How I went from rookie to consultant in UI/UX design

Photo credit: Pexels.

Before joining four startups, my design was just good enough—decent, no major flaws—but it didn’t reach its potential. It was worthless, for lack of a better term. I was just a rookie, still green in the UI/UX world. But I am grateful for my experiences working for various companies where I learned a lot and developed my skills.

My journey from rookie to adviser

Before taking shelter in Go-Jek, I was an ordinary informatics engineering student, then in 2012, I delved into web design. At that time, I realized that having an interest in something is not enough, so I made it my goal to be skilled instead of just interested.

I had my share of failures in some projects I handled, wandering from one project to another. But I learned more things like working with consecutive and difficult demands.

In my two years at Go-Jek, I worked with two UX chiefs, Alamanda Shantika and Monika Halim. They had different approaches to managing the team. Shantika was more forward-looking; she was quick at thinking on her feet and tackled problems as fast as possible. She was able to navigate the team to work closely together. Halim, on other hand, was more mature and wiser at making any decision. She could manage and tackle all issues—from business to technical—with admirable ease and aplomb. Sometimes, I couldn’t understand how she managed to keep herself calm and be professional when she had to make big decisions involving our users. Their decision-making styles made me understand leadership deeper.

Over time, I decided to be self-sufficient by setting up a UI/UX advisory called Uxmarker. In the past, I was a contributor. Now I’m more of a preceptor, an adviser.

In Go-Jek, I learned about leadership, but I don’t think it truly satisfied my cognitive thirst. The rapid development of a digital online business demands that a UI/UX should grow as fast as how light travels. Knowing the basic theory, methodology, or even design techniques is not nearly enough. There is still so much to learn, so many layers to peel, so much to delve into. That’s why I still need a lot of learning and experience to grow as a UX consultant.

UX leaders Chelsey Glasson and Ian Swinson gave me the idea to take the leadership helmet and set up my own UX consultant team. Taken from their journals, here are five things designers need to do to foster the leader in them.

Becoming a UX leader

1. Plan career development and set clear goals

Most designers are drowned in design details, data results, user observations, and various projects that they rarely concern themselves with their career development. The shocking reality was revealed.

Of all the UX designers interviewed by Glasson and Swinson, none of the designers sit on the executive level. This is unfortunate. UX designers know both the problem and users’ expectations best, but they never sit as a general decision maker. Why? Because they never think about career development or their career goals.

Matthew Holloway, user experience design VP at Shutterfly, said: