What does a UX Designer do?
A UX design career is focused on creating experiences for users to seamlessly use products. We interact with the work of UX designers every day—from navigating websites, to using our favorite apps, to sharing on social networks—UX designers are to thank for the intuitive experiences we have on these products.
How can you build a UX Design Career?
There are several accelerated courses available to help people learn UX design. For example, DesignLab—a Climb verified partner school—teaches the fundamentals to help anyone start a career in UX Design or even switch careers into the field.
Enjoy some inspirational stories from the UX Design career switchers who won Climb & DesignLab’s Women in Tech scholarships below!
“As a designer, I aspire to shape products that serve underrepresented communities, whether it elevates women in tech, works toward LGBTQIA+ equality, or mobilizes American voters. For example, my current passion project DearFumu (“parents and elders” in Chinese) seeks to address the unique obstacles faced by Chinese American communities such as language barriers, fear of harassment, and targeted misinformation. We create bilingual English/Chinese content related to things like census participation and voting.
While DearFumu primarily exists on Instagram, I would like to transform it into a website or mobile application that could better reach our target audience (older Chinese-speaking voters) who may not have a presence on conventional social media platforms.
I’m excited to both create beautiful graphic designs AND build inclusive products through UX/UI design. By doing so, we can tap into the unrealized power of the Asian American community, whom have great potential to shape our communities and our leaders.”
—Christina M.
I simply love everything about UX design. I didn’t know I did until only a few months ago.
The “ah-ha” moment came when my partner’s father asked me if I had any UX / UI experience. I did not, but I decided to look into it at my partner’s request even though I didn’t expect anything to come of it.
What I found instead was nothing but magical…
In the past, I found myself noticing points of friction inside apps and games and then proceeded to complain very passionately at length to friends. I thought that maybe I was just being hyper critical and judgmental of certain design decisions.
Now I know I was really just observing UX flaws that I was acutely sensitive to for one reason or another. These moments are so frustrating because I am unable to do anything about them. I want nothing more than to reach into my screen and fix the problems.
For the first time in my life, I found something that I truly enjoy doing that is more than just playing video games. I want to log into DesignLab and learn everything I can. I go to sleep thinking about it and I wake up looking forward to it. I never want to stop learning.
—Casondra L.
As an online educator during a time of a pandemic, I have come to notice that the first barrier to accessing a virtual education is learning the platform or product that hosts and provides the curriculum. For so long, students have been used to walking into a classroom and sitting at their desks, learning, developing, and interacting together as a unit. This strange and wild year has mixed up our reality of traditional school. In many ways, it has been exciting, especially as an educator who loves to learn and grow, but it has been just as equally frustrating for the students, or users…
I aspire to advocate for those users, the ones who struggle with 21st-century technology. I firmly believe that technology needs to be accessible for everyone. The grandmothers who act as a learning coach for their grandchild, a young student who needs to navigate how to attend their 9 am social studies lesson, an adult who considers themself tech-challenged, and everyone in between.
As a (soon-to-be) former educator, I will use my unique background to help businesses design inclusive, captivating, and effective products. Perhaps I will help design the next best STEAM app that helps schools deliver cutting edge lessons. Or perhaps I will be the main researcher that helps an organization develop a dynamic product that encourages and supports a company’s working towards a zero-waste future.
—Victoria F.
Attending a Climb partner bootcamp and ready to get to the next stage in your career? Sign up for our free ClimbTalent career development platform to access job listings, resources and tools, mentorships, and more!