UI/ UX Designer — A trendy career is coming to an end? – Sylvie Vu

2 years ago when I was still working as a Graphic Designer, there was a UI/ UX Designer who told me “Hey, you should move to the UI/ UX Design field, you would earn much more than this.”

At that time, I refused. I was a person having enough clear self-awareness to know that I did not follow something just simply for money. One big decision for changing career from a 4-year experienced C-Levels/ Manager Assistant to a Graphic Designer has taught me that.

At that time, I did not even know UI/ UX Design was a trendy career. I did not realize that there was something called “trendy jobs” because as a person who felt unsatisfied in my old career, as an Assistant, even in Vietnam it was a “luxurious job”, I always had a thought in my mind for several years, which was “I wanted to change to another job/ career”, so I could not imagine that people could follow a “trendy career” without a clear consideration of themselves.

I just found out that I would love to follow the UX Career after I had done something like creating a website for my blog, customizing it by my ideas, designing a web landing page as requested by my freelance client, and got a chance involved in Web & Mobile Graphic Design as well as UX testing, feedback, solution suggestions for UNIQLO client, and then involved to their continuous sprints after their app was launched. Those works helped to bring me real insights into the field, and that was when I knew I wanted to follow it.

The UX career trend is dead by indigestion of the low-quality and unqualified

I watched a YouTuber’s video talking about the death of UX Design hype — Wesley Hong. He was a senior UX Designer in the US but has very realistic eyes on things around him, especially in the UX field. I totally agree when he mentioned the low quality of those bootcamps which have been trying to bait people to pay much money for learning to switch to a UX trendy career in a short time, and always with an advertising like “100% you will get the job”.

The UX trend was rising mainly from the Covid situation when many people lost their jobs and had to stay home for quarantine without income, and with a blurry dark visualization of life and career. At that time, those work-from-home jobs such as Designers, and Developers were very attractive with tons of videos on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc. to show their “A Day In Life”. To be honest, I saw that too, and I admired that too. 🙂

From that time, many online bootcamps, from old to new ones, started to push up their study programs with fantastic advertising to attract students. Of course, there were high-quality programs, but with a high running speed to follow the trend for money, there were more and more low-quality courses made quickly. As a result, after some months, hundreds to thousands of students graduated and started to seek entry-level jobs. In those fresh days, it was still quite smooth to seek an entry-level job to change quickly, yeah it was true for the trend. However, let’s imagine until now, still, thousands bootcamps graduates plus layoffs in tech, many people found out this career is not easy to break into like before, and become miserable.

I joined many Facebook community groups of UI/ UX and saw that everyday people expressed their hopeless and miserable thinking about their job-seeking for entry-level, and even mid-senior levels find it hard in this situation of tech layoffs as well. Even more miserable when I saw many people call themself UI/ UX Designers and advertise themselves for so cheap freelance pay with their portfolios including low-quality works without UX standards, and even copied works randomly online.

But there is a bright side for those who have a real passion for UX.

The entry-level labor of the UX field is really a mess now, I was worried, too, but there is one thing Wesley Hong said that motivated me a lot, that the UX Design hype is dead means those designers, who still keep staying strong and improve for better to get jobs even it is much harder, are those have a true passion with the field and would definitely be stronger and more determined to grow more.

The UX field is very wide, and those who really learn seriously would know that. On my side, every day I swim in tabs to read and learn deeper to upgrade my knowledge, and the practice is never enough. The trend is over, so, entry-level UX Designers, let’s face the truth that now it is not easy and quick for you to switch to a UX career in a couple of months anymore. However, yeah, this is a chance for you to sit back and analyze yourself if you really have passion for this field or if it was because of the trend. Ask yourself if you are okay with taking critiques on your design every day from stakeholders.

The truth of the design field is that you cannot work just on your own decisions like when you worked on your personal projects or practiced with your favorite designs. The truth is your work would have to go through many considerations, get critiques from many people, and sometimes you could not persuade and need to change your work, and not everyone joins in the critique knows how to give feedback in a soft enough way to make you still feel good, really, I was in that situation. Actually, some designers I knew have shared that after a time working in the field, they thought it was not for them, and they felt more and more miserable and asked for advice on if they should change to another career.

So, let’s be clear and have a real understanding of yourself first

To choose a career, you first need to understand really clearly about yourself and the field you are going to choose. There are several ways to do this, in my case, I did some personality tests and thought about what attracted me the most and what I loved to do the most when I was a kid and spent time on reflection to analyze myself. Also, I took time to find out what a UX Designer really does at work by reaching out to experienced designers and asking about the reality of their work, not just watching some fancy life videos on YouTube or Instagram because you know, everybody usually just shows and says good things about their life on social media, not many people have enough courage to share their dark and sad side to you, random strangers. 🙂

Ways to find out about ourselves are also an art and an important mission to do in life, I believe. I might share more in another post. I hope that those fresh UI/UX Designers who really have passion for the field will keep staying strong in this hard situation of the economy. Let’s be optimistic together, keep believing, studying, and working hard to upgrade ourselves for our real passion.

At the right time, the right thing will come! 🙂