 It has been a while. If you're a student looking to plan your Korean UX design, this is the video to watch. I'm going to be addressing some common concerns from students about getting into UX design. I'm going to be recording one of the mentoring sessions I have on ADP list. Let's start the call. Hey. Yes, I can hear you. How are you doing? Okay, cool. Cool. Let me just do a quick introduction first. So I'm Chris. I'm a self-taught designer with a business background and I've been a designer for about eight years now. I stumbled into this world through digital marketing for a tech company. So since then, I've been working at both product companies and consultancies where we build products for other people. So really, I've spent a lot of my career like mentoring, training, hiring, and trying to build awesome design teams. That's a bit about me. So let's get into the questions. Which one's better? Learning UX at school or self-studies? Is school teaching UX UI better than self-studies? You know, it's three to four years on focus learning. I think anybody is going to get good at something, right? Whether or not they're teaching in the right format and the right vocation, that's another question. However, you know, it doesn't stop there once you get out of school. Actually, you'll be like, oh, why didn't they teach us UX in the workplace at school? You'll find yourself that you need to do that self-study anyway, and school is just a good way to get you into that, right? If you do have that luxury of going to school, then do that. As a student, what should you be preparing now for the work life? For me, I always like to give the advice of working part-time. Any experience or any life experiences is better than nothing. Sometimes you do need to get out of your studying mode to kind of like interact with humans and just kind of figure out what work is, and part-time work will give you a taste of that. One thing to consider is like, when we're at university, we do a lot of reading, a lot of writing, a lot of researching. So you also have to take that mindset and bring it into work. Whereas like, how do you be resourceful in the school and how do you keep that resourcefulness as soon as you're out of school to the workplace? I think that's really, really important. And a lot of people, especially the fresh starters, they just kind of lose what they learn at school in terms of resourcefulness and they're just waiting for their teacher to sort of give them work and your manager's not going to do that, right? You should take that collaboration spirit of school, of working together as a group, into the workplace. It's really, I guess, intimidating for people who've just got into work. I remember how I felt. You know, you're kind of shy, kind of intimidated by all these people. They've worked more than you. But really, the best people at work are the ones who collaborate with everybody and can just be open and kind of bring people together. So I would say take that sort of coursework and group work collaboration into the workplace. We just don't have enough of us. Like, enough of it, because everybody at work is sometimes very, you know, pretend to be confident, ego driven, but really, they just really want to work together, right? And you're just going to let that happen. After graduating, what's the first thing you should do or think about when going into the workforce? Just start applying to places. Fix up your CV and just kind of look at what's out there. Like, you could look at different sort of levels of UX or UX UI or product design and just see, like, what are the skills required? And then just aim for, you know, the entry level, right? So applications to internships. And also, don't forget to look at your dream company. Let's just say you want to work for Airbnb as a designer. What does Airbnb have different to other jobs or, like, how does those skills map back? Say, if you're not good at this part, the skill that Airbnb says, how could you get there, right? So at least you have some sort of rough goal in mind. Not saying that you, you know, we live to work at Airbnb or any other company, but at least you have sort of a ballpark of certain goals and things you want to reach. So having that sort of dream job goal is good to start off with. And then you can kind of be flexible and move around after that. So applications is definitely one applied to as many places as possible and look at as many jobs as possible. Okay, that's the first one. And then the second point is you should just get a job, like anything, like any job will actually add experience not only as a person, but as a professional. Anything you can, I would also try to get a sales job. It's just one of those industries that's really hard and you have to build and develop a tough skin. It's just a skill that's needed in a lot of UX, UI designers, like communication, persuasion, negotiation. So, and actually I think everybody should start off in sales no matter what job you do. So try and get a job in something like that. The third point here is after graduating, you're going to have a lot of time. You've just finished uni and you're just like, I haven't got a job. I'm just applying. You're going to have a lot of time to do stuff you really want to, right? And if you move back in with your parents, then it means that you don't have to pay rent and that someone's sustaining your life. So it means that you could do fun things, right? Start a company with your friend, work on a side project, make a film, start a YouTube channel. Just side projects that you're interested in. How can you apply your skills from what you learn at school into something that's fun? It doesn't have to be work related, but you can delve into things like architecture. If that's something you like or interior design, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What does a UX hiring manager want to see more from fresh graduates? Projects they've done on their own, just some sort of thing that you've done by yourself without any guidance or with the influence of another project. Maybe unschool related that you did for fun. Like if you like the NBA, then maybe you've redesigned their app or something like that, right? And then through that, that you've built existing UX skills. You can use the program quite efficiently, like the design tools like Figma, Sketch. And then one bonus thing is, of course, nobody, I mean, not everybody can be a superstar, but it's so easily to start something like your own digital product, your own platform these days with all the node code tools out there. So that is like something that I think a lot of people are like, oh my God, you're in school, but you start a company. But you don't need to start a company, right? You just need to like build a product. And if you had one sale, you're a successful product, right? As long as it hasn't cost you like, you know, tens of thousands of dollars. So that always impresses me with people that have freshly graduated but have already a portfolio of things they're interested in outside of school or have built something for fun or usable or provide some sort of value. Yeah, for students who want to get into UX design, there are a lot of processes like design sprints, ideation, should these be taught in schools and do you need to know all of them? If you're doing a product design course, then some of it should be taught, but I don't believe all of it should be taught. Okay, so I believe that you need to know it when you need to know it because if you're working on a problem and you're in part of the process and you get stuck and you're like, how do I figure this out? Then you find these frameworks. You do these frameworks enough, it'll become a part of your skill set. So you don't really need to learn everything in the toolbox. What you need to do is have tools that you go to and at least experience the full cycle of what it means. And it's as much like school as it is in the workplace where when the problem comes up, you find the answer out there and you just kind of dig around. But what needs to be taught in school is the full cycle. What is design thinking? Like how does product development work? What's design's role in it? You know, the fundamental pillars of our field basically. That needs to be taught. All the extra things is whatever, right? What are some advice I would give for a first timer working in the UX environment? This one's a bit hard. I guess the only one advice I have is like, when you start a new job or start a new class at school, you tend to stick to that class, right? You're like, okay, who are these people I must be spending a lot of time with and I'm just gonna hang out with them so I can fit in and be part of the crowd. But I think with the working environment, it's always better to not only do that, but make a effort to sort of like reach out to other people on your team like marketing, sales, and just kind of like say hi and offer your help because let me tell you, everybody needs design help, everybody, every team. So like you have a skill that's like needed, right? Am I progressing? Because it doesn't feel like my work has a real impact where you give your work out and get other people's opinion. What's stopping you from doing that? You have medium, square space, or you have notion, right? Any of these platforms that you can publish your work, just send it out, right? Find people like me or go on Twitter or anybody who's like talking about design and be like, hey dude, look at my work. What do you think? Also, remember like as a designer, you are meant to show your work, not just to one person, but to many, many, many people. If you wanted to do that in a more of a safe space, you show it to your schoolmates, especially like look out for the good students, right? The ones that always nail it, get the top grades, be like, look, take a look at this, what would you change? You could do that tomorrow, basically, right? For you to publish your work online, it might be a bit scary as a student. Don't worry, everybody goes through this, right? There's still some designers out there that don't have a portfolio because they just don't wanna put their work out there, but they've got good enough network, referrals to get another job, right? One of the most important things of designers is like you actually have a portfolio. So you're actually gonna be spending time, even when you try to get a new job, let's say you've worked for like six years, you're still building your portfolio. My question is why don't you get started now when you're in school and you don't have to pay for your apartment, pay for this, pay for that, right? You could actually kind of like spend that time, that valuable time and working on your portfolio. So when you graduate, you're way more ready than your classmates, right? You already had things you wrote about that you're like, it's out there. Don't know if it's good or not, but it's there. When I mentioned showing it to your friends or peers in your class, there's also things we do which you probably know, design reviews, design critiques, right? Where you can set up a session and you say, hey guys, I just need half an hour of your time. All right, I wanna give you the context and then I wanna show you my work. I'm not gonna say anything. You just tell me anything you think about it, right? Or you could write on a post-it, right? And then after that session, after half an hour, you'll have like four people's different opinions on what could be improved. You could either agree with it or not agree with it, but I guarantee you there's some things that you haven't thought about and it'll make your work better. Also, you going into that session, you're pretty, I guess, intimidated, right? Cause you're like, oh, okay, I'm gonna show my work to someone, ah! Right, so you're gonna be like, okay, okay, okay, okay. I better, you know, polish this, make this better. So it kind of adds that layer of impact that you're looking for, right? Or that sort of importance because you're gonna get judged by your peers. If I show this work to seniors and they say there's a mistake and you're like, oh, it's okay, I'm in school, we can make mistakes. But in the real world, we can't. Dude, do not worry about it, okay? I still make mistakes every single day. This is part of the trade. This is part of the craft of design. It's never, never perfect. We always make mistakes. Other people can see the thing that we're working on with much clearer eyes sometimes because sometimes we're thinking about it so much. We just get stuck on the solution. So be ready to let go of those mistakes and don't put a barry up to it because basically, if you are scared of just making these little design mistakes, you'll never really live up to your true potential of a designer. So don't worry, real world is actually more about making mistakes, but mistakes that you can fix pretty quickly or at least knowing about it. So embrace it, just kind of be like, yeah, just give me all the feedback. I want all the shit. So you'll build a layer of thick skin. This is why I mentioned cells. So then you can, then better, all right? Don't worry about it. You know, the real world is not that serious. Actually, you'll find it super fun and that everybody makes mistakes and people would actively help you to rectify it. So yeah, no worries there, dude. I completely understand the, maybe the insecurity and just feeling like you're so junior, you're still in school, but just know that the best people just get it out there. Remember, your job is to create products and if you're lucky enough, it's served millions and billions of people. So there's people who's gonna be hating it, right? Like it's part of the job and really you kind of want to embrace that negative feedback because really what you're trying to do is you're trying to, I guess, supercharge your career and design skills. Something, you're trying to pick someone's brain by their knowledge, right? You really don't know if it's good or not. You think it's good because maybe you listen to your lecture, you read a couple of books, you watch a couple of YouTube videos, but really to get that sort of circular perspective is always gonna benefit you as an individual to your designs, right? Really depends on what sort of demographic. So if you can kind of try to let go of that, maybe steps, first friends that you trust, but maybe they won't give you honest feedback and the benefit about using people in the industry is sure they could be harsh. Most good, hard to designers will be honest and they won't be personally attacking, right? They'll just look at the solution and be like, I think that this was a mistake and here's why and you'll be like, oh, I didn't see that. It's not the attack on you, it's really attack on the idea and the execution, right? Separate yourself from sometimes your work. It's not like a piece of art where someone misunderstands it and you're like, no, man, that's just my personal expression, right? Design is meant to be used by someone else. So let them be the judge. This takes a lot and a lot of practice. So baby steps, but start showing your work to people other than your lecturer will I think give you a good head start over your other high performing people. Because I bet you your high performing students are already doing this. They've already got portfolios, right? The best ones I know, if you see online, they're like 20, 21, internship at Google. Soon as they quit, they get a job, right? So these people are already doing it, right? So either you wanna learn quick and you wanna be smashing it and do your best or you're gonna wait till school to give you that sort of security and then you can do it after. Live in the uncomfortableness of it for a little bit and by the time you've done it for like 10 times, you'll be like, ah, whatever, this is part of my process. What changes do I foresee in the UI UX industry in the next five to 10 years that you should be prepared for? I'm probably gonna sound like every other person on the internet out there, but lots of awesome new technologies are coming out. So we don't really know where it's going. So you could speak about AR and mixed reality. How do you design an interface where it fits in the real world and whether it kind of interacts with the real world? That's really interesting. And then you have virtual reality when you're in this world. Once you're completely closed off, what does that look like? How close is it to the eye? What can you touch? How does it really work? What's up, what's down? You know, virtual reality, anything is possible, right? There's definitely design challenges in there. The old WED-3 use case. It could be anything, right? It could be NFT platforms. It could be different sort of platforms with transactions, with security. You know, how do you increase the transparency of everything that's going on in the blockchain? You know, those things are here to stay. They're in its very infancy. They still haven't realized the potential of all of these technologies, but designers will have to get used to that and think around how does it work in that? The other part is I'm getting really happily surprised with AI tools now. I believe like machine learning and AI was like in its infancy a while ago, but it's getting more and more mature and from research-based, it has leaked into the industry, right? Through copywriting tools, image editing tools. AI is now everywhere, right? Like removing backgrounds and stuff. For us as UX designers, we would really like a tool that helps us with analysis of data or collecting raw data. For me, it'll be really important to have a tool that says, okay, if I go and speak to a lot of people, right, and I record it all, it transcribes everything and then it spits out some of the variables I give it. I'm like, hey, I wanna know what are their behaviors, what are their goals, what are their motivations? And from just a voice clip, it could basically generate that in a format and then I could double check if that's real. So for me, it'll save a lot of time, although raw data doesn't mean anything. It's really how you translate it into something meaningful, right? At least it would be non-bias, right? It would solve that bias issue from designers. So it's really cool. So AI, definitely. And also one thing that AI can help us do is I believe that component design or style guides and design systems will be a thing of the past because we have standardized what a search box looks like or a button or any of these things, right? On eCommerce websites, you find the menu on the left. So the question is, do you need designers to redraw an input box or a button? The question is no, right? So then it becomes a Lego brick and you say what platform you wanna design, who it's for, and then the tool itself using AI can generate this stuff. And there's a few companies have already tried this, right? It just hasn't really worked. It's not widespread, but imagine using it as a designer's toolbox so you can test 10 ideas at once without really jumping into the software itself, the design software that is. That's super exciting, but that's why I see the industry going and people leveraging more and more machine learning and AI. Remember, machine learning AI is still really narrow. So it's like, it won't solve the problem for you. Really, the designer is like, okay, well, if I'm designing, let's just say a hotel booking site. What do you need? You need filters, price, da, da, da, da. You need a place where people search. You need images, right? So the AI will basically figure out what you need from this hotel booking site or typical hotel booking sites, but going to the internet and scraping all the hotel places and say, okay, here are the things you need in your style guide, and then we'll generate them for you, right? Whether or not it's right, it's up to you. So you can say, okay, well, okay, you generated like thumbnails for me, right? In, let's just say 200 by 200 pixels in a square. And you're like, no, I want them circle. So then you just tap a button, change it to circle. So you still get to make the decision. You just don't have to design it now, right? You can just kind of like switch on and off these things. And then you could just be like, okay, well, put it in a layout that makes sense in terms of information hierarchy, right? And then you're like, no, the most important thing is a search box. Let me put that up there. And then you put it up there. So it's more like you navigating this and testing it, you know, with the help of things that make your life easier. We are still in a place where AI is fundamentally really, really dumb and can't really see these potential problems and what users really need. What it can do is basically make our lives a lot easier. It's like, we don't need to get into Figma. Figma's like the components are there. We can customize it. We can make round edges. We can do all this stuff, right? But like, imagine a world where it's even easier and you don't need to play the instrument. You need to just conduct the orchestra. That's kind of where I see it. Well, anyway, if nobody does it, I'm gonna build it probably. So yeah, cool. All right, dude, well, have a good night and I'll see you soon, yeah? Bye. And that's a wrap. If you like content like this, check out this video where I explain about how to get into UX design with zero experience. Also, it's simple and step by step. Alternatively, if you want UX coaching, check out the link in the description and for everything else, smash the big red button. All right, bye.