It is never easy to leave a field you always thought of excelling in and start something completely new. Being a newbie after having a Master's degree was tough. Here I am, writing about my first step towards being A UI/UX designer.
The first thing that I have learnt and still trying to learn is to accept the change. After all, it's truly said
"Nothing is permanent except change."
There is no growth if we stay comfortable in the non-changing pseudo-world around us. Everything around us is changing, we need to change along with it if we want to move forward. The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.
I started my journey in UX design by Diving into the Google UX Design Professional Certificate Course on Coursera. Slowly, I started to understand how a user thinks, feels, says and does. How empathising with users is so important. I soon was able to understand that pretty UI is not equivalent to UX design, it is just a part of it and yes, a very important one.
The five stages of UX design are:
Empathize: This stage is about understanding your users and their needs. You can do this by conducting user research, such as interviews, surveys, and usability testing.
Define: Once you have a good understanding of your users, you need to define the problem you are trying to solve for them. What are their goals? What are their pain points?
Ideate: This is the stage where you come up with solutions to the problem you have defined. You can do this by brainstorming, sketching, and prototyping.
Prototype: Once you have some ideas, you need to create prototypes to test them with users. This will help you to identify any usability problems and make necessary changes.
Test: Once you have a prototype that you are happy with, you need to test it with users again to make sure that it is easy to use and meets their needs.
Soon, I dwelled upon the UI part. The tool was every designer's favourite- Figma. I was jumping from one YouTube tutorial to the other, to learn the essentials of Figma (I am still learning😅). I stumbled upon freecodecamp's tutorial which was really good.I tried replicating some of the UI from various sources, some got good feedback, some were okayish and some needed improvement.
Among all this, I realised that the zeal to learn and do good was still in there.
After all, Bill Cosby has said,
"The only thing that stands between you and your goal is the story you keep telling yourself about why you can't achieve it."
I can and I will achieve it.
Every Step Counts!
Especially, when you are starting to learn how to walk.