Looking to advance my career!
Looking to transition my career into the Ui/Ux designer field, aided with the years of graphic and visual design this area will provide me with the edge to continue advancing my career in a company that has plenty of room for growth.
Hi Robert,
As an industrial design who went through the same transition, I believe you're making the right move and definitely have the skillset to naturally evolve to this field. There is a HUGE need for generalists in the field with the ability to both plan and execute in the digital realm.
In terms of how to make the break into the field, there are several ways and no one golden path. Here are some:
Join a team that's working on a side project / start up. That's how I started. I had my day job as an industrial designer and in nights and weekends I worked on a start up with 3 other developers and 2 co-founders as the UX+UI designer. This sure wasn't easy but I learned a TON. One of the biggest advantages of this kind of gig is the ability to take a big bite in the product development cycle and experience hands on with a lot of territories.
Can't find a team? Think of a product you'd like to use, and bring it up to a fully interactive prototype. Building something from scratch makes you think very hard about all the ins and outs of a product. These are great conversation pieces in job interviews as well.
Ramp up your skills with some extra courses - from free Html/CSS courses to paid UX courses in Udacity and General Assembly, you can learn a lot about the trade and gain actual knowledge about tools and processes.
I'll be happy to know what you think and what is the company type you are looking to join. Good luck!
All I can say is yes you should but if I may make a suggestion when it comes to UI think outside of the box always because the more stand-outish the interface the more noticeable and talked about it is and to do that you need to get deeply involved with the dev team you are working with they know what is feasible and what isn't as for user journeys it's another one of those areas that never seems to be consistently uniform in the way it acts just look at it from a consumers point of view start from point A and if the transition from that point to point B is not so straight forward which are the route's you as a consumer would take and then follow those paths but give them the option to get out of Dodge ....... hope I'm making sense here and good luck trust me It's a good career path