I feel like no one talks about this, they just glamorize ux. I personally hate my ux job, and maybe its just the company, but it makes me reconsider as a whole. It really just feels like im a glorified graphic designer expected to just do whatever upper management wants.
@@traviskassab220i have no idea. all i know is my passion for ux is now non existent and I truly dont know where to go from here 😅 looking into front end development but thatll take a while to get into and im not crazy about the idea but it would give me an edge with my ux background
I haven't gotten into the field myself yet but advice that I've gotten is knowing your role and making sure your employer knows your role and what they hired you for to prevent the friction your feeling. like i said not a designer myself yet but hope that helped!
Re: “Frontend Dev” Cool, I’m 4 months down a similar path! It might go faster than you think. My advice would be to pick something you’re interested in building for yourself… perhaps your design portfolio. And use ChatGPT as a code assistant liberally. It’s blown me away how effective it is and how you can get started without knowing much code. Honestly, the hardest part is setting up your dev environment for the first time. Best luck and reach out if you need any help: kassab.travis@gmail.com
Man sorry to hear about your experience, I switched into UX back in 2021 and I've had a completely different experience. In my experience I've been able to significantly impact roadmaps by just being vocal about UXD observations. I've also been able to get my own ideas into roadmaps by literally just presenting ideas to Key stakeholders. If anyone is thinking about UXD I'd like to chyme in to say UXD is what you make it to be.
I’m a physical therapist that has been trying to get into UX for the past year. Even with your reasons for quitting, I think it’s a good decision for me simply based on the pros you listed out in the beginning. Appreciate you sharing!
That’s great, I’m happy you got clarity either way! UX is a great tech job, I think you’ll find the remote work and hours worked to be pleasant, compared to something like physical therapy!
Keep your physical therapy contacts. Sitting all day as a designer, immobile behind a monitor (or 3) will do a number on your body especially as you get older. I'm actually the reverse of you, hoping to get more active career and spending less time behind a screen as I'm getting older. I can't tell you how many designers I know with bad backs, eyes, posture, added weight since college. Just keep that in mind and please stay active.
Everything you mentioned is exactly why i want to join: for the guidance and safety net while learning the ropes. Then once I've been immersed in UX for a few years, got the mentorship/experience i can definitely see myself pursuing my own business whether on the side or full time. Thank you! This confirms that UX is good for people looking to learn about the heart of the business i.e. what makes a good product and product experience.
I understand ur point of view perfectly but i believe ur reasons for quitting rather stems more from a sense of unmet expectations & the fear of spiralling into a midlife crisis. Personally, my expectations for the UX industry is exactly as u described. Am just entering my 40s with 20years experience in the field of product design and i can practically relate to the path of fulfilment u are embarking on. As u pursue this cause i'd be mindful of raising any further expectations of chasing novel projects. Most of these ideas also come with their challenges of launching or dying out a few years upon arrival. Even when they manage to succeed they gradually transform into the very conventional space u wished to escape. Hopefully it works out well for u.
I'm glad you got to this point. You sound like an entrepreneur at heart who came to UX wanting to have control of making new products from the ground up. The same sentiments exist within people in all sorts of careers.
thanks so much for your perspective. i'm glad i didn't have any particular expectations going into UX, except for work-life balance, a better salary than my last job, and a higher chance for working remote. Every limitation you described is perfect for me as someone who thrives with rules and expectations in place.
I have been working as a UX designer for more than 3 years. I can feel you! Especially when I worked in a country and a company where they know nothing about UX and don't care about what UX exactly can do. When they need some ideas, they hope you can develop some disruptive designs that can totally change the industry. when we have done some research and show them up, they just say something like umm but the boss wants to do that feature...What's worse, when the company has financial difficulties, they layoff you first.
Yes research is “theatrics” at most of the places I’ve experienced or have heard of from colleagues. Some people leaving comments have had good experiences. They seem to all be at startups, and chose the startup they work for carefully
I started my UX career in 2023 :) So far, I'm loving it because I work in a startup and I have the opportunity to work on a new product idea from scratch. But at the same time I'm also an entrepreneur and I'm building my own products.
All very true points you brought up here. As a UX designer of 13 years, 10 of those years were spent in startups. It's true that at many companies UX may not have as much impact on the roadmap as you'd like... but that is not true for all organizations. Ones that value design in the right ways will give design the respet and influence it deserves. There are many benefits to working in startups as you can learn a lot, as you mentioned, and work on cutting edge ideas. The down side is the large risk what you build won't work out and you'll likely be taking a pay cut for that opportunity to make F-U money. Now getting into my late 30s, I took that risk and unfortunately saw little reward. Now I'm at a top tech company that values design and doing great work and am well paid for my experince, which also was built at startups. A lot of it boils down to your own tolerance for risk vs. reward along with what aligns with your goals and passion.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, it’s great to hear your deep experience and that there’s a fallback if the startup route doesn’t work. It’s also rare to hear from someone who has 10+ years of experience. I imagine you’re approaching Director level, if not already there. What would your advice be to people considering or just starting out in UX?
I’m currently a case manager looking to get into UX/Ui design. Even with the videos I’ve watched recently saying why they don’t like it I think it’ll be a good fit for me cause it’ll allow me to have some form of creative expression in my work. I’ve always loved art and the arts in general so I’m excited to start learning UX/Ui
Thanks for the very insightful content. You have a valid point. Even from a UX design standpoint, many web and mobile interfaces tend to resemble each other. I suppose there's little to no room left for innovation, even with all those brainstorming workshops. It seems that due to constraints such as tight deadlines and budgets, UX designers often feel compelled to opt for safer options or benchmark from established sources, rather than coming up with potentially superior but riskier innovative solutions.
Hey thanks for this - it’s really interesting to hear you agree on this point. UX is “sold” as methods and processes for innovating but they always seemed to fall short IMO
Hi, thanks for sharing your view. From UX research standpoint, I see why most of the designs or user flow across similar apps are almost identical. The checkout process, for example, has to be similar because we use soooo many apps in a day and if for each of the apps the flow were dissimilar, it would put huge cognitive load. But that’s not to say there’s no room for innovation. Apple’s double pinch feature in AW is truly an innovation in accessibility.
i've also been in design fro the past 6yrs. I started as a visual design intern and given the opportunity to branch into UX. I've had many managers but the last one just ended that life-span for me. Lacked so much empathy and saw me as a lost cause. Finally made the decision to leave after that toxic work enviroment, but decided to move on from UX after they drained my juices out.
I'm just starting to learn UX Design, but it's highly likely that I'll end up switching to tech entrepreneurship like you have. For me, learning UX Design, despite everything you've said, is useful to find a minimally creative career which is well-paid (and luckily, remote) and allows me to build the life I want while having a 9-5 and get the knowledge to design user-friendly apps and websites, so I can be as creative as I want and design my own products in my spare time to either sell them later or look for people to build them.
I appreciate you discussing this because it's true. Coming up with new products, establishing roadmaps or getting complete ownership and credit for projects just doesn't happen. That said, I think most professionals that have been doing this for many years understand the reasons behind this. Believing otherwise is a bit naive considering how big these companies are. It's simply part of the job like any other. Quitting makes sense if this isn't what you want but I think designers should be well aware of these pain points before going into this direction. I'm ok with scratching at the surface of a product or service if it means my salary is comfortable.
Hi Travis, im so sorry you had to go through these experiences as there are companies that actually do what you are seeking. Luckily I was able to do new products at start ups, new products that don't exist and actually use generative research but it all depends on the company unfortunately. Luckily I am working in game design, AR, MR and VR - with UX with 'narrative'. Thats why you're supposed to interview the company very well to avoid being in a pitfall.
Thanks for sharing your experience - I figured it would be more likely to exist in startups. Want to share a little bit more what you’re doing in the startup world so others can see? Thanks!
@@traviskassab220 I'm a freelancing over 7 years now but I experienced what you experienced in my perm roles. I currently work in UX/Service design but focus on 'player experience'. I work for a famous Football institution focusing on their play experience for football coaches and young players Under 16's. its not a common product, so able to develop new ideas and do research. Also worked on the first digital medical in the UK for anxiety for young people, again was a mix of games design, therapy for kids - all new, nothing like that has been designed before and was in a start up. Recently worked with VFX agencies who work for Marvel and working on their AR storytelling app and apple watch, then another for NBA sports for Mixed reality glasses, then stuff for meta quest 3 which hasnt been released yet for their MR mode. If its new tech, you get to design new things and generate ideas - which doesnt happen in the other more known fields like finance. ive been lucky to be able to do design sprints, or even just months of ethnographic research for a market supermarket change to find £12 million in savings. i think why i have a massive range is because i pick my jobs wisely, I even decline if its a boring project- ive already done those already and it doesnt add to my experience of skills.
That’s epic! Thanks for all the detail as well. How do you find these jobs in startups? I ask because I’m building uxstartupjobs.com, I want to help place designers in similarly fulfilling roles to what you’ve experienced
The roadmap one is so true. Management can say they're open to ideas all they want but at the end of the day, they set the vision, they set the requirements, they only push instructions downward through the org. There is no real time & place that allows conversation to happen from down to up, or even meet halfway. They too are constrained by parent companies, budgets, and company culture when it comes to flexibility and testing. More often than not, innovation is not something that will be the focus until it becomes a problem.
TOTALLY agree... I kinda hate being a ux designer at my company, too. I feel like I'm more just a design slave "go do this button, go design this line and add a word" like WTF so boring. I thought I would have more control, too. It's wayyyy too glamorized and it's quite boring to me. I want to transition into something that allows me to make decisions, like product management or something.
thanks for posting your perspective! You said "control" which I think is key. I think a lot of designers feel like they're just 'builders', and that they don't have any control over the product vision. Checkout my post below... you'll probably be most interested in "what should I do about it", which is part 3 and is scheduled to post next week: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:linkedInArticle:7129858764261773313/ I think you have to be careful becoming a product manager. I've known plenty of PM's who were just people managers. I worked with VPs at large companies who couldn't control the product vision. This taught me the lesson that position and job title don't necessarily get you the 'control' you want. Entrepreneurship is tricky also, isn't it? A couple lines of thought would be: 1. Are there products you keep telling yourself you wish you had? You might try building it. 2. Are there stories you really want to tell others? Inform others or entertain others? You might try creating content about it. If entrepreneurship is too great of a leap right now, but you still expect more from your design career, then I recommend you... get a job at a VC-funded startup. Why VC-funded? Because they've received millions to billions of dollars in funding. So they won't disappear overnight. They can pay you a good salary as well. Almost all I've seen have been $100k+ Why startup? The reason you don't have control in your current role is because the company you work for is too hierarchal. The product vision gets handed down to you from above, and you're just there to build it out. You need to go somewhere that is flat in structure, and has a culture for taking risks and encourages self-directed work (i.e. come up with your own projects and go do it). A startup is the best place, in my mind, to do this. Add to this, that a startup is building at the cutting-edge of technology, which I think makes everything more interesting. If you're interested in design jobs at VC-funded startups, then checkout: uxstartupjobs.com These are just my opinions. Of course there pro's and con's to any path you take. Hope this helps!
I feel this in my soul. Don’t get me wrong, I have made some great progress in ux with my 10 years in field. love that I have been more open to other product based roles.
I think that's the reason why I've got so anxious about my job and my role as a whole... I'm thinking about quitting UX too. I'm still in the process of taking courage to do that, and figuring things out.. I've always thought that I could build products from the ground up being a UX Designer, but what have I got? A bunck of UI elements to put into a screen. I can't even create new elements without asking the Design System team. Maybe I offer my services as a consultant for small companies, but I don't think they will pay me instead of hiring someone.. Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts.. Wish you success on your business.. :)
Hey Daniel I feel this thanks for leaving a comment. I’d first say not all jobs and companies are created equal. It sounds like the design team you’re on now is large if there’s a dedicated design system team. I’d encourage you to checkout design jobs at VC funded startups. Checkout uxstartupjobs.com for these real-time opportunities This should get you onto leaner more agile teams. With regards to product entrepreneurship, it’s a big leap. Here are my thoughts. Set aside at least a year, especially if you don’t have concrete ideas, or a concrete team, before quitting. That’s a year of cash runway. The corporate UX jobs will always be there if things don’t workout. And the projects you pursue on your “year off”, or the things you learn, will differentiate you as a designer. In your time off you can also think deeper about the type of products you won’t to work on and industries that interest you. Reach out if you want to chat more - cheers!
Is it bad I don't have a deep issue with any of that? I just feel it's a job, and I like what I do compared to many other things I could be doing. Personally I just want to bring value and stay relevant up until retirement.
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights. You've raised some intriguing points regarding the recycling of design in technology. It's indeed fascinating to consider how, during the period when design patterns were rapidly evolving in computer and phone operating systems, the landscape was ripe with innovation. However, from a current consumer perspective, this pace seems to have plateaued. As a result, the experience now often feels like a repetitive cycle, lacking the novelty and excitement that once accompanied these technological advancements.
Thank you for your view. I am looking to transition into the field of software development. I come from mechanical engineering, and experienced most of what you described. And I did consider UX. Now I see how the field is still interesting, but maybe more in a startup setting 👍 I hope that it will be easier to go through the entrepreneurial way in software development than in mechanical engineering (developing physical products is expensive 🙊)
Ah cool from the physical to the digital world. I guess the constant for you is that you like building products. Any industries or types of software that interest you most?
I feel you. ❤ I myself am a business owner, the host of my own podcast 'Goddess of Technology' and additionally, an Enterprise Customer Success Manager (CSM) employed in a SaaS company, which I'm doing to fund my business until it's profitable. For entrepreneurial people like yourself and I, entrepreneurship is the only solution, whether it be full-time or part-time. No matter how much freedom and creativity a nine-to-five job as an employee in a company allows, it will never equate to the personal growth and happiness entrepreneurship or creating any other piece of art from scratch brings. ✨ I myself appreciate the pro's that being a CSM presents. Moreover, I'm a hobby front-end engineer who's also interested in UX design. But none of these nine-to-five, employed professions offer the same level of happiness creating something of your own brings. It's not about that certain professions are bad, that certain products are bad, that certain companies are bad. They can be great. But if they do not tell *your story* , but someone else's, then it will never spark as much joy in your heart than something that *you have created from scratch* , your interpretation of how to make an impact in the world, your personal ways of how to help people.
Some of your reviews are just your experiences and not a general idea functioning. The individual journey and experiences are always unique and once we set the road for our dream we must not include pessimism and doubts and only data collection and not a final conclusion to any action. I I believe every sincere action has a reward and summing up the entre field to not worth if not a startup or from scratch is basically saying not to work at a manufacturing facility that will succeed in product success but the employee wont get a share. Its business at the end of the day. If we start thinking of this at a broader spectrum them we as entrepreneurs have to share our financial product success with each and every contributor. Employee and business partnership are 2 different things.
Actually where I work right now we do have a lot of input into the product. However, this is a double edged sword because it feels like I have to carry more of the weight of what a product manager should be doing. Also, they don’t shell out at all for research so I kind of have to become my user and do 2 peoples job in tandem.
Interesting and valid points if you really want be an entrepreneur instead of a UX designer. I actually worked 2 years at a startup in the web3 space with not a lot of references and my experience was a lot different. For one, the design lead didn't seem to like the idea of having any kind of design system and always expected something different and innovative for each user flow, which in a fast paced environment only leads to burn out or complete paralyisis. Upper management came up with products ideas every week and expected the same time for creating the MVPs from scratch. I also think my direct boss expected me to get hands on on the product roadmap and do his PM work. Each project was like working for a different company, sometimes the color palette was consistent, but everything else changed, the whole branding changed almost every couple of months (logo, look and feel, typography, illustration styles, etc), which, without a design system became so much work I wanted to cry. I think working in that chaos was a nightmare for me, but to each their own. I also think bootstrapping products it's a whole different ball game and its fair to go for the big bucks as well. I also got fired at the end, and I'm still evaluating if I'm just a bad UX designer or this field is just to hard for me.
Hey thanks for such a thoughtful comment - I think it’s this kind of detail that will help people. Yeah it sounds like your job was on the opposite end of the spectrum: you had a lot of freedom and opportunity to shape the product, but there was not enough time / it was too chaotic to execute. Have you been able to find a balance somewhere else?
Then again after a couple of years, I think design systems are a solved problem that companies had. Nowadays, it's so easy and quick to generate an entire component library I'd really focus on the design thinking and innovation aspect as well.. and as figma just announced, in the future design systems might be a 1-prompt thing. I think UX will become more important, while UI will slowly fade into an almost common skill.
During my time in university / doing my BA in interaction design I got the mindset that you are going to be super-creative and all that sweet stuff. However during my time as a professional UX designer this mindset shifted more in favor of being efficient and secure. It seems that reusing certain design pattern absolutely makes sense for building a universal "language" and not reinvent the wheel over again. So it's better not to be "creative" but rather pragmatic and analytic and then steal somebody's design from somewhere on the internet. It's really not as creative as I imagined it once (which is not too important to me anymore).
Some are lucky, but I have tried many times to make the UX a bit more interesting, with good explanation and research. I always get told back to do it more like (almost exactly) to what we already had.
I am now working in one of the largest companies in the world, and slowly realizing UX isn’t all that prioritized in faang companies. one of the toughest parts for me is being the sole designer in the entire team. UX is stressful as heck.
Very Good Video! You're correct that UX is saturated with well worn patterns so much that its boring now. The real exciting UX stuff will be in the new fields that the new technologies are opening up. However, to work in this emerging media will require animation skill, programming skill, etc which UX people typically don't have. Going forward, I can see a need to create new tools that will enable the next evolution of UX people to work in these new spaces. There could be a lot of value in that.
You make good points. I recently launched an app, and I realized there’s a lot of graphic design that can be automated with AI now. Still, it was time consuming to find the right styles and I also wanted some simple animations to bring it more to life. My point is - once you’ve built the application logic - there’s still a ton to do in terms of styling, landing page, graphics. I want to make a pay-per-use web app that automated this with Dalle or some other API. Let me know if you want to talk more and potential totally collab :D Get in contact via traviskassab.com
Absolutely agree with all your points. I don’t usually comment on videos, but this was brilliant. Good luck with your tech entrepreneurship journey! Will you be documenting that on this channel?
I remember a time when there were only marketing/product managers and graphic designers (mostly page layout, branding and product packaging design) and we got paid and treated fairly, most of the time. Now there's a million of these [sigh] acronymed creative jobs. I saw a job wanted ad by an employer asking for a graphic designer that also knows UI (and UX! - those are different things) design, Video editing, Social Media marketing analytics, After Effects, Blender and 3D modeling - oh, and asking for CAD experience, too! - all for a salary of 45,000/yr and basic benefits!?!?! F that company! [Putting a voodoo hex on them] Any new designer out of school should run from a company like that. Get owed what you're worth and don't take on additional skill set requirements unless you're well compensated for it.
Yeah same, but it always felt slightly out of reach. I think a lot of UX’ers are in the same boat. Sometimes you gotta stop and think, “why did I think UX was cool in the first place”? Good news, it’s never been easier to learn dev skills with AI copilots and all.
yeah its an interesting time. Im diving into flutterflow as its a great mix of design first development but allows deeper dev development with API's and logic etc but I do wonder how long we have before everyone can just make custom apps with voice commands@@traviskassab220
Ooh good point, haha “voice-to-app”. The thought at first intimidates me as someone who has spent so much time going the “long route” with UX career etc It’s true we may be learning things now that are automated in a couple years! Do you think your experimentation now will inform what you do with voice command tech?
It's a shame, I'd think companies would be leaning on experienced ux designers to get to the final polished products faster that are more user friendly. It almost sounds like a lot of the companies were just bringing on designers as a false "need" due to the latest/hottest trend a while back.
Everything you said in the video I agree with. My main problems are: No real say in the company. Product owner and features are mainly decided by product owner or higher ups. Doesn't allow us to be creative because it costs too much money to develop. Never come up with something new, always copy competitors. No chance to get rewarded for doing great work. No way of tracking or knowing if you done have a great job. Always do the minimum option because actually solving a bigger problem is too much effort. You design as they develop. So coming up with solutions on the spot. Never want to do bigger redesigns. It's too much risks.
Epic list @razzy9896 ! You bring up a good point about how you can never do big redesigns. So you can never get to root of problem. Then you get stuck doing ineffective patchwork. Design isn’t a silver bullet, especially if you can’t actually revert the product back to zero.
It's definitely an ongoing concern. I've done so much design that was truly gratifying, but also worked in a lot of horrible conditions. Ultimately, building someone else's dream is becoming less and less appealing.
This is pretty much the same in the game UX space. Game UX designers are not the ones coming up with new systems or make the game more fun, you're there to make sure the player can easily get from point a to point b. In mobile game space, that's even less likely to happen, because you're more likely to work on when and where pop-ups would appear and prompt the player to watch an ad, or pay premium currency. I'd say at least 70% of your time is focused on monetization related stuff for UX in mobile games.
Yeah I could see that for ultra-casual mobile games, and the up-selling techniques. Thanks for leaving a comment and providing detail, I think people will your commend interesting given your niche category
I am currently learning ux , one of my friend working in a company where she suggest me to give an interview , sadly only thing they care about more and more attractive design rather than actually working on the UX
Hi, I am really confused what should I pursue as my career, SWE or UX Designer. How do I decide? I am in my fourth year and will be starting as SWE at Ford. But in the last few months, UI/UX has really peaked my interest
Very insightful. I'm currently a graphic designer and it's kind of the same experience of carrying out the demands of upper management. I've been poking into the world of UX Design and learning no code tools like Framer. in my free time and I plan to use it for my clients in future. Does this mean a UX Career is still kind of a dead end? I was thinking of transitioning into UX in a couple of years
Hey thanks for this! Hmm well it depends what your end goal is. On one hand, I can see the argument for graphic design + UX, if you’re trying to differentiate yourself as a freelancer. Having said that, whether you’re a freelancer or are employed, you will still take requirements from someone else, which often ends up being dysfunctional. If you do decide on UX, I’d become an expert in an emerging field like Web3, robotics, biotechnology, etc. This way, you can work for startups that are doing new/cool stuff. And you can become an expert at the same time you learn UX. Focus your learning and portfolio on the products in the emerging field of your choice. If you want a list of emerging fields, and want to see some possible startups you could work at, checkout uxstartupjobs.com
i did the googe course. But after finishing i didnt feel like i knew enough. eventually i realized what the reality of ux design really is. It involves customer service skills and being the center of attention and explaining things to others. Thats not my forte.
I love UX Design - the research part for me I think is boring as F lol; so don't surprise me seeing a lot of people quiting - I personally more focused on UI and I love it. My reccomendation for new folks breaking into the field is, go to whatever feels interesting to you and if becomes boring, change it. UX is such a large filed, I am sure there is somehting for you.
Greetings Travis, Is there anywhere you tell us about what training/certification route you took to get into UX? (I'm looking at boot camps but would love to know if there are any better options to position myself optimally).
thats awesome you mentioned some good notes, and tech entrepreneur is really what made me think of getting into ux to advance later into tech entrepreneur, but your point 2 which you mentioned that you cant really contribute to product roadmap or strategy i guess thats wrong because you can do that if you moved into more advanced levels of ur career as a product design, and generally i see that ux is very good gate to get to tech entrepreneur.
Hey thanks! Agreed, it’s possible in some scenarios. The smaller the company and the smaller the product, the easier it will be to influence the roadmap. At a startup, a mid-level UX designer might be able to influence roadmap, especially if they understand the tech. However, I worked for one of the largest Banks in the world and one of the largest OEMs in the world. Even the Managing Directors there had their hands tied with bureaucracy and top-down initiatives. Not a fun place to work as a creative technologist! Curious, What kind of products are you building?!
Yes good point. I wanted to call it out here because unlike other professions, building products is high-leverage. I wanted to point out that you could be on top of something quite valuable
I think you had a bad experience in a big company or strick team. In many companies you can have input in more areas. and things are not divided so strictly.
I’m currently in a graphic arts school program that works like a trade school during junior and senior year of highschool. We use Adobe software, mostly photoshop, indesign, etc. I find a lot of interest in this career and want to go to college for it, to get father in this. I don’t want to have a tough time getting in just with a certificate, I plan on going in college for my bachelors in User Experience for Ux Design. Will be getting my bachelors as well as having Highschool time in this kinda industry get me farther and solidify a job for me compared to just getting a certificate? Is getting a bachelors in User Experience perfect for this? Thank you for the video, it was super informative!
Hey Elise thanks for the comment. This isn’t my area of expertise. I have neither a degree or certificate in UX, so I don’t know how they affect things. I will say that even if you get a Bachelors, still try to build your portfolio as much as possible. Go find developers and other designers and build some side projects with them. Also, think about what kind of software interests you. Do you like B2C mobile apps? B2B web apps? And what industry most interests you
@@traviskassab220 hello Travis your video was really insightful! What I wanted to ask is, if a UX designer working in tech companies.. as you said doesn't have control on new ideas and creativity..The company already has a product in their mind and we as a designer help them research different strategies and solve problems for their product.. so is it like we we work in such companies we will only be focusing on B2B apps or products and not B2C?
Solopreneurship for now. I started learning to code several months ago. It’s a fast ramp up with ChatGPT. The idea is to get good enough to build an MVP. As users start to adopt it, I’d decide if it’s worth putting money into professional development. Right now focused on AI powered research tools.
@@traviskassab220 I enjoyed watching your video. Did you ever consider pairing other with another technical or business person to start something? You can look into something like YC startup school that has co-founder matching and people always looking for someone to start something with them.
Agreed. I did it 4 years and if you're creative, you get bored very quickly. The other UX researchers I worked with were amongst the most non-creative people I've met. You're basically there to state facts through findings. Your point of view is irrelevant.
So....am....about to get my BA in UX since my associates in graphic design collapse right when the pandemic hit, most of those jobs move 99% to india and i been struggling so hard. Without ux i be lost in life No " going big tec is the worst idea" right now hell amazon layoff even remote customer service people so yea what now, this why gen z are lost in life cause Xs and those in there mid 30s and 40s are jumping ship saying no future for you.
I listened to all the video and I happy that you decided to share your thoughts with us but, the point where you say that with a ux job and salary you can't reach fuck you money isn't right imo. You can reach that point with almost any job, it only depends on how you are used to live and on how frugal you are. Don't want to hate, love you, just i thinks it's not right to assume this Thanks and see ya! :)
I am kind of a product designer doing all phases of ux including the visuals and even branding and in 95% of project I am the only designer in a team. Am I living your dream than? :)))
creative and dev agency with up to 10 people all together. multiple projects at the same time and max two teams. we all have multiple roles. It sounds exhausting, and it is. but also rewarding. there is no middle ground I guess. @@traviskassab220
Yeah I see what you’re saying. Perhaps “creative fulfillment” is a better North Star. It’s personal to each designer. For some reason, I have an artisanal chair maker in mind. Chairs have been built before, so it’s not “truly new”; however, the chair maker has more degrees of freedom than something more commercial.
IMO freelancing won’t solve your problems. Your freelance clients are the same as a boss, passing you requirements. Having said that, freelance gives you the freedom to seek out the best clients. If I were you, I would seek out early-stage startups in emerging fields. Here you’ll have the most creative control, and may get to work on never-before-seen use-cases
I'm curious about entering the field...but I have one genuine question & fear that ux has no bright future: Why is ux paid so much? Don't take me wrong, I love the idea of laid back work that mostly requires soft skills (the hard skills included in it aren't that hard) & mostly follows established & proven patterns. Imo, the coders do 90% of the heavy lifting, yet their salaries match the ux salaries (I'm not a coder, btw). Couldn't coders easily launch/prepare few versions of the app & just test which works the best? I have some hunch that the management will soon figure this out & drop the ux salaries. I'm not rooting for this, please objectively explain what justifies these salaries?
Hey great question! Why is UX paid so much? In most cases, to build products with good UX, which is essential, you need ppl thinking deeply about the user flows (I.e. the ordering of screens), information architecture (I.e. overall layout of app), and maintaining styling consistency (I.e. professional looking app that is scalable). I’m not saying devs can’t do this, but devs don’t generally do this. In my experience they’re afraid to touch Figma and don’t spend the time to think through the things listed above. UX’ers, on the other hand, are drawn to these types of problems. I think there is a switching cost between working on coding problems and working on UX problems, so division of labor makes sense a lot of the time. They engage different parts of the brain. I do think this is beginning to change with AI. We already have text-to-code AI (just ask ChatGPT to code you something), and we will soon have, in next several years, text-to-UI AI. So the entire product building pipeline (idea -> design -> code) will get at least partially automated, affecting both designers and devs. Fast forward 10 years, I think there will be more UX Engineers. Someone who can code and ship a product, and who can also design it from scratch. So the line between dev and design will fade, and we might just call everyone “product builders”. Here’s a vid I made on this exact subject ruclips.net/video/Gix5PMMGyOg/видео.html What does this mean for you? Well this is just my opinion, but I’d say UX is still fine to get into. Just be aware of the coming changes. You may not like to code, that’s one reason that pushes you into the UX route, but the DevEx is going to change massively with tools like Replit and AI. It’s as easy as typing out a new feature in natural language and an AI spits out the code. Stay on top of these changes, learn a some code here and there. And consider yourself a “product builder” rather than just a designer. I think this will put you in a good place for the changes that are coming!
I am about to transition from brand design to UX/UI.. already been practicing web design with out coding on google sites and my Shopify store… this response here is really helpful
Dude, not a misconception its call assumptions that were incorrect. the only person who told you research is to come ups with new products to design and build is yourself.
Stay the course 🫡 … UX is still a great place to be. Come back to this video if your job satisfaction ever wanes, and you can’t seem to put a finger on why
@@traviskassab220 I gotchu, one main thing I haven’t completed my program is just me being lazy and not working on my case studies. I have to build real client projects
@cannotwest it all has to do with where you are and what you want. I don’t think UX is “garbage”. It became personally frustrating to me, so the video was me pinpointing my frustrations after 7 years in the field. UX might still be the right place to start. Or stay for your entire career! Again depends what you want. I’d probably do it again, with three stipulations: - don’t work for large, corporate design teams - instead, hold out for a job at a well-run startup where you’re forced to learn a broad range of things from various skills to the technological field the startup is in - consider yourself a “builder”, not a “UXer” ^ that last one is crucial… basically start to pivot out of the field the moment you get into it. UX is a great way to get your “foot” into tech. I just wouldn’t define myself by it for 7 years. Maybe 2-3 years… and the whole time I’m picking up coding skills. So by the end, you can pivot into a builder role that can do research, design and code. Again ^ that’s just me. A lot of people won’t want to do that. They’ll prefer to specialize in UX, make great money, and not go through the stress of startups
Where you want to go? Bevery Hills? Yeah no luck with making big money in UX. It was a hype and will now turn back into a 50k job because you don't need a lot of education for it.
I have been in the design industry for 14 years now and a UX designer for 7 as well. I have to disagree on the point that UX has no influence on the roadmap of products. Pushing for a seat at the table of decision makers when it comes to building roadmaps of products is part of our job. How do you actually provide value with your research insights when you're telling me that your insights have no influence on the roadmap? If we are working in agile, which most of us are, research insights will be steering the objectives. I don't know where you have worked for 7 years but it seems the career has failed you. Also, from my opinion, you are misinterpreting business decisions with your example. You took the example of iphones / iOS exploring solutions between 0 - 1 and toned down creativity afterwards. My question for you is, why would you break something that is working? the business model has worked wonders for apple so far, why change it? It does not mean apple gave up on creativity. Take a look at the new Vision Pro and tell me that they aren't exploring creativity there.
Hey thanks for the critique! I agree, pushing for a seat at the table is part of the job. It just never happened for me. I agree, my career did fail me, or I failed my career 😄 I’m not sure how much it was one or the other. Although I believe it’s somewhere in the middle as I remember times where I failed and where I was failed. I’m aware that I’m generalizing and can only speak to my experience and perspective. That’s why I appreciate your comment. As to your last point about iPhone, I think we agree here as well. Apple Vision Pro is new and creative, and the iPhone is not. That was my whole point. I wasn’t implying that they should change anything. It’s working for them, no reason to change - it would just hurt UX. I was simply making the observation that the maturity of the product you’re working on affects your experience as a designer This video does a better job at explaining my thoughts here: ruclips.net/video/grUcxlSrwVg/видео.html
It is what it is right? It helped me to understand the reality of a UX job, then once I did I no longer complained about my job. It just became a decision: to stay or go
I think you’re using it all wrong…if you’re creative enough any research will make you come up with ideas. And have your own side project to build with select people not only a job
That’s great! I’m glad you got clarity either way. UX salaries are really strong. And, if we’re being honest, the job is usually laid back and doesn’t require 8 hours per day. So, if you divide salary by actual hours worked, you’re earning a much higher hourly rate than you might realize.
At this point I just want work life balance and a well paid remote position. No ego
Same. Fuck.
did u find anything?
how is it going?
@@sontax6264 taking a bootcamp currently
@@Rutawebs taking an immersive ux bootcamp
I feel like no one talks about this, they just glamorize ux. I personally hate my ux job, and maybe its just the company, but it makes me reconsider as a whole. It really just feels like im a glorified graphic designer expected to just do whatever upper management wants.
Where do you want to go in the future?
@@traviskassab220i have no idea. all i know is my passion for ux is now non existent and I truly dont know where to go from here 😅 looking into front end development but thatll take a while to get into and im not crazy about the idea but it would give me an edge with my ux background
I haven't gotten into the field myself yet but advice that I've gotten is knowing your role and making sure your employer knows your role and what they hired you for to prevent the friction your feeling. like i said not a designer myself yet but hope that helped!
Re: “Frontend Dev” Cool, I’m 4 months down a similar path!
It might go faster than you think. My advice would be to pick something you’re interested in building for yourself… perhaps your design portfolio.
And use ChatGPT as a code assistant liberally. It’s blown me away how effective it is and how you can get started without knowing much code.
Honestly, the hardest part is setting up your dev environment for the first time.
Best luck and reach out if you need any help: kassab.travis@gmail.com
@Ejahmix, thanks for your input. for sure, having the right expectations is key!
Man sorry to hear about your experience, I switched into UX back in 2021 and I've had a completely different experience. In my experience I've been able to significantly impact roadmaps by just being vocal about UXD observations. I've also been able to get my own ideas into roadmaps by literally just presenting ideas to Key stakeholders. If anyone is thinking about UXD I'd like to chyme in to say UXD is what you make it to be.
I’m a physical therapist that has been trying to get into UX for the past year. Even with your reasons for quitting, I think it’s a good decision for me simply based on the pros you listed out in the beginning. Appreciate you sharing!
That’s great, I’m happy you got clarity either way! UX is a great tech job, I think you’ll find the remote work and hours worked to be pleasant, compared to something like physical therapy!
Same! I'm a Massage Therapist and all the pros he stated initially were good enough for me to want to go into UX Design.
I’ve been following your journey!
Keep your physical therapy contacts. Sitting all day as a designer, immobile behind a monitor (or 3) will do a number on your body especially as you get older. I'm actually the reverse of you, hoping to get more active career and spending less time behind a screen as I'm getting older. I can't tell you how many designers I know with bad backs, eyes, posture, added weight since college. Just keep that in mind and please stay active.
This would be the dumbest decision ever....lmao
Everything you mentioned is exactly why i want to join: for the guidance and safety net while learning the ropes. Then once I've been immersed in UX for a few years, got the mentorship/experience i can definitely see myself pursuing my own business whether on the side or full time. Thank you! This confirms that UX is good for people looking to learn about the heart of the business i.e. what makes a good product and product experience.
That's awesome! Very happy to have provided you clarity
I understand ur point of view perfectly but i believe ur reasons for quitting rather stems more from a sense of unmet expectations & the fear of spiralling into a midlife crisis. Personally, my expectations for the UX industry is exactly as u described. Am just entering my 40s with 20years experience in the field of product design and i can practically relate to the path of fulfilment u are embarking on. As u pursue this cause i'd be mindful of raising any further expectations of chasing novel projects. Most of these ideas also come with their challenges of launching or dying out a few years upon arrival. Even when they manage to succeed they gradually transform into the very conventional space u wished to escape.
Hopefully it works out well for u.
I'm glad you got to this point. You sound like an entrepreneur at heart who came to UX wanting to have control of making new products from the ground up. The same sentiments exist within people in all sorts of careers.
Thank you for sharing your experience!
Feels like I'm on right path after watching your comment!
thanks so much for your perspective. i'm glad i didn't have any particular expectations going into UX, except for work-life balance, a better salary than my last job, and a higher chance for working remote. Every limitation you described is perfect for me as someone who thrives with rules and expectations in place.
I feel the same thing: pursuing entrepreneurship. I am a software dev, not an UX designer, but 99% of the things you just said apply to me as well.
Interesting… I thought this might apply to everyone in a corporate product team, including dev and PM
I have been working as a UX designer for more than 3 years. I can feel you! Especially when I worked in a country and a company where they know nothing about UX and don't care about what UX exactly can do. When they need some ideas, they hope you can develop some disruptive designs that can totally change the industry. when we have done some research and show them up, they just say something like umm but the boss wants to do that feature...What's worse, when the company has financial difficulties, they layoff you first.
Yes research is “theatrics” at most of the places I’ve experienced or have heard of from colleagues.
Some people leaving comments have had good experiences. They seem to all be at startups, and chose the startup they work for carefully
I started my UX career in 2023 :) So far, I'm loving it because I work in a startup and I have the opportunity to work on a new product idea from scratch. But at the same time I'm also an entrepreneur and I'm building my own products.
Very nice, it sounds like you have the best of both worlds.
What type of products are you building?
Did you do a bootcamp?
All very true points you brought up here. As a UX designer of 13 years, 10 of those years were spent in startups. It's true that at many companies UX may not have as much impact on the roadmap as you'd like... but that is not true for all organizations. Ones that value design in the right ways will give design the respet and influence it deserves.
There are many benefits to working in startups as you can learn a lot, as you mentioned, and work on cutting edge ideas. The down side is the large risk what you build won't work out and you'll likely be taking a pay cut for that opportunity to make F-U money. Now getting into my late 30s, I took that risk and unfortunately saw little reward. Now I'm at a top tech company that values design and doing great work and am well paid for my experince, which also was built at startups.
A lot of it boils down to your own tolerance for risk vs. reward along with what aligns with your goals and passion.
Thanks for the thoughtful response, it’s great to hear your deep experience and that there’s a fallback if the startup route doesn’t work.
It’s also rare to hear from someone who has 10+ years of experience. I imagine you’re approaching Director level, if not already there.
What would your advice be to people considering or just starting out in UX?
I’m currently a case manager looking to get into UX/Ui design. Even with the videos I’ve watched recently saying why they don’t like it I think it’ll be a good fit for me cause it’ll allow me to have some form of creative expression in my work. I’ve always loved art and the arts in general so I’m excited to start learning UX/Ui
Thanks for the very insightful content. You have a valid point. Even from a UX design standpoint, many web and mobile interfaces tend to resemble each other. I suppose there's little to no room left for innovation, even with all those brainstorming workshops. It seems that due to constraints such as tight deadlines and budgets, UX designers often feel compelled to opt for safer options or benchmark from established sources, rather than coming up with potentially superior but riskier innovative solutions.
Hey thanks for this - it’s really interesting to hear you agree on this point. UX is “sold” as methods and processes for innovating but they always seemed to fall short IMO
Hi, thanks for sharing your view. From UX research standpoint, I see why most of the designs or user flow across similar apps are almost identical. The checkout process, for example, has to be similar because we use soooo many apps in a day and if for each of the apps the flow were dissimilar, it would put huge cognitive load. But that’s not to say there’s no room for innovation. Apple’s double pinch feature in AW is truly an innovation in accessibility.
i've also been in design fro the past 6yrs. I started as a visual design intern and given the opportunity to branch into UX. I've had many managers but the last one just ended that life-span for me. Lacked so much empathy and saw me as a lost cause. Finally made the decision to leave after that toxic work enviroment, but decided to move on from UX after they drained my juices out.
Thanks for the insight. You provide a lot of good points in this video. Good luck on your journey.
I'm just starting to learn UX Design, but it's highly likely that I'll end up switching to tech entrepreneurship like you have. For me, learning UX Design, despite everything you've said, is useful to find a minimally creative career which is well-paid (and luckily, remote) and allows me to build the life I want while having a 9-5 and get the knowledge to design user-friendly apps and websites, so I can be as creative as I want and design my own products in my spare time to either sell them later or look for people to build them.
I appreciate you discussing this because it's true. Coming up with new products, establishing roadmaps or getting complete ownership and credit for projects just doesn't happen. That said, I think most professionals that have been doing this for many years understand the reasons behind this. Believing otherwise is a bit naive considering how big these companies are. It's simply part of the job like any other. Quitting makes sense if this isn't what you want but I think designers should be well aware of these pain points before going into this direction. I'm ok with scratching at the surface of a product or service if it means my salary is comfortable.
Hi Travis, im so sorry you had to go through these experiences as there are companies that actually do what you are seeking. Luckily I was able to do new products at start ups, new products that don't exist and actually use generative research but it all depends on the company unfortunately. Luckily I am working in game design, AR, MR and VR - with UX with 'narrative'. Thats why you're supposed to interview the company very well to avoid being in a pitfall.
Thanks for sharing your experience - I figured it would be more likely to exist in startups.
Want to share a little bit more what you’re doing in the startup world so others can see? Thanks!
@@traviskassab220 I'm a freelancing over 7 years now but I experienced what you experienced in my perm roles. I currently work in UX/Service design but focus on 'player experience'. I work for a famous Football institution focusing on their play experience for football coaches and young players Under 16's. its not a common product, so able to develop new ideas and do research. Also worked on the first digital medical in the UK for anxiety for young people, again was a mix of games design, therapy for kids - all new, nothing like that has been designed before and was in a start up. Recently worked with VFX agencies who work for Marvel and working on their AR storytelling app and apple watch, then another for NBA sports for Mixed reality glasses, then stuff for meta quest 3 which hasnt been released yet for their MR mode. If its new tech, you get to design new things and generate ideas - which doesnt happen in the other more known fields like finance. ive been lucky to be able to do design sprints, or even just months of ethnographic research for a market supermarket change to find £12 million in savings. i think why i have a massive range is because i pick my jobs wisely, I even decline if its a boring project- ive already done those already and it doesnt add to my experience of skills.
Agreed with you. All the points he mentioned dont apply to all cases and it depends on what type of company you're working.
That’s epic! Thanks for all the detail as well. How do you find these jobs in startups?
I ask because I’m building uxstartupjobs.com, I want to help place designers in similarly fulfilling roles to what you’ve experienced
How do you find such jobs?
Great video! Some key points were highlighted that I hadn't heard anyone else discuss. Thank you!
The roadmap one is so true. Management can say they're open to ideas all they want but at the end of the day, they set the vision, they set the requirements, they only push instructions downward through the org. There is no real time & place that allows conversation to happen from down to up, or even meet halfway. They too are constrained by parent companies, budgets, and company culture when it comes to flexibility and testing. More often than not, innovation is not something that will be the focus until it becomes a problem.
I guess I was lucky to be one of the first UX designers and got to work on the cutting edge, gaining several patents through my UX design concepts.
TOTALLY agree... I kinda hate being a ux designer at my company, too. I feel like I'm more just a design slave "go do this button, go design this line and add a word" like WTF so boring. I thought I would have more control, too. It's wayyyy too glamorized and it's quite boring to me. I want to transition into something that allows me to make decisions, like product management or something.
I would love to transition into tech entrepreneurship as well.... have no idea where to start -- would love your insight!
thanks for posting your perspective!
You said "control" which I think is key. I think a lot of designers feel like they're just 'builders', and that they don't have any control over the product vision.
Checkout my post below... you'll probably be most interested in "what should I do about it", which is part 3 and is scheduled to post next week: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:linkedInArticle:7129858764261773313/
I think you have to be careful becoming a product manager. I've known plenty of PM's who were just people managers. I worked with VPs at large companies who couldn't control the product vision. This taught me the lesson that position and job title don't necessarily get you the 'control' you want.
Entrepreneurship is tricky also, isn't it? A couple lines of thought would be:
1. Are there products you keep telling yourself you wish you had? You might try building it.
2. Are there stories you really want to tell others? Inform others or entertain others? You might try creating content about it.
If entrepreneurship is too great of a leap right now, but you still expect more from your design career, then I recommend you... get a job at a VC-funded startup.
Why VC-funded? Because they've received millions to billions of dollars in funding. So they won't disappear overnight. They can pay you a good salary as well. Almost all I've seen have been $100k+
Why startup? The reason you don't have control in your current role is because the company you work for is too hierarchal. The product vision gets handed down to you from above, and you're just there to build it out.
You need to go somewhere that is flat in structure, and has a culture for taking risks and encourages self-directed work (i.e. come up with your own projects and go do it). A startup is the best place, in my mind, to do this.
Add to this, that a startup is building at the cutting-edge of technology, which I think makes everything more interesting.
If you're interested in design jobs at VC-funded startups, then checkout: uxstartupjobs.com
These are just my opinions. Of course there pro's and con's to any path you take. Hope this helps!
Definitely need more such insightful content, thanks for sharing.
I feel this in my soul. Don’t get me wrong, I have made some great progress in ux with my 10 years in field. love that I have been more open to other product based roles.
Thank you for sharing this part of the UX experience
I think that's the reason why I've got so anxious about my job and my role as a whole... I'm thinking about quitting UX too. I'm still in the process of taking courage to do that, and figuring things out.. I've always thought that I could build products from the ground up being a UX Designer, but what have I got? A bunck of UI elements to put into a screen. I can't even create new elements without asking the Design System team. Maybe I offer my services as a consultant for small companies, but I don't think they will pay me instead of hiring someone..
Well, thank you for sharing your thoughts.. Wish you success on your business.. :)
Hey Daniel I feel this thanks for leaving a comment.
I’d first say not all jobs and companies are created equal.
It sounds like the design team you’re on now is large if there’s a dedicated design system team.
I’d encourage you to checkout design jobs at VC funded startups. Checkout uxstartupjobs.com for these real-time opportunities
This should get you onto leaner more agile teams.
With regards to product entrepreneurship, it’s a big leap. Here are my thoughts.
Set aside at least a year, especially if you don’t have concrete ideas, or a concrete team, before quitting. That’s a year of cash runway.
The corporate UX jobs will always be there if things don’t workout.
And the projects you pursue on your “year off”, or the things you learn, will differentiate you as a designer.
In your time off you can also think deeper about the type of products you won’t to work on and industries that interest you.
Reach out if you want to chat more - cheers!
Foundational research falls within the UXR domain, this leads to Generative research (concept testing) and then Evaluative research.
Thank you for making this video!!
Is it bad I don't have a deep issue with any of that?
I just feel it's a job, and I like what I do compared to many other things I could be doing. Personally I just want to bring value and stay relevant up until retirement.
nope its not bad. if that what helps you float your boat then why not :) to each their own!
I subscribed to see how it'll going for you. I wish you best of luck!
I’m flattered, and yes, that’s the purpose of this channel.
To see what’s in the other side and report back 🫡
Thank you for sharing your valuable insights. You've raised some intriguing points regarding the recycling of design in technology. It's indeed fascinating to consider how, during the period when design patterns were rapidly evolving in computer and phone operating systems, the landscape was ripe with innovation. However, from a current consumer perspective, this pace seems to have plateaued. As a result, the experience now often feels like a repetitive cycle, lacking the novelty and excitement that once accompanied these technological advancements.
Thank you for your view. I am looking to transition into the field of software development. I come from mechanical engineering, and experienced most of what you described.
And I did consider UX. Now I see how the field is still interesting, but maybe more in a startup setting 👍
I hope that it will be easier to go through the entrepreneurial way in software development than in mechanical engineering (developing physical products is expensive 🙊)
Ah cool from the physical to the digital world.
I guess the constant for you is that you like building products.
Any industries or types of software that interest you most?
I feel you. ❤ I myself am a business owner, the host of my own podcast 'Goddess of Technology' and additionally, an Enterprise Customer Success Manager (CSM) employed in a SaaS company, which I'm doing to fund my business until it's profitable. For entrepreneurial people like yourself and I, entrepreneurship is the only solution, whether it be full-time or part-time. No matter how much freedom and creativity a nine-to-five job as an employee in a company allows, it will never equate to the personal growth and happiness entrepreneurship or creating any other piece of art from scratch brings. ✨ I myself appreciate the pro's that being a CSM presents. Moreover, I'm a hobby front-end engineer who's also interested in UX design. But none of these nine-to-five, employed professions offer the same level of happiness creating something of your own brings. It's not about that certain professions are bad, that certain products are bad, that certain companies are bad. They can be great. But if they do not tell *your story* , but someone else's, then it will never spark as much joy in your heart than something that *you have created from scratch* , your interpretation of how to make an impact in the world, your personal ways of how to help people.
Some of your reviews are just your experiences and not a general idea functioning. The individual journey and experiences are always unique and once we set the road for our dream we must not include pessimism and doubts and only data collection and not a final conclusion to any action. I I believe every sincere action has a reward and summing up the entre field to not worth if not a startup or from scratch is basically saying not to work at a manufacturing facility that will succeed in product success but the employee wont get a share. Its business at the end of the day. If we start thinking of this at a broader spectrum them we as entrepreneurs have to share our financial product success with each and every contributor. Employee and business partnership are 2 different things.
Actually where I work right now we do have a lot of input into the product. However, this is a double edged sword because it feels like I have to carry more of the weight of what a product manager should be doing. Also, they don’t shell out at all for research so I kind of have to become my user and do 2 peoples job in tandem.
Interesting and valid points if you really want be an entrepreneur instead of a UX designer. I actually worked 2 years at a startup in the web3 space with not a lot of references and my experience was a lot different. For one, the design lead didn't seem to like the idea of having any kind of design system and always expected something different and innovative for each user flow, which in a fast paced environment only leads to burn out or complete paralyisis. Upper management came up with products ideas every week and expected the same time for creating the MVPs from scratch. I also think my direct boss expected me to get hands on on the product roadmap and do his PM work. Each project was like working for a different company, sometimes the color palette was consistent, but everything else changed, the whole branding changed almost every couple of months (logo, look and feel, typography, illustration styles, etc), which, without a design system became so much work I wanted to cry. I think working in that chaos was a nightmare for me, but to each their own. I also think bootstrapping products it's a whole different ball game and its fair to go for the big bucks as well. I also got fired at the end, and I'm still evaluating if I'm just a bad UX designer or this field is just to hard for me.
Hey thanks for such a thoughtful comment - I think it’s this kind of detail that will help people.
Yeah it sounds like your job was on the opposite end of the spectrum: you had a lot of freedom and opportunity to shape the product, but there was not enough time / it was too chaotic to execute.
Have you been able to find a balance somewhere else?
Then again after a couple of years, I think design systems are a solved problem that companies had. Nowadays, it's so easy and quick to generate an entire component library I'd really focus on the design thinking and innovation aspect as well.. and as figma just announced, in the future design systems might be a 1-prompt thing. I think UX will become more important, while UI will slowly fade into an almost common skill.
During my time in university / doing my BA in interaction design I got the mindset that you are going to be super-creative and all that sweet stuff. However during my time as a professional UX designer this mindset shifted more in favor of being efficient and secure. It seems that reusing certain design pattern absolutely makes sense for building a universal "language" and not reinvent the wheel over again. So it's better not to be "creative" but rather pragmatic and analytic and then steal somebody's design from somewhere on the internet.
It's really not as creative as I imagined it once (which is not too important to me anymore).
Well said. Thanks for providing this detail to others
Some are lucky, but I have tried many times to make the UX a bit more interesting, with good explanation and research. I always get told back to do it more like (almost exactly) to what we already had.
Thank you because I’ve been looking into this
Hey Travis, great breakdown.
Thank you! I appreciate that
I am now working in one of the largest companies in the world, and slowly realizing UX isn’t all that prioritized in faang companies. one of the toughest parts for me is being the sole designer in the entire team. UX is stressful as heck.
Very Good Video! You're correct that UX is saturated with well worn patterns so much that its boring now. The real exciting UX stuff will be in the new fields that the new technologies are opening up. However, to work in this emerging media will require animation skill, programming skill, etc which UX people typically don't have. Going forward, I can see a need to create new tools that will enable the next evolution of UX people to work in these new spaces. There could be a lot of value in that.
You make good points. I recently launched an app, and I realized there’s a lot of graphic design that can be automated with AI now.
Still, it was time consuming to find the right styles and I also wanted some simple animations to bring it more to life.
My point is - once you’ve built the application logic - there’s still a ton to do in terms of styling, landing page, graphics.
I want to make a pay-per-use web app that automated this with Dalle or some other API.
Let me know if you want to talk more and potential totally collab :D
Get in contact via traviskassab.com
Absolutely agree with all your points. I don’t usually comment on videos, but this was brilliant. Good luck with your tech entrepreneurship journey! Will you be documenting that on this channel?
That means a lot thank you! And yes I’ll be documenting, that’s the exact plan.
@@traviskassab220 Inspiring! Can't wait... earned a sub :)
I remember a time when there were only marketing/product managers and graphic designers (mostly page layout, branding and product packaging design) and we got paid and treated fairly, most of the time. Now there's a million of these [sigh] acronymed creative jobs. I saw a job wanted ad by an employer asking for a graphic designer that also knows UI (and UX! - those are different things) design, Video editing, Social Media marketing analytics, After Effects, Blender and 3D modeling - oh, and asking for CAD experience, too! - all for a salary of 45,000/yr and basic benefits!?!?! F that company! [Putting a voodoo hex on them] Any new designer out of school should run from a company like that. Get owed what you're worth and don't take on additional skill set requirements unless you're well compensated for it.
7 years in UX, got into it to learn how to build my own products. Im feeling this way to much
Yeah same, but it always felt slightly out of reach. I think a lot of UX’ers are in the same boat. Sometimes you gotta stop and think, “why did I think UX was cool in the first place”?
Good news, it’s never been easier to learn dev skills with AI copilots and all.
yeah its an interesting time. Im diving into flutterflow as its a great mix of design first development but allows deeper dev development with API's and logic etc but I do wonder how long we have before everyone can just make custom apps with voice commands@@traviskassab220
Ooh good point, haha “voice-to-app”.
The thought at first intimidates me as someone who has spent so much time going the “long route” with UX career etc
It’s true we may be learning things now that are automated in a couple years!
Do you think your experimentation now will inform what you do with voice command tech?
very well said. Only got hired for flat salary but not for co-ownership.
My theory is that most UX’ers are interested in startups, and/or new product development. What do you think?
It's a shame, I'd think companies would be leaning on experienced ux designers to get to the final polished products faster that are more user friendly. It almost sounds like a lot of the companies were just bringing on designers as a false "need" due to the latest/hottest trend a while back.
Everything you said in the video I agree with. My main problems are:
No real say in the company. Product owner and features are mainly decided by product owner or higher ups.
Doesn't allow us to be creative because it costs too much money to develop.
Never come up with something new, always copy competitors.
No chance to get rewarded for doing great work.
No way of tracking or knowing if you done have a great job.
Always do the minimum option because actually solving a bigger problem is too much effort.
You design as they develop. So coming up with solutions on the spot.
Never want to do bigger redesigns. It's too much risks.
Epic list @razzy9896 !
You bring up a good point about how you can never do big redesigns.
So you can never get to root of problem. Then you get stuck doing ineffective patchwork.
Design isn’t a silver bullet, especially if you can’t actually revert the product back to zero.
It's definitely an ongoing concern. I've done so much design that was truly gratifying, but also worked in a lot of horrible conditions. Ultimately, building someone else's dream is becoming less and less appealing.
Thank you very much!
This is pretty much the same in the game UX space. Game UX designers are not the ones coming up with new systems or make the game more fun, you're there to make sure the player can easily get from point a to point b. In mobile game space, that's even less likely to happen, because you're more likely to work on when and where pop-ups would appear and prompt the player to watch an ad, or pay premium currency. I'd say at least 70% of your time is focused on monetization related stuff for UX in mobile games.
Yeah I could see that for ultra-casual mobile games, and the up-selling techniques.
Thanks for leaving a comment and providing detail, I think people will your commend interesting given your niche category
Nice insight, I love this video man.
Much appreciated - I’m happy you got value from it!
I am currently learning ux , one of my friend working in a company where she suggest me to give an interview , sadly only thing they care about more and more attractive design rather than actually working on the UX
This is awesome!!! Great job
Hi, I am really confused what should I pursue as my career, SWE or UX Designer. How do I decide?
I am in my fourth year and will be starting as SWE at Ford. But in the last few months, UI/UX has really peaked my interest
Very insightful. I'm currently a graphic designer and it's kind of the same experience of carrying out the demands of upper management. I've been poking into the world of UX Design and learning no code tools like Framer. in my free time and I plan to use it for my clients in future.
Does this mean a UX Career is still kind of a dead end? I was thinking of transitioning into UX in a couple of years
Hey thanks for this! Hmm well it depends what your end goal is.
On one hand, I can see the argument for graphic design + UX, if you’re trying to differentiate yourself as a freelancer.
Having said that, whether you’re a freelancer or are employed, you will still take requirements from someone else, which often ends up being dysfunctional.
If you do decide on UX, I’d become an expert in an emerging field like Web3, robotics, biotechnology, etc.
This way, you can work for startups that are doing new/cool stuff.
And you can become an expert at the same time you learn UX. Focus your learning and portfolio on the products in the emerging field of your choice.
If you want a list of emerging fields, and want to see some possible startups you could work at, checkout uxstartupjobs.com
Thanks for taking the time to share this detailed comment. I really appreciate the suggestion here. I will look to develop myself in emerging fields
i did the googe course. But after finishing i didnt feel like i knew enough. eventually i realized what the reality of ux design really is. It involves customer service skills and being the center of attention and explaining things to others. Thats not my forte.
I love UX Design - the research part for me I think is boring as F lol; so don't surprise me seeing a lot of people quiting - I personally more focused on UI and I love it. My reccomendation for new folks breaking into the field is, go to whatever feels interesting to you and if becomes boring, change it. UX is such a large filed, I am sure there is somehting for you.
Oddly enough this video made me want to go into UX
Excellent! It's all about seeking information and either confirming what you want, or pivoting to something else
Greetings Travis, Is there anywhere you tell us about what training/certification route you took to get into UX? (I'm looking at boot camps but would love to know if there are any better options to position myself optimally).
thats awesome you mentioned some good notes, and tech entrepreneur is really what made me think of getting into ux to advance later into tech entrepreneur, but your point 2 which you mentioned that you cant really contribute to product roadmap or strategy i guess thats wrong because you can do that if you moved into more advanced levels of ur career as a product design, and generally i see that ux is very good gate to get to tech entrepreneur.
Hey thanks!
Agreed, it’s possible in some scenarios. The smaller the company and the smaller the product, the easier it will be to influence the roadmap.
At a startup, a mid-level UX designer might be able to influence roadmap, especially if they understand the tech.
However, I worked for one of the largest Banks in the world and one of the largest OEMs in the world. Even the Managing Directors there had their hands tied with bureaucracy and top-down initiatives. Not a fun place to work as a creative technologist!
Curious, What kind of products are you building?!
@@traviskassab220 Iam not building products, I was just learning and getting my way in ux and found your video interesting, nice to meet you, mate.
I think the "Not capture the value you create" point could apply to most forms of standard employment, no?
Yes good point. I wanted to call it out here because unlike other professions, building products is high-leverage. I wanted to point out that you could be on top of something quite valuable
I think you had a bad experience in a big company or strick team. In many companies you can have input in more areas. and things are not divided so strictly.
Very interesting PoV
I’m currently in a graphic arts school program that works like a trade school during junior and senior year of highschool. We use Adobe software, mostly photoshop, indesign, etc. I find a lot of interest in this career and want to go to college for it, to get father in this. I don’t want to have a tough time getting in just with a certificate, I plan on going in college for my bachelors in User Experience for Ux Design. Will be getting my bachelors as well as having Highschool time in this kinda industry get me farther and solidify a job for me compared to just getting a certificate? Is getting a bachelors in User Experience perfect for this? Thank you for the video, it was super informative!
Hey Elise thanks for the comment.
This isn’t my area of expertise. I have neither a degree or certificate in UX, so I don’t know how they affect things.
I will say that even if you get a Bachelors, still try to build your portfolio as much as possible.
Go find developers and other designers and build some side projects with them.
Also, think about what kind of software interests you. Do you like B2C mobile apps? B2B web apps? And what industry most interests you
@@traviskassab220 hello Travis your video was really insightful! What I wanted to ask is, if a UX designer working in tech companies.. as you said doesn't have control on new ideas and creativity..The company already has a product in their mind and we as a designer help them research different strategies and solve problems for their product.. so is it like we we work in such companies we will only be focusing on B2B apps or products and not B2C?
B2B and B2C doesn’t matter so much as these things:
Why UX is ignored & how you gain influence
ruclips.net/video/8QAVGbaTadY/видео.html
what about UX vs. web design?
Hmm I'm not sure I understand the difference between the two. Can you rephrase your question?
What career are you planning on pivoting towards next?
Solopreneurship for now. I started learning to code several months ago. It’s a fast ramp up with ChatGPT.
The idea is to get good enough to build an MVP. As users start to adopt it, I’d decide if it’s worth putting money into professional development. Right now focused on AI powered research tools.
@@traviskassab220 I enjoyed watching your video. Did you ever consider pairing other with another technical or business person to start something? You can look into something like YC startup school that has co-founder matching and people always looking for someone to start something with them.
What’s an MVP?
@@lintonmonanu Minimum Viable Product
@@lintonmonanuminimal viable product
Agreed. I did it 4 years and if you're creative, you get bored very quickly. The other UX researchers I worked with were amongst the most non-creative people I've met. You're basically there to state facts through findings. Your point of view is irrelevant.
So....am....about to get my BA in UX since my associates in graphic design collapse right when the pandemic hit, most of those jobs move 99% to india and i been struggling so hard. Without ux i be lost in life
No " going big tec is the worst idea" right now hell amazon layoff even remote customer service people so yea what now, this why gen z are lost in life cause Xs and those in there mid 30s and 40s are jumping ship saying no future for you.
Nice video. But that plant in front of the door looks like a potential fire hazard. Is it always there? or does it serve a purpose?
Maybe product management for you?
I listened to all the video and I happy that you decided to share your thoughts with us but, the point where you say that with a ux job and salary you can't reach fuck you money isn't right imo. You can reach that point with almost any job, it only depends on how you are used to live and on how frugal you are. Don't want to hate, love you, just i thinks it's not right to assume this
Thanks and see ya! :)
I am kind of a product designer doing all phases of ux including the visuals and even branding and in 95% of project I am the only designer in a team. Am I living your dream than? :)))
Very nice! Can I ask what type of company is it? Is it a small comapny/startup? And what industry?
creative and dev agency with up to 10 people all together. multiple projects at the same time and max two teams. we all have multiple roles. It sounds exhausting, and it is. but also rewarding. there is no middle ground I guess. @@traviskassab220
The vast majority of humanity never has and never will create anything truly new. Best of luck.
Yeah I see what you’re saying.
Perhaps “creative fulfillment” is a better North Star.
It’s personal to each designer. For some reason, I have an artisanal chair maker in mind.
Chairs have been built before, so it’s not “truly new”; however, the chair maker has more degrees of freedom than something more commercial.
Broad, rather pessimist generalization disregarding the nuance of human diversity in thought and skill.
I'm considering Freelancing, thoughts on this ?
IMO freelancing won’t solve your problems. Your freelance clients are the same as a boss, passing you requirements.
Having said that, freelance gives you the freedom to seek out the best clients.
If I were you, I would seek out early-stage startups in emerging fields.
Here you’ll have the most creative control, and may get to work on never-before-seen use-cases
Love it when you said; Fk you money.
honestly, coming from customer service/administration.. these downsides dont sound too bad at all
I'm a Product designer and I do all the things within my role you say you don't get to do. It's not as black and white are you're making it.
Yes, UX is not the same as Product Design or the same as Product Innovation.
I'm curious about entering the field...but I have one genuine question & fear that ux has no bright future:
Why is ux paid so much?
Don't take me wrong, I love the idea of laid back work that mostly requires soft skills (the hard skills included in it aren't that hard) & mostly follows established & proven patterns. Imo, the coders do 90% of the heavy lifting, yet their salaries match the ux salaries (I'm not a coder, btw). Couldn't coders easily launch/prepare few versions of the app & just test which works the best?
I have some hunch that the management will soon figure this out & drop the ux salaries. I'm not rooting for this, please objectively explain what justifies these salaries?
Hey great question!
Why is UX paid so much?
In most cases, to build products with good UX, which is essential, you need ppl thinking deeply about the user flows (I.e. the ordering of screens), information architecture (I.e. overall layout of app), and maintaining styling consistency (I.e. professional looking app that is scalable).
I’m not saying devs can’t do this, but devs don’t generally do this. In my experience they’re afraid to touch Figma and don’t spend the time to think through the things listed above. UX’ers, on the other hand, are drawn to these types of problems.
I think there is a switching cost between working on coding problems and working on UX problems, so division of labor makes sense a lot of the time. They engage different parts of the brain.
I do think this is beginning to change with AI. We already have text-to-code AI (just ask ChatGPT to code you something), and we will soon have, in next several years, text-to-UI AI.
So the entire product building pipeline (idea -> design -> code) will get at least partially automated, affecting both designers and devs.
Fast forward 10 years, I think there will be more UX Engineers. Someone who can code and ship a product, and who can also design it from scratch.
So the line between dev and design will fade, and we might just call everyone “product builders”. Here’s a vid I made on this exact subject
ruclips.net/video/Gix5PMMGyOg/видео.html
What does this mean for you?
Well this is just my opinion, but I’d say UX is still fine to get into. Just be aware of the coming changes.
You may not like to code, that’s one reason that pushes you into the UX route, but the DevEx is going to change massively with tools like Replit and AI.
It’s as easy as typing out a new feature in natural language and an AI spits out the code.
Stay on top of these changes, learn a some code here and there. And consider yourself a “product builder” rather than just a designer. I think this will put you in a good place for the changes that are coming!
@@traviskassab220 Great answer! Thanks, much appreciated!
I am about to transition from brand design to UX/UI.. already been practicing web design with out coding on google sites and my Shopify store… this response here is really helpful
Dude, not a misconception its call assumptions that were incorrect. the only person who told you research is to come ups with new products to design and build is yourself.
You are cute
Damn man I’m still getting into UX, fuck man! 😭😭😭😭
Stay the course 🫡 … UX is still a great place to be. Come back to this video if your job satisfaction ever wanes, and you can’t seem to put a finger on why
@@traviskassab220 I gotchu, one main thing I haven’t completed my program is just me being lazy and not working on my case studies. I have to build real client projects
@@traviskassab220how can you suggest this path to anybody if you personally think it's garbage. 😮
@cannotwest it all has to do with where you are and what you want.
I don’t think UX is “garbage”. It became personally frustrating to me, so the video was me pinpointing my frustrations after 7 years in the field.
UX might still be the right place to start. Or stay for your entire career! Again depends what you want.
I’d probably do it again, with three stipulations:
- don’t work for large, corporate design teams
- instead, hold out for a job at a well-run startup where you’re forced to learn a broad range of things from various skills to the technological field the startup is in
- consider yourself a “builder”, not a “UXer”
^ that last one is crucial… basically start to pivot out of the field the moment you get into it.
UX is a great way to get your “foot” into tech. I just wouldn’t define myself by it for 7 years. Maybe 2-3 years… and the whole time I’m picking up coding skills.
So by the end, you can pivot into a builder role that can do research, design and code.
Again ^ that’s just me. A lot of people won’t want to do that. They’ll prefer to specialize in UX, make great money, and not go through the stress of startups
ya I think this is the correct mindset nowadays. @@traviskassab220
Where you want to go? Bevery Hills? Yeah no luck with making big money in UX. It was a hype and will now turn back into a 50k job because you don't need a lot of education for it.
This guys got insulted why the CEO makes decisions instead of him 😄
He’s hot
The ux researcher is basicly an information gathering assistent to the ux designer/product designer.
That would be great if they used the information I gathered! 😉
Maybe I’m just bad at my job, as some other commenters have speculated 😎
Everything you've mentioned -> will get replaced by AI soon
I guess I wouldn't have quit it if I were you.
I have been in the design industry for 14 years now and a UX designer for 7 as well. I have to disagree on the point that UX has no influence on the roadmap of products. Pushing for a seat at the table of decision makers when it comes to building roadmaps of products is part of our job.
How do you actually provide value with your research insights when you're telling me that your insights have no influence on the roadmap? If we are working in agile, which most of us are, research insights will be steering the objectives. I don't know where you have worked for 7 years but it seems the career has failed you.
Also, from my opinion, you are misinterpreting business decisions with your example. You took the example of iphones / iOS exploring solutions between 0 - 1 and toned down creativity afterwards. My question for you is, why would you break something that is working? the business model has worked wonders for apple so far, why change it? It does not mean apple gave up on creativity. Take a look at the new Vision Pro and tell me that they aren't exploring creativity there.
Hey thanks for the critique!
I agree, pushing for a seat at the table is part of the job. It just never happened for me.
I agree, my career did fail me, or I failed my career 😄 I’m not sure how much it was one or the other. Although I believe it’s somewhere in the middle as I remember times where I failed and where I was failed.
I’m aware that I’m generalizing and can only speak to my experience and perspective. That’s why I appreciate your comment.
As to your last point about iPhone, I think we agree here as well. Apple Vision Pro is new and creative, and the iPhone is not. That was my whole point.
I wasn’t implying that they should change anything. It’s working for them, no reason to change - it would just hurt UX.
I was simply making the observation that the maturity of the product you’re working on affects your experience as a designer
This video does a better job at explaining my thoughts here:
ruclips.net/video/grUcxlSrwVg/видео.html
You were hired to work for company. That it! No one hire you to create something awesome, cool but can't make any money. Sad but true
It is what it is right? It helped me to understand the reality of a UX job, then once I did I no longer complained about my job. It just became a decision: to stay or go
so true @designweb3514 🔥
I think you’re using it all wrong…if you’re creative enough any research will make you come up with ideas. And have your own side project to build with select people not only a job
tldr, you’re a mercenary not a missionary.
Thank you for convincing my to stick with UX 😂 I want my money to pay all my bills, *not* fuck you
That’s great! I’m glad you got clarity either way.
UX salaries are really strong. And, if we’re being honest, the job is usually laid back and doesn’t require 8 hours per day.
So, if you divide salary by actual hours worked, you’re earning a much higher hourly rate than you might realize.
@@traviskassab220 yup, and I can design creative / unconventional prototypes on my free time :)
Oh yea… so what’s your average daily work hours?
@@lintonmonanu 8
Discovery research
this needs to be retitled as "why i am quitting my current UX researcher job"
happy i watched this @2x. only 5 minutes wasted instead of 10.
Worst thumbnail ever 😂
Pointless video, yeah most people that get paid a salary "suffer" the things you have outlined...