Hello, career switchers! I want to know you
Updated 21 January 2022
If you have landed on this blog, you have probably noticed that all of my posts are more or less about the same topic — switching from architecture (the construction kind) to user experience.
I am keen to hear like-minded voices. So far, I have been approached by some career switchers who have been thinking of walking in my shoes, or have already taken the leap but wanted to connect in order to share their solidarity and to swap stories.
If this is you, get in touch!
Ping me on here (via comments) or on LinkedIn (with a note, so that I know you’re not just a random stranger). I promise I will fall over backwards to talk to you about transitioning into UX!
I am so happy that this post in particular has already encouraged quite a few of you to get in touch with me! Please keep it up, and I will do my best to continue trying to help you in your journey into UX.
Why should you talk to me?
I won’t blame if you don’t. I’m a newbie after all — I have been working as a commercially employed UX designer for only a year (for an FTSE 20 company, as of my last update of this article in January 2022). While I write about academia in Human-Computer Interaction Design (HCID), I’ve only ever done an MSc in it. And frankly, I am quite aware of just how much Wild West stuff is out there within UX-related blogging, so if you choose to trust no-one, you’re not being unreasonable.
But, maybe you should talk to me because…
I will not pretend that I know everything about UX. I will keep updating my mental model of UX as I learn about it every day. I will not tell you that UX is easy. I will only ever be brutally honest with you. I will always put your need for knowledge ahead of my need for self promotion.
I am no spring chicken. I have transitioned into UX from a long successful career in architecture (the construction kind). In my past life, I was an architect and lead designer for real-world building projects ranging from large office developments to specialist university laboratories. I worked with large construction companies and multi-disciplinary design teams. (If you are interested, check out some of my past projects at Nicholas Hare Architects — the Dyson Centre for Engineering Design, the James Dyson Building or Bloomsbury Theatre).
I barged into UX with a vast legacy and prior assumptions about design, working with teams, methodologies and everything in between. Some parts of of this legacy helped me quickly gain traction in UX, whereas others proved deeply unhelpful and I had to unlearn them (I will be talking about these in future articles).
Through all this, I feel that I have already gained a good grip on the gritty truth of career switching that far surpasses those types of Medium articles on “Why UX is the place to be in 2022” and the like. I can pinpoint the gap between the expectations and the reality of getting one’s foot through the door. And I have a growing understanding of where UX works well and where it does not, as well as its place within the product triad.
This is why, as a fellow career switcher, you should talk to me.
My key posts
Please also feel free to explore some of my key posts — listed below:
User experience education choices:
I have written this post a while back, at the very start of my journey. But, knowing what I know now (having completed my Masters and gone into employment on the back of it), I still strongly feel that my past findings stand true.
Soul searching with radar charts:
This post was about creating a systematic method of making career switching decisions.
Unexpectedly, it became one of my blog’s highlights:
- Back when I first published it, it was featured on the Medium front page (part of Medium’s Work section);
- I was approached by a private company who wanted to use it as an example of a good method to assess career choices;
- Former colleagues and even strangers asked me to talk them through it.
I’m proud of formulating this method, and of the fact that it has been useful to other people. Happy to share!
Climate Stories, or how designing a mobile phone app helped me learn about climate psychology
Published in the Bootcamp magazine, this is a blog mini-series where I showcase my academic dissertation work on the subject of persuasive technology and climate psychology.
Post scriptum
I will keep updating this pinned post regularly to highlight what I believe to be the most useful and interesting sections of my blog.
