I’m mostly happy with my job as a UX designer. I think I make a difference within the teams I’m part of, and that I’m helping further my organization’s mission, which played a large role in accepting the job.
But recently I had a small epiphany: A coworker was designing 404 pages with cool images and funny copy, while I was building a spreadsheet totaling up and tagging hundreds of responses to a user survey. I realized that no one is ever going to ooh and ahh over my latest user testing script or that piece of microcopy I improved—certainly not the way folks praise a beautiful interface or a stunning hero image.
It got me thinking about the rewards and frustrations of the wide variety of jobs and roles that I’ve had over the 20+ years since I switched from journalism to design.
I offer the following insights hoping they will help others who are considering the design field to get a sense of what might be the best fit for their work style, and the questions to ask in interviews. They represent my personal experiences with specific employers. YMMV.
File them under “Things my younger self would have liked to have known.”
Role One: Traditional graphic design and art direction
Workplace: Small design studios (6 or fewer designers or art directors) | Tenure: 7 years
Rewards:
Variety in clients and type of projects
The client base of studios I worked at included cultural organizations, museums, scientific associations, and non-profits, pretty much a standard mix in the Washington DC region. I designed brochures, newsletters, posters, book jackets, logos and identity systems, even exhibit kiosks and wearables. As a “junior” designer, I also did most of the pre-press work. As art director, I wrote printing specs to get quotations.
Tangible work for my portfolio and to submit to design competitions
Print design provided the ineffable pleasure of having a piece to hold, redolent of fresh printing ink. Unlike in the digital world, you get to choose paper and it can make an enormous impact on the feel of the piece. Numerous design awards were the icing on the cake for upending my life to pursue my dream of working in a design studio.
Creative synergy
Having other designers to bounce ideas off of, to learn from, and to teach is incredibly rewarding. The “design jam” I took part in shortly after starting my current job in spring 2019 was the first such collaboration I’d taken part in well over a decade. I’d forgotten how much I missed that.
Frustrations:
Client relations
Depending on the studio leadership and business approach, you might have clients who think of you as an order taker, rather than a strategic partner; you end up doing one-off after one-off projects. You can spend too many hours spinning your wheels designing for the wrong person: the account manager, who may have misread or misstated the client’s goals.
Uncertain professional growth
The studio may be so small and have so much work that mentoring falls between the cracks. I was fortunate that my first design job was with a studio whose principle emphasized typography and hierarchy as the foundation of all excellent design. In small studios, you may get a salary bump and a title enhancement but not actually greater responsibility or organizational currency.
Money (lack thereof)
Enough said.
Role Two: Contract designer
Workplace: Various Tenure: ~4 years
Rewards:
No downtime during work day
Clients pay a steep hourly fee for “temps,” so by definition, you’re there because there’s work to do.
No office politics
You might hear some juicy gossip about in-fighting, but it’s for your own entertainment rather than something to worry about.
You don’t bring work home (literally or figuratively)
There was one exception that involved an all-nighter, but even more than a decade later, I’d rather not think about it. (I did get compensated, so there’s that.)
Variety
One week, you might be at an ad agency; the next, at an association. If you enjoy thinking on your feet, being able to quickly pick up a tool you haven’t used in a while, or grasping a brand’s identity at warp speed, temp work can be a lot of fun.
Frustrations
Unpredictability
You don’t know when your next assignment—and your next paycheck—will turn up.
Compensation
Minimal to no fringe benefits, including lousy medical insurance, and no paid holidays, sick time, or vacation days. And at least for graphic design gigs, hourly rates haven’t increased much since the late ‘90s. UX design seems to be categorized as IT, so rates are much better.
Peer recognition
Most of the time, you won’t have anything to put in your portfolio, either because of NDAs or because by the time a piece is printed, you’ve moved on to another engagement.
Role Three: Web and graphic designer
Workplace: University research center Tenure: 8 years
Rewards:
Influence
You may have the opportunity to define the design role and establish more formal processes for executing design work.
Continuity
As in “in-house” designer, you have the same client for nearly every project. You can establish trust and a common language.
Variety
If you are the only designer, you will be asked to wear many hats: design, production, coding, even UX writing.
Stability
At least in pre-covid economic disaster days, a job at a public university was stable if not necessarily high-paying. Plus, you have some kind of pension plan or 401k, decent low-cost health insurance, and generous paid time off for holidays and winter breaks.
Frustrations
Professional isolation
As the only designer, I had no one to bounce ideas off of or learn from. I had no opportunity to submit work to design competitions.
Lack of status
In academia, staff often are seen as little more than supports for the professional advancement of faculty.
No room for advancement
My salary was written into various grants, so my chances for moving up the ladder in terms of job grade were slim to none.
Role Four: UX/UI designer
Workplace: Tiny tech start-up, pre-launch Tenure: ~2.5 years
Rewards
Variety
When I joined this firm, four of the full-time employees, including the founder, worked in one small office. The developers were remote. When the founder was writing grant proposals, we knew we’d better not open a bag of chips for lunch in earshot. When the contract UX director transitioned back to his own studio, I was the only person to do interface design, interaction design, user and UX research, and build and test prototypes. I was simultaneously teaching myself UX design and Sketch while grappling with Jira, writing user stories, and fitting in to Agile software development processes. Oh, and educating myself on designing games for school age kids and kids with cognitive disabilities.
Intellectual challenge
When you have no budget (and half-hearted support) for user research or usability testing, you need to get creative. For example, I analyzed reviews of competing AAC apps on the App Store to divine user needs and usability issues I needed to take into account in working on an iPad-based assistive communication app. You learn to hack apps intended to bend them to your own purposes.
Influence
You’re in on the ground floor of building an app from scratch and launching it. You also can define UX design processes.
Knowledge acquisition
I learned a massive amount about how apps are built and how developers work that put me in good stead for my current job. I’m a lifelong learner, so being paid to learn stuff is a great reward.
Frustrations
Lack of resources
Most start-ups fail. While this one didn’t, two of us were laid off post-launch because of revenue shortfalls. I knew the company had sufficient money for 2 years when I took the job. The risk was outweighed by the opportunity for professional growth—and to be among the oldest women ever hired at a tech start-up! ;-)
Developer-driven environment
It was at times frustrating to feel propelled along by a focus on developing features, rather than solving user problems. This will not be news for any designer working in software development these days, but Agile processes and design thinking make uneasy bedfellows.
Professional isolation
Lack of closure
Unlike with print design, there is never a “done” state. Every two weeks, another release adds, fixes, or enhances something. On the other hand, this can be a plus, as it means there’s always another opportunity to get something right.
Role Five: UX designer
Workplace: Large established media company Tenure: 1 year and counting
Rewards
Creative synergy
There are a lot of fellow designers to kick around ideas with and get feedback from. Being able to listen to users satisfies my natural curiosity about people and their lived experience.
Resources
We have a budget for UX tools such as Figma, Zeplin, InVision, and UserTesting.com.
Variety
Although the work is all for the same company, due to size, there are a variety of digital products to work on. For me, it’s two websites.
Mission-driven
As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, I believe in the company’s mission and am grateful to play a role in advancing it, especially so since the pandemic started.
Career growth
I am in the late stages of my professional career, so this is not an important factor for me. But several coworkers have advanced to more challenging positions just in the year I’ve been on board. The company believes in promoting from within and nurturing staff’s professional development.
Frustrations
Cognitive overload
I’m assigned to two separate sprint teams and product managers, with overlapping timelines.
Legacy product “crud”
Unlike working on developing a new product, I now work on two products already built out, including one whose codebase is like an octopus’ tentacles: css and html written by different developers, and added to over time, without the user experience or accessibility top of mind. It’s hard to unravel.
Conflicting goals
As with any large company, it’s a challenge to negotiate among multiple internal and external stakeholders with different priorities, with, in my opinion, insufficient emphasis on the user experience.
Invisibility
No one sees a great user testing script, or gushes over elegant css (well, I do, but that’s me).
Confusing work processes
I thrive working within structure: clearly defined work processes, agreed-upon ways to organize and name files, and templates for design deliverables. Ill-defined processes add to my mental overhead.
Role confusion
Most stakeholders don’t differentiate in their mind between what user experience and user interface designers do. It says “design,” it must be about what something looks like.
Conclusion
As Tolstoy said about families, all happy workplaces are alike; each unhappy workplace is unhappy in its own way.
We each have our own criteria for what makes a satisfying and rewarding job experience. I hope what I’ve shared here helps you navigate your own career journey in a more informed way, and may you find a happy workplace.