience but it did take me more or less a year of learning to arrive at this point so that was early december uh last year in 2020 and i've been working there since um and it's great like i get to work with product owners i get to work with developers um and it's really what i imagined it to be so i at no point regretted my decision to quit my job in early 2020 um and i'm kind of starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel like i'm very glad that i had the ambition or like a shitty enough job to push me out the door like that so i'm really glad i took the plunge and tried to pursue something that would make me happier and i feel like i am happier because of it so that is where i'm at right now it definitely wasn't easy throughout all of it i mean mixed in with quarantine like mental health has definitely suffered especially the fact that i'm unemployed during quarantine and like there's so much going into it like i'm a 25 year old dude i lived in toronto i went to university but three years out of university i still haven't moved out of my parents home like that's this expectation that i set for myself and that i didn't meet and that kind of sucks but it's my reality and i'm just trying my best to take hold of my future so there's this mindset that i have of where do i want to be in two years time and that's what i think about a lot every day in the shower that's what i think about i focus on my goals and try to think about where i want to be a year from now two years from now and yeah this channel isn't meant to be about ux and product design in my career all the time i just want to share my life and document it if there's someone that's going through a similar thing well then here's someone else's story and i hope you can find some hope um or inspiration so yeah that's me i don't know what kind of video i'm gonna be making next but subscribe i'll be back especially when quarantine is over and we can all go back to normal life but until then thanks for taking the time to watch this far and also if there are any questions or anything related to this topic feel free to drop them in the comments below i will take a look at that for sure yeah until next time peace out you

Channel: clems

Views: 120,261

Keywords: UX Design, UI/UX Design, Product Design, UI/UX, Quarantine, Career Switch, #Self-Taught

Id: EZqdmDLt_ho

Length: 12min 46sec (766 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 06 2021