My Career Meander
I was always a bit of a square peg growing up. The ‘art kid’ that played sports. The ‘frat guy’ in the design program. The somehow-not-Irish-redhead. I didn’t expect my outsider nature to carry over into my career. But here I am, 15 years later.
Am I a researcher or a designer? Am I a designer that likes to do research OR a researcher that wants to design? Can I actually be both? A UX designer is expected to be a generalist —So, I have that going for me.
What do I mean by meander? What does that have to do with my career? I don’t believe that the modern designer has a linear career path. The word ‘path’ itself is misleading. I believe there is no set combination of company and role that will result in the highest level position a designer can hold.
Designers with varied backgrounds have unique perspectives about their work. They bring a different set of skills to the table. Individuals that explore options outside of their career path undertake risk. The reward is a designer will be interested about and challenged in the space they work in. Career meanders are a good thing.
There are three reasons why:
User Experience is a young industry
Examples are people too
Demand for design and supply of talent
An industry in it’s infancy
User Experience (UX) has been around for….it depends on who you ask. If we define UX as ‘1) interactions between users, 2) users and products, and 3) users and their environments’ we could end up going back to the bronze age. For the sake of this essay allow me to narrow the scope.
It’s helpful if we define UX as something closer to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The tricky part is the ‘C,’ as I would argue that even a simple machine is a type of computer. Machines have interfaces for users. How else would you fix one when it’s broken?
The romance between man and machine can be traced back to agriculture and transportation. As (somewhat) evolved primates we like to eat tasty things and travel to exciting places. Today, we hunt and gather with the help of machines.
Now that context is set, buckle up, it’s time to go.
Could we consider a horse-drawn carriage a designed experience? Of course. Am I actually writing a Medium post on that topic? Of course not. Let’s skip past airplanes and automobiles (for now), and focus on more modern examples of UX.
With the advent of the computer came new methods of interaction. A screen to spend time focusing on. A keyboard, mouse, joystick, controller with buttons to jam by which we could talk to the screen. With new dialogs and new input methods came opportunities for designers.
Remember jetpacks and hoverboards? The future once promised us 3D internets.
You don’t need to be a futurist to imagine a world without screens. Apple didn’t publish their ARKit on a whim. VR is years away from the dystopia it promises in science fiction. The next generation of interactions will continue to require well designed experiences.
Otherwise, the technology won’t be useful — UX strives to achieve both functional and delightful screen-based conversations with computers*.
But you could have been a Doctor, like your cousin
By comparison to UX, established industries behave differently. Being a Doctor, for example, offers a well-defined career path. There has always been a need to cure sick people. Chose this career, and benefit from centuries of (iterative) role definition.
That path looks something like : Undergrad > Medical School > Residency > Pass Exams >Practice Medicine . A Doctor has more sweat equity (time and effort invested) to address if they were to look into another career.
meanderstats™
The lack of this level of investment for most designers enables a meander. It’s a beautiful, yet dangerous thing. A designer can self-select what they are interested in and specialize. Or keep looking for the right fit.
A Doctor diagnoses and cures patients. It’s concrete. It’s hella easy to understand. By comparison, it’s easy for your friends and family to mistake design for art.
You paint pictures, but on a screen. That must be so much fun.
The nature of design
To deliver goods that are handcrafted requires, well, craft. Attention to detail implies a level of quality reflected in its value. It is the opposite of a commodity. Design is not reliably mass produced.
Forcing epiphany and inspiration into a 9 to 5 doesn’t work.
Modern design’s origins can be traced back to 1) fine arts, 2) advertising, and 3) architecture. I view this from the standpoint of ‘What would a designer born today do for a living 50, 100, 200, or 300 years ago?’ Some skills map to industries that no longer exist, just as the jobs we do today were unimaginable back then.
Fine Art
Sculptors and painters are easy comparisons. Artists had studios, just as we have studios today. Practitioners specialized in rendering different materials such as glass, hair, skin, clothing, etc. They sculpted in varying mediums. The name brand artists dealt with patrons and were often collectors and art dealers themselves. Artists….created art.
10k = mastery & apprenticeship.
Small batch production of everyday items would be another career option. Objects were designed for a purpose, all over the world, well before any industrial revolution. Ornamentation was done in varying styles according to what was fashionable for those that could afford it.
Astonishing levels of detail were achieved. Tools were created. Trade and craft evolved via a well-defined system of apprenticeship. This process started at an age that would violate modern child labor laws. Then again the average life expectancy wasn’t what it is today.
Architecture
Of course environments and living spaces were both designed and built. Craftsman attended to every detail their patrons could afford, without the benefit of modern technology. The need for ornamentation meant more jobs in specific areas. Look no further than a cathedral or temple as an example. From the sticks of furniture and painted mosaics to the gargoyles on the roofs.
Design is not a mature profession compared to Architecture. An Architect’s career path can look something like: Undergrad > Graduate school > Pass Seven Exams > Junior Architect > Architect > Studio Director > Partner > Vice President > President.
Advertising
Visual Design grew from painting via the printing press, and the necessity to communicate. Typography existed before this time, but it was more a hybrid of illustration and calligraphy. Typesetting and printmaking took off as a professions thanks to ‘ol man Gutenberg.
Eventually, the cost of technology reduced and the pace of production increased. A rocky marriage was formed. There was urgency for people to get news and for others to sell products and services. Legibility alone wasn’t a goal as much as table stakes. Once the technology was available, and cost-effective images were integrated.
Publications required UX — ever hear the term ‘above the fold?’
That path looked something like : Undergrad > Designer > Senior Designer > Associate Creative Director > Creative Director > Group Creative Director > Vice President > Chief Creative Officer.
Within Fine Art, Architecture, and Advertising we have the roots of what we could consider being a designer’s ‘career path’. Technology has altered the nature of each field. Its effect has changed the quantity and type of labor required.
Industrialization removed the need for everything but high-end household items. Autocad did away with manual drafting. The internet has had a ‘video killed the radio star’ effect on the newspaper industry. A number of these shifted to
Great designer meanders, great designers meander
Henry Dreyfuss embraced career meanders. The scope of his work spanned locomotives and cars to kitchens and telephones. His firm, Henry Dreyfuss & Associates, created functional sculpture. Early mass production of consumer Human Computer Interaction**.
Dreyfuss took the opportunity to guide the emerging practice of Industrial Design. He didn’t turn down work that wasn’t well defined. Dreyfuss took a pragmatic, logical approach to addressing how to interact with machines. His passion for problem-solving took him places he could not have anticipated.
Corita Kent, or Sister Mary Corita, taught and became the head of the art department at Immaculate Heart College. As a practitioner she became an outspoken voice against social injustice. She abruptly left IHC and took private commissions. She continued to create fine art, including watercolors and seriographs, for the rest of her career.
John Maeda might be the best example of a meander. I doubt someone could have laid out a path for him to where he is today. Undergraduate and graduate degrees in Computer Science from MIT, where he went on to run the Media Lab for 12 years.
Followed by five years as the president of RISD. Design partner at KBCP. Board member for both Sonos and Wieden + Kennedy. His annual report on design and technology. The list goes on. And on.
Serial entrepreneur seems to be anything but a career path.
There are many stories of designers doing rad and unexpected things. There is a lot of clickbait along the lines of ‘designers being the next generation of CEOs.’ It seems like every design-centric publication tells its readers in Q1 that <insert year here> could be the breakout year for design. Sigh.
I will admit to seeing job postings straight-up spike in the last decade.
Economics of modern design
Demand for design is a function of many factors. I may have a skewed perspective as to what has driven them. I was fortunate to be at Motorola after the RAZR launched. I did research on Bluetooth headsets and mobile phones that competed with the (then) venerable Blackberry.
During my time at Motorola, the iPhone and Android launched, increasing UX expectations for millions of people in 2007. All the sudden a pocket computer became far more enjoyable than the shitty desktop software you spent most of your day using.
iphone and android on day one vs. desktop applications at the time.
There were also other shifts in technology. Cloud computing reduced the barrier to entry for enterprise software. Traditional costs of doing business decreased. Chipsets improved, antennas and accelerometers got both better and smaller. The nature of interaction was becoming richer, as more became possible.
Companies that treated the internet as little more than e-marketing scrambled to catch up. They needed a mobile application or mobile-first website. Or both. Because the internet became a dynamic business card and your website now reflected your ability to deliver across both physical and digital touchpoints.****
Demand for quality UX has never been higher. Physical products are a commodity, with margins eroding due to the competitive landscape. Digital product is in a similar position; Similar value propositions, feature sets, and few ways to reduce cost leaves little room for price reduction. Competition is high.
Differentiation is mission critical — This is design’s job.
Supply side designonomics
The number of designers has increased to address demand. There are several more UX programs than there were a decade ago. Visual communication and Industrial Design curriculums also address this demand. These two areas of concentration share: storytelling, user research, rapid iteration, and creative problem-solving.
A unicorn person might exist. if they do, they aren’t applying for that job.
Since UX is a field that values generalists, it attracts people of all backgrounds. Some of the best designers I have worked with don’t have a degree in design. Talent doesn’t mean they don’t work hard at delivery. Some people are naturally gifted at creative problem solving, regardless of education.
If someone from outside design can come in, pick up the tools, and be effective, this isn’t a threat to the industry. Passionate outsiders should encourage designers to look at their partners in delivery with intellectual curiosity.
There is always room for a meander
Is Product Management something to explore? Should a designer look into building skills in Content Strategy, Front End Development, Research or writing copy? I can’t definitively say yes or no. I encourage anyone to increase their exposure to other roles before specializing.
I caution designers before career switching. Areas adjacent to design require similar rigor, attention to detail, and passion. Designer skill sets transfer well as long as the work ethic is there. Don’t expect to be an expert overnight.
Walking away from a career path is not easy. Sweat equity is difficult to ignore. Weighing opportunity cost versus time spent on a current career takes time and care. There is nothing that says you can’t return to what you were doing before. Having changed jobs myself, I emerged knowing what I didn’t want to do and what spaces I didn’t want to work in.
Knowing what you don’t want to do helps you navigate toward what you will be eager to do.
Designers : embrace your ability to follow your passion. Address feeling bored or not challenged. Adapt problem solving skills to a new space. Try something different; a role, an industry, or simply expand your skillset. There have never been more spaces to explore or technologies to specialize in. Enjoy your meander.
*Don’t get me started on all things Machine Learning. I fully acknowledge that rabbit hole and will stroll around it. For now.
**Consumer = attainable by most employed people. Not to be confused with military grade use, which has it’s own constraints and requirements.
*Mr. Maeda came to speak at IBM while in Austin for SXSW, and I totally shook his hand — just ask him.
****Note I didn’t say ‘omnichannel’ because wait do people still use that term in 2018?