The Secret Truth About Becoming a UX Designer

What I uncovered throughout the course of my first UX design internship.

Are you contemplating a career in UX design? If so, consider the arguments I will present in this article before continuing down this path. Fair warning, this field is not for the faint of heart. If you are in search for an uncomplicated and painless road turn back now, choose a different career and don’t look back. It isn’t too late for you yet!

Before you brush my warning aside, allow me to tell you a not-so-little secret no one else will. As a UX designer you bear the heavy responsibility of embodying three different personas throughout your career. You have to be an empathy guru for your client, an outspoken participator for your team, and a self-advocating learner for yourself. Moreover, qualities of each persona tend to overlap, blurring the lines that separate them from one another.

This truth became clear to me during my three-month internship at Corra, a global digital agency that provides luxury commerce solutions to fashion, beauty and lifestyle brands. The agency’s environment is fast-paced and the employees are a results-driven force to be reckoned with. Given the environment I was entering, it would have been naive of me to think that the nature of this internship would be any different. As a UX design intern my responsibilities included, but were not limited, to:

• Facilitating the client’s product vision by researching, conceiving, sketching, prototyping and user-testing experiences for digital products;
• Learning the end-to-end process of project delivery along with the associated design tools involved and;
• Working across a broad range of fidelities, from rough sketches to digital wireframes.

Before Corra, I worked at four internships, three part-time jobs, and one full-time job. The difference between all those experiences and this one is that this time I was working in a field I vigorously and earnestly wanted to pursue. UX design ties in my passion for understanding human behavior, which I came to realize as a Psychology major at Stanford University, and my longing to pursue this passion through a career in the ever-growing tech world.

If you have gotten this far and are not yet discouraged from becoming a UX designer, read on to fully grasp the weight of my words. The following stories and examples will illustrate times where I had to embody each persona and fulfill my responsibilities.

Michelle for the Client: Empathetic and Cooperative

Consider the client. When a client takes you on for a project they are expecting you to improve the performance of their website, app, platform, software, etc.

While the scope of each project varies from client to client your responsibility as a designer to create products that are useful, usable and engaging remains the same.

One of my first projects was to conduct a UX audit for a leading sneaker brand to identify ways to enhance the customer experience of both the U.S. and U.K. versions of their desktop and mobile sites. In addition to performing the audit, I was expected to go through several rounds of presentations for my boss, who would be acting as the client. At first, my audit process looked like this:

1. Administer a thorough exploration of each page on the site.
2. Identify areas for improvement.
3. Present to the client, AKA my boss.

Although I felt confident in my work, I quickly realized that many of my recommendations made little sense to the client. I wasn’t providing enough evidence to back up my suggestions and the design vocabulary I was using extended my presentation time because of the extra questions it came with. It was time to amp up my empathy for the client’s needs and to step up as their advocate to increase conversions. Enter iteration #2 of my audit process:

1. Administer a thorough exploration of each page on the site.
2. Identify areas for improvement.
3. Provide successful examples from similar websites as reference for each suggestion made.
4. Back up claims with evidence from reliable research and design principles.
5. Present to the client, AKA my boss.

“This is it,” I thought to myself, “This time I will knock it out of the park.” But I was wrong. Again. Instead, 40 minutes into the presentation I lost her attention. Even though I made persuasive arguments, a client who is losing interest because of the length of your presentation is not a happy client, regardless of the validity of your points.

Now was the time where I would have to grow thicker skin, so I could address her feedback to consolidate the presentation without becoming discouraged. Enter iteration #3 of my audit process:

1. Administer a thorough exploration of each page on the site.
2. Identify areas for improvement.
3. Provide successful examples from similar websites as reference for each suggestion.
4. Back up claims with evidence from reliable research and design principles.
5. Review and consolidate the presentation.
6. Repeat step 5.
7. Repeat step 5, again.
8. Present to the client, AKA my boss.

After weeks involving rounds of research, presentations and reflection through multiple meetings resulting in criticism and feedback, I finally nailed it down. The process was laborious, humbling, and unearthing of my ability to empathize while remaining thick-skinned. The outcome was far better than I could have imagined at the start and ultimately the gains were worth the effort.

However, while this story has a happy ending, don’t forget that there are still two more personas you have to manifest to be a true UX designer; one for your team and one for yourself.

Michelle for the Team: Outspoken and Thick-skinned

It was around the third week of my internship that I noticed a summit for the entire design team on my schedule. Members from the L.A. office flew in for the three-day assembly, which included expanding our notion of UX design with a day trip around New York’s most innovative stores. In addition, we had several meetings scheduled to address pain points the team was facing internally and with other departments.

Sounds like fun right? Wrong. Imagine trying to impress a tight-knit design team as a new, and temporary, member. I was nervous and suffering from a serious case of imposter syndrome. Who was I, a newbie, to give my opinions and participate in a gathering of a team I would not be with in the long run? Nevertheless, it was time to set the lingering feeling of imposing aside and bring in the collaborative, attentive and detail-oriented colleague I knew I could be.

During the summit we went to stores that go above and beyond in creating the ultimate customer experience. We visited Rebecca Minkoff, where the changing rooms have smart mirrors that double as screens with options to change the hue of the lighting or display similar items. We toured the Coach flagship store, which includes an entire customizing area dedicated to creating personalized products on demand.

In addition to our field trip, the summit involved conversations where we took a deep dive into areas of concern within the design team of high, medium, and low priority where even I was encouraged to participate.

The more time I spent with the team the easier it was for me to embody the second persona and to realize that I did belong with my peers. The imposter syndrome was only as real as I allowed it to be.

Once this was clear to me I began to voice my opinions on design team priorities without first being invited. I also became more trusting of my gut feeling to participate in conversation, whether casual or professional, knowing that I was perfectly capable of holding a discussion and of presenting valid arguments. Although it was daunting at first, the experience brought me closer to a group of talented and creative people for me to learn from and contribute to while teaching me a valuable lesson on how to trust my abilities and gut feelings as a designer.

So even though I was initially caught off guard and the situation was intimidating it ended up revealing itself to be a blessing. However, we have yet to cover the most important persona you have to become, the one that is for yourself. You might be scoffing at the idea that being someone for yourself would be the easiest of the three. In reality, it is the toughest and the one that will deter any readers left that are on the border of pursuing this course any further.

Michelle for the Herself: a Self-Advocating Go-Getter

Right around the midpoint of my internship my professional confidence took a hit. I was going through a tough time in my personal life and, as a result, my performance declined. My new-found sense of belonging suffered and my animated and interested attitude fell behind a veil of detachment. I became withdrawn from my work, insecure of my relationship with my boss, and seemingly unconcerned with the potential of my future.

After a couple of meetings, where my boss expressed her concern in a tough yet caring way, I came to realize that I should either give up or step up. On one hand, life was hard and giving up would have been easy. There was a lot on my plate: I was moving out of my apartment, continuing my hunt for a job across the country and dealing with random health issues, all while trying to be the best intern I could possibly be at my first UX job. On the other hand, I reminded myself of my passion for understanding human behavior and using that understanding to create meaningful experiences that connect people with the products they use every day.

How lucky was I that Corra took a chance on me by offering me an internship where I could grow professionally and learn from my boss, an incredibly talented UX designer, in an exciting and relevant field I genuinely wanted to be a part of? Besides, life never stops getting in the way anyways.

So I decided to suck it up and compartmentalize the obstacles in my personal life, express my ambitions and true appreciation of this opportunity to my boss, and advocate my worth as a member of the team and agency. Afterall, I had to be an open minded, self-advocating learner who doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘quit’.

As I write this article and reflect on my time as a UX design intern at Corra I realize that embodying these personas never gets easier — you just get better at it. When you weigh the hurdles I overcame against all I gained from following this career path, the right choice is obvious.

Now that you know my stories and the secret truth of being a UX designer you should find yourself asking: do I have the genuine interest and capacity to embody these three personas and be successful in my UX career? If the answer is yes, then you should go for it, because in the end it’s worth it. Trust me.