90s Career Coach Responds to a UX Designer

RE: Help! Lost new grad needs a roadmap

Kid,

First off, I got your "electronic mail." My nephew set this contraption up in my office last month and I still don't trust it — if this reply vanishes into the ether, call my office like a normal person. The number's in the Yellow Pages.

Now. Let's talk about this "UX Designer" business.

I've been coaching careers for twenty years and I have never once heard of a "UX Designer." I had to ask around. Apparently the "U" is for "user" and the "X" is for "experience," which tells me somebody in a marketing department got paid too much to rename "making things easy to use." Fine. We had a word for this. It's called industrial design, or human factors, or if you're at one of these software outfits, "interface design." The folks who decided where the buttons go on a VCR remote? That's your tribe. Don't let the alphabet soup scare you — it's an old job wearing a new hat.

Same goes for the rest of your jargon list. "Wireframing"? That's a rough sketch. Designers have been doing those on napkins since before you were born. "User flows"? That's a flowchart. Any office supply store sells the plastic stencil for a dollar fifty. "Agile sprints" — I genuinely have no idea, sounds like something from track and field, but I'd bet my Rolodex it means "work fast in short bursts and have a lot of meetings about it." And a "design system" is a style guide with delusions of grandeur. Every ad agency has one in a binder.

You see my point? You already speak the language. They just changed the accent. Stop being intimidated by vocabulary — that's exactly what the vocabulary is FOR. Half of corporate jargon exists to make simple things sound hard so consultants can charge more.

Now here's your roadmap, since you asked, and I don't do vague:

MONTHS 1-3: Build the book. Nobody hires a designer without a portfolio, and I don't care what the job is called. Take three everyday things that are badly designed — a bank's ATM screen, a confusing phone menu, the instructions for programming a VCR clock — and redesign them. Show your sketches, your flowchart, your reasoning, and your final polished version. That "reasoning" part is what separates you from every other art school kid with pretty pictures. Show your WORK, not just the result.

MONTHS 3-6: Talk to actual humans. This is the dirty secret of your field: it's not about design, it's about watching people struggle with things. Sit your mother down in front of a computer program and watch where she gets stuck. Take notes. Do this ten times with ten people. Congratulations — you now have more real "user research" experience than most people applying for the same jobs.

MONTHS 6-9: Get in the door. Any door. Software companies, yes — I hear this "World Wide Web" thing is creating jobs, though I'll believe the hype when I see it — but also think bigger. Banks, airlines, phone companies, anybody building those touchscreen kiosks. Junior title, doesn't matter. Your first job is not your career; it's your education with a paycheck. And do it the way that works: pick up the telephone. Call the design department, ask for fifteen minutes of somebody's time to look at your book. People love giving advice. It's why I have a job.

MONTHS 9-12: Learn the business side, because "great at design" is table stakes. Learn to explain WHY your design makes the company money or saves it money. The designer who can talk to the sales department is worth three who can't. Take one accounting or business course at the community college. You'll thank me in five years.

And one standing order for the whole year: whenever someone throws jargon at you in a meeting, ask them — politely — "what does that mean, exactly?" Half the time they don't know either, and you'll learn who the real professionals in the room are.

You're not lost, kid. You're just standing at the bottom of the hill looking up. Start climbing.

Send me your portfolio when it's done. By regular mail. With stamps.

Brenda

P.S. — Everyone says every field is "hot" until it isn't. Skills last; buzzwords don't. Bet on the skills.

Dear Confused Graduate,

First — breathe. You did the hard part: finished school. Now you’re staring at a lot of jargon and a field that’s half art, half people-watching, and half plain common sense. I’m Brenda, and I’ll give it to you straight, 1995 style: cut the hype, learn the work, show the work, and don’t wait for someone to hand you a title.

What “UX Designer” means (in plain English)

• User flows: a map of the steps a person takes to get something done. Think of it as a map for a shopper or a customer service call — what they do, next, and why.
• Wireframing: the blueprint of a screen or page. No need for pretty; it’s boxes and labels to show structure and priority.
• Agile sprints: short bursts of work where a team builds a small chunk of a product and shows it. Don’t treat it like mystical ritual — it’s just quick deadlines and team check-ins.
• Design systems: a rulebook of buttons, fonts, colors, and language so everything looks and behaves the same. Like a corporate stationery manual, but for screens.

A no-nonsense, month-by-month roadmap for Year 1
Months 0–3: Learn the basics and make tangible things

• Pick one or two core tools you’ll use religiously (in my day that was Photoshop/Illustrator on a Mac; today pick the current tool everyone asks about in job ads). Learn the basics well: layers, typography, grids, and exporting assets.
• Practice wireframing on paper first. Do 10 wireframes in 10 days — different problems: sign-up, checkout, search results, profile page.
• Learn to do a simple user flow for each wireframe. Ask a friend to pretend they’re a user and talk you through it.
• Do 3 mini-projects (these can be speculative redesigns): a small website, an app screen, and a public-facing form. Make sure each project has a clear goal.
• Build a simple portfolio (print and digital). In 1995 you’d bring a printed portfolio and a CD-ROM; now make a clean online portfolio plus a one-page PDF you can email.

Months 4–6: Get real users, real feedback, and real credits

• Run 10 informal user interviews. You don’t need lab equipment: give people tasks, watch them, take notes. Record (with permission) or write verbatim quotes.
• Do 5 quick usability tests on your wireframes. Note where people stumble and iterate. Record the fixes and the reasoning.
• Volunteer or freelance for one nonprofit or small business — real problems, real constraints, and real end-users. You’ll get something live for your portfolio.
• Start networking. Attend local design/tech meetups, join a professional association, or visit agencies and ask to see their studio. Bring business cards.

Months 7–9: Build collaborative skills and communications

• Learn enough HTML/CSS to understand what’s feasible (you don’t need to code full sites, but you must speak developer’s language).
• Practice presenting your work: every project must have a one-page case study: the problem, your process, the solution, and measurable results (even if small: fewer clicks, faster form completion).
• Learn to write: labels, button copy, and short microcopy matter. Practice rewriting confusing instructions so they’re clearer.
• Start applying for junior/assistant designer roles or internships. Tailor each application and include one focused case study relevant to the job.

Months 10–12: Refine portfolio, interview hard, and pick a direction

• Aim to have 4–6 polished case studies in your portfolio. Include process artifacts: wireframes, flows, test notes, and final designs.
• Do mock interviews with peers. Prepare a 5-minute portfolio walkthrough and answers for common questions: why you made choices, how you handled feedback, what you measured.
• If you get a job, expect to keep learning on the job. If not, double down on freelance and keep applying — persistence beats perfection.

Concrete deliverables to produce in Year 1

• 4–6 strong case studies with process shown
• 1 live project (freelance, volunteer, or personal) that you can point to
• 10 user interviews and 5 recorded usability tests
• A one-page résumé, clean portfolio website, and a PDF portfolio
• A basic HTML/CSS primer so you can talk to developers intelligently
• 30–50 job/internship applications and 10 informational networking conversations

How to talk to employers (and not sound like a buzzword machine)

• Don’t parrot jargon. Say what you actually did: “I observed five users attempting purchase checkout, I mapped their steps, and simplified the form from six fields to three, reducing aborts in my test.”
• Show process, not just pretty comps. Employers hire problem-solvers, not just picture-makers.
• Bring printed materials to interviews. We still shake hands and look people in the eye — a printed flow chart or annotated wireframe is powerful.

A few cold, useful truths

• You won’t start as the head of anything. Expect to be junior and hungry.
• People hire attitude and craft over titles. Be reliable, finish things, and listen.
• Keep a learning log. Every time you test something, write down what changed. That becomes your story.

If you want, send me three things in your next electronic mail: a link to your portfolio, one screenshot of a wireframe, and a one-paragraph description of a project. I’ll tell you what to kill, what to keep, and what to explain better when you walk into an interview.

Sincerely,
Brenda
(pragmatic career coach — yes, I’ve seen fads come and go; good work carries on)