Week Notes: Vol. 3 – № 3

Advice: Breaking into UX without experience

Recently, I’ve met with a number of people in UX, mostly those just starting. I’ve heard variations of the same questions, so I wanted to put my thoughts in one place – not because they're original, but because someone else may find them helpful.

Question: What steps should someone take to move into a UX/UI role, especially when they’re early in their learning and lack professional experience?

Plot twist: Being a great visual designer isn't necessary to being in UX. But that skill seems to be how companies with under-developed UX departments evaluate applicants.

Not every hiring manager may think this way, so take this advice with a grain of salt. Entry-level UX jobs seem to be drying up, or requiring some experience (which of course is counter to what "entry level" is).

It can feel like a rigged, demoralizing cycle. I get it.

If your primary experience is a bootcamp program, I think you still have some work ahead of you. I won't sugar coat it: UX in the real world is not as neat as what you learn online. I want to see more than the result of a simulated project where the process may have been tee'd up and went as planned.

I'm looking for at least one more example where you applied what you learned to something in the real world. That doesn't have to be paid employment.

To start gaining experience, volunteer your skills, start a personal project, try your hand at freelance work, or take baby steps in your current role.

Here are two great stories that might demonstrate what I mean.

Even if the work never ships, you have the makings of a solid case study that can show how you identified a problem, tested assumptions, gathered buy-in, incorporated insights as the solution evolved over time.

In these cases, visual polish can matter less than demonstrating clear thinking and decision-making. Data, diagrams, sketches, and photos may be all you need.

But if you have the design chops, put those on display as well!

If you’re drawn to UX in fields like healthcare, insurance, finance, manufacturing, or agriculture, expect a different kind of challenge. Solutions need to balance user needs with compliance, risk management, and organizational caution.

You may also need to build a strong case for changes and navigate more layers of review.

Part of this job is advocating, which can feel frustrating. You rarely get to do the full end-to-end design process you learn about. That's why knowing a variety of ways to explore and validate ideas is helpful to maximize your opportunities.

UX (User Experience) & CX (Customer Experience) is a very broad field. It extends well beyond visual design for apps and websites.

I look at it as a spectrum with one end being "learning" and the other end being "creating." Most UX professionals fall somewhere on this spectrum and slide around as they gain experience.

A UX researcher would be a role bookending the "learning" side. They might have PhDs and do academic-level research studies.

A UI designer or interaction designer would bookend the other bookend "creating" on the other side. They are highly skilled at making polished designs.

Where you land on that spectrum early in your career matters less than your willingness to move along it.

Know that some UX teams need specialists or even generalists who are just stronger in specific areas of UX. This doesn’t always come across in the job listing.

But you’ll stand out, regardless of your experience, if you put in the extra effort to show that you can learn, make sense of ambiguity, and help others make better decisions.