5 important things I’ve learned to do as a designer

Question 19: What you do as a designer gets you to where you want to go

20 Designers, 20 Weeks, 1 Question Per Week

Learn from twenty experienced designers as we go deep into one question every week.

This week we look at the important things designers have learnt to do in their work.

“The distance between what you want and what you get is what you do”

Simon Pan — Senior Interaction Designer at Google, San Francisco, USA

Nationality:

Australian 🇦🇺

5 important things I’ve learned to do as a designer

• Landing your dream UX job doesn’t come down to an X-Factor that only some possess.
  On the contrary, it can be decoded into specific mindsets, habits, and tools for you to cultivate and increase your likelihood of success. The skills you’ve accumulated and how you’ve used them are the most important thing to get the work you love. The value you delivered yesterday, determines the job you get tomorrow. Your career is defined by a portfolio of projects and outcomes, not a list of jobs.
• Your work does not speak for itself. You do.
  Many of us are taught not to brag, so when it comes to speaking about our own work we often hold back speaking about the value it brings, because we think the work will do the talking. This also assumes that someone is listening. Reconsider how can you make some noise? How you can tell stories about your work that connects on an emotional level? How can you show how you matter?
• Don’t wait for answers.
  When you feel a lack of clarity around what you should be doing and no one can give you an answer — be proactive. A critical time for proactivity, is at the start of a project where there is a lot of ambiguity or a false sense of consensus…