Any UX Designers?

[KingCatMeowInSpace]

Late 40"s and looking to re- train - currently do youth work. I read something about UX as a career and it sounds really interesting. Anyone else do this? Would you recommend it? Thanks

Leaving this here in case anyone else is curious about it:

careerfoundry.com/en/blog/ux-design/what-does-a-ux-designer-actually-do/

There must be someone on MN working in this area …

I employ multiple of uxer. From principle consultant down to juniors.
It’s a really interesting area. And it’s grown so much after the last 5 years that the area has loads of specialisms
OP- when you say ux designer are you thinking about design thinking frameworks etc or more tactical stuff?

Depends where you live. There are jobs in London and certain big cities like Manchester. No jobs in smaller cities like Newcastle or York, no jobs away from the big urban centres - the IT jobs that exist in those areas want to hire someone who does programming AND ux, not full-time ux. I speak as someone who has ux qualifications but can’t get a job because I’m not in a big city.

You will be in competition for jobs with people who have at least 3-4 year computing degree and in some cases a PhD. So it depends what type of training you intend to undertake. Employers often prefer to hire a ux person who has at least some knowledge of programming because they understand the constraints that the programmers they design for are working within.

Thanks - I live up north and I'm thinking probably more of ux researcher side and maybe taking it as far as simple sketching then handing it over to a designer to draw up full wireframes etc who would then hand it on to developers. Have worked with young people so have lots of experience of talking to people but not done a lot of research - have looked at online ux courses that last maybe 6 months or so.

I definitely don't want to do any programming, more the earlier part of the process looking at problems and doing user research n thinking of solutions based on findings.

I am not in UX myself but work closely with them and have UX researchers in my team. In most places I've worked the designers and researchers are different roles - researchers wouldn't be doing any sketching (but this may be the case in smaller companies). I'd agree with PP that the vast majority of these roles will be concentrated in London and Manchester. It is a growing field though so lots of opportunities

Have a look at job adverts. I’ve never seen a ux job advertised which was pure research only. At the very least they want you to be able to use agile and wireframing, and in many cases produce prototypes too.

Joining as I'm about to start doing more work with UX after completing two training courses, a short one with schoolofux and another much more intensive course with Udacity.

Sounds like I should be looking at courses that go further than research n cover wireframes too so I have more skillls rather than just research. So many courses out there. Wonder if worth pursuing if limited jobs up north- shall do some more research into job opportunities. Thanks

Delphinna I have 4 "pure" UX researchers in my team so I do know what I'm talking about. I would consider those research roles though, not UX roles. Some UXers may do a bit of research on the other hand

I do. love it, but its fast paced and high pressure. not for the faint of heart, but great fun. very well paid as well but you need to be able to deal with pressure

So you'd say there are 'research' roles whereas as UX roles would generally be doing most of the 'full role' including research AND wireframes etc? Is it time frames that cause the pressure or what?

Yes, that's my experience though I probably am looking at it through a bias of big ecommerce so roles end up more specialised, in smaller companies (or agencies?) the roles may be more combined

Ah ok thanks for that

I have UX researchers (and designers) in my extended team and do a lot of work with them. My favourite UX researcher (though as a pp said, we don't have any pure researchers, but do have pure UX designers) is actually a PhD psychologist by background, and her superpower really is capturing all the non verbal tells and knowing when to leave silent gaps and when to press the participant to explain more. We also use eye tracking and other tools.
Ours can be very time pressured as Ux testing is a regulatory requirement for our products, and the researchers will have a number of very different projects going on. It can also be frustrating as Ux may have certain preferences/suggestions and engineering/ Product Management others, or barriers to implementation

Thanks for that - do your researchers do the research n take it as far as basic sketching/wireframes n then pass to ux designers? That's what I envisage for myself but maybe I'm not being realistic from what you all say and I need to be able to do a lot more of the process.

I have a mixed hardware and software portfolio so it varies. For software they develop realistic wireframe - if that makes sense, but screens that are true to product, follow corporate style and Ux style, they may have some powerpoint link functionality built in so that testing can have users click a button to track through.

@KingCatMeowInSpace i do research and theoretical framework. can’t draw at all (or create models), so I tend to work with one of our designers - I explain what a device needs to do and why, they draw/design, we improve. Rinse and repeat. then it goes to early stage user testing. and then we change again. I work with consumer electronics, so once stuff is in production we are talking about huge sums if money being on the line - and i‘m responsible for consumer fit.

There's a definite split on our teams where user researchers do the research. But they don't do any wire framing at all. They analyse the findings and present the research.

The UX designer interprets the findings and bring that into design.

A lot of work is remote these days. Mind you, I'm talking about contract UX roles where the contractors have a lot of experience. Not entry level.

Thanks everyone- really useful. So seems to vary dependant on company as to whether researcher would 'just do research' or would take it further to basic drawing before passing to/working with designer.

Hi there!
Sorry to revive an oldish thread, but I can on to ask a really similar question and wondered how training/employment is going/has gone, Kingcatweow!?

Hi- I looked into further and found some recommended online courses (some expensive) that I was going to sign up for. but I haven’t done any as I ended up getting the opportunity to stay in my current role but also feed into the ux/website design of another local company so I’m happy with that at the moment.

Thank you for replying! I'm looking at the type of aforementioned courses atm - as you say, some quite £££! Think I'll test the water (and my competence / interest) with a lower cost one to start with. Thanks again for taking the time to respond.