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User experience designers help make the websites, apps, and digital products we all use more useful and delightful. The sense of accomplishment from working with product teams, developers, and users isn’t the only reward UX designers can look forward to. According to Glassdoor, a user experience (UX) designer is one of the highest-paying entry-level jobs in the US market, with pay ranging from $85,000 to $145,000.

To become a UX designer, you may need experience with UX design, graphic design, , and psychology, among other skills. While many UX designers start out in web design or development, anyone in a related field can acquire the skills needed to become a UX designer.

Let’s explore what a UX designer does in more detail, before breaking out an outline to use to plan your career change into user experience and design!

Table of Contents

• What does a UX Designer do?
• How to Become a UX Designer
• Top Advice for Getting Into UX Design
• Starting Your Career in UX Design

What does a UX Designer do?

Senior UX designer teaches us that “Human centred design is about finding what people truly need to solve a problem through continuous testing and validation”. Let’s look at what centering humans in your design process might look like in your work as a UX designer.

User Research

You can’t make websites and applications work better for your users without knowing what your users want and need! UX designers design and conduct research with users and potential users of their products. This research can include surveys, in-depth interviews, observing users interacting with their product, or even running in-product tests for data on new designs or features.

As a UX designer, you’ll need to be ready to participate in the design of research activities, which may be run by the UX, product, or development teams you work closely with. On smaller teams you may also be responsible for running these user research activities on your own. You’ll also need to be able to understand the results of this research and use the findings to improve your design process.

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Internal Collaboration

It will take more than your efforts as a single UX designer to build and release a polished, working product. To design and improve their products, a UX designer will need to be able to work closely with developers, other designers, researchers, and non-technical team members. To effectively collaborate with these teams, you’ll need to understand in general terms what each of your colleagues does. This doesn’t mean (for example) that you’ll need to be a web developer to work effectively with web developers! But knowing the fundamentals of the web as a platform and a general understanding of development workflows will help you collaborate to bring your designs to the web through their efforts.

Skills that can help with internal collaboration include technical communication skills, documentation skills, and conflict management skills to help manage disagreements in product direction.

Prototyping

UX designers don’t always work to build new products from scratch or to improve existing products. Effective UX designers will need to be able to build smaller, lower-effort versions of future products or product features for user testing and feedback. Being able to quickly build prototypes that test the planned design or interaction of your product will let you better understand what needs to change before you deliver the polished and fully featured version to your users.

Visual Design

It would be difficult to be a successful UX designer without core design skills to lay out and design the websites and applications that you’ll work with. UX designers make choices about the size and layout of different product features, how to manage contrast for accessibility, and pick the colors to build with. UX design is more complex than just making websites and applications more beautiful, but it’s hard to argue with beautiful digital products being more delightful for your users.

Interaction Design

Design for user experience is more than how things look, UX designers need to design the way your users will move, change and interact with different components of your products. Many UX designers will have some experience with HCI (Human Computer Interaction), a field of study and practice that examines how people interact with the hardware and software in their lives. As a UX designer, a focus on the people you design for should guide your work.

How to Become a UX Designer

1. Learn more about what a UX designer does
2. Research the skills you’ll need to develop.
3. Take a UX design course.
4. Create some designs independently.
5. Get some hands-on experience.
6. Create a portfolio.
7. Network.
8. Apply to UX designer jobs.
9. Keep learning.

I caught up with a few UX designers and hiring managers to get a sense of how you can break into the field. While getting into UX design doesn’t require specific experience, many people in this space come from related fields.

Pro tip: Zack Naylor, CEO and Co-Founder of , shares, “I got into UX after having been a front-end developer and visual designer for a while. In doing that work, I always felt like I knew what ‘better’ design was, and it had little to do with how things looked. It was more about how they worked.”

Want to start creating your UX design path? This video offers an overview of some of the core steps that can be useful in planning your exploration of the field!

1. Research UX designer tasks and responsibilities

We’ve already explored some of the kinds of work that UX designers often do, but the tasks and duties in tech roles can vary depending on the region and industry you’re interested in working in.

I like to recommend anyone exploring a career change to keep a shared document or file with research, notes from your learning journey, and the projects you build as you learn. Let’s start a new document in that file now, and we’ll begin to fill it out by doing some research into UX design jobs at companies or organizations you might want to work with someday.

You can keep notes on this research in the format that works best for you, but I recommend a spreadsheet that contains:

• The company name
• A link to their careers page, so that you can quickly repurpose this research when it’s time to begin your UX design career hunt
• A list of what duties their UX design job descriptions contain: this will let you research the skills you need to develop for jobs like this
• A space for you to record any notes or thoughts you have about the company
• A space for you to make a note of any contacts you have at the company: you can use this to drive your future networking

Once you’ve collected some research on several different organizations to understand what UX designers at these companies do, it’s time to turn that list into a list of skills to develop.

Free UX Research Kit + Templates

3 templates for conducting user tests, summarizing your UX research, and presenting your findings.

• User Testing Template
• UX Research Testing Report Template
• UX Research Presentation Template

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You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

2. Learn more about the skills you’ll need to develop.

Let’s keep building on our research file. If you’ve built out a list of tasks that UX designers do at companies you’re interested in, let’s now turn that into a list of skills you can focus on to move into your dream job.

For example, if you found that many employers in your research have their UX designers building wireframes. While you could count wireframe building as a skill you want to learn in your UX journey, I want to encourage you to research this task and to think holistically about the skills needed to develop it. To learn about the skills you’ll need for the task, you’ll first need to learn more about wireframes. You may want to make a list of wireframe tools that you want to develop skills with. Perhaps you also want to develop skills in prototyping as a concept or learning about iterative design skills to build confidently from your wireframes.

3. Take a UX design course.

Once you’ve identified the skills to focus on, taking a short course in these skills can build some of the suite of skills you’ll need in your new career. There are a range of short on Class Central that let you learn about the skills you’re most excited about.

If you’re looking for a more complete UX design course, Google offers an online course for a . It takes approximately six months to complete and makes it easier to apply for UX designer jobs with over 150 U.S. employers, including Google, Walmart, and Best Buy.

While a Bachelor’s degree is not a requirement for getting into UX design, many job postings list a Bachelor's degree in design, human-computer interaction (HCI), psychology, computer science, or a related field, or “equivalent professional experience” as a basic qualification. There are available at universities around the world. Most take between two and four years to complete.

Pro tip: Nadia Xu from recommends finding a specialized UX design course.

“I hold an undergraduate degree in business and a master‘s degree in fine art, which naturally led me to UX, a field that bridges business, technology, and design. After recognizing my growing interest in UX design, I also pursued a master’s degree in the subject to systematically learn about the foundational and technical knowledge necessary for the field,” Xu says.

According to 2024 data from the UX Design Institute, 52% of hiring managers want a certificate or diploma in UX, 23% would look for a Bachelor’s degree, and just 2% look for a Master’s.

4. Create some designs independently.

Taking courses can be a great way to build some of the foundational skills to start your journey into working in UX design, but we’ll need to go further and start building with these skills to continue towards victory! While many skills you’ll want to learn and practice as a future UX designer require the skills of a supporting team and users to work with, there are others that you can practice before joining a team. Creating your own projects to demonstrate your skills in visual design, prototyping, and even describing your own design systems can help you refine your skills while building a portfolio of work.

Don’t worry if your early projects don’t feel as polished as you would like them to. Look online for inspiration from other UX designers and keep building. When you’re happy with the designs, consider sharing them on sites like Behance and Dribbble to get some visibility and feedback. This can be a great way to start building your portfolio and your network in the UX design community.

5. Get some hands-on experience.

To really put your skills to the test, consider finding a freelance opportunity or open-source project that lets you bring your skills to a team. You can find open-source projects that have UX design needs on platforms like GitHub or GitLab by searching for projects with open design or UX issues.

Working on projects with other people will help you build a solid foundation in project management, collaboration, and communication skills. These soft skills are just as important as the technical skills required of a UX designer.

Finding your first paid freelance work can be a challenge for new technologists, but don’t give up. You can sometimes find freelance opportunities on platforms like LinkedIn and Upwork.

Remember that open-source, freelance, and even unpaid work on projects your friends get you to help with can all be counted as professional experience that you should include in applying for jobs. To better understand how to frame your experience and write a great resume, check out 探花精选’s .

Free UX Research Kit + Templates

3 templates for conducting user tests, summarizing your UX research, and presenting your findings.

• User Testing Template
• UX Research Testing Report Template
• UX Research Presentation Template

Download for Free

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.

6. Create a portfolio.

Once you’ve completed the steps above, you can create a portfolio of your best work. This is a sample of your past work, usually presented on a website along with information about each project.

took a web design class, and she knew she wanted to get into UX design. She talks about the importance of a portfolio in her move into UX design.

“I began interviewing and only applied for graphic design positions that involved some type of UX component. I also added some self-initiated work to my portfolio to show my potential employer that I really thought through UX design problems and was able to secure my first UX design position that way.”

[FWCTA Placement: Free UX Research Kit + Templates resource CTA in editorial]

Your portfolio should include demo work as well as work you produced for freelance clients or open source projects that you have permission to include. Showing examples from real-world projects demonstrates your skills and process for improving the user experience, as well as your impact. Make sure to include the results of the work you completed, in addition to testimonials, if you have them.

Emi Lantz, for example, features a slider of testimonials on her portfolio website that attest to her talent, work ethic, and impact:

7. Network.

Networking is important for getting into UX design for two major reasons: it can help you find mentors and job opportunities.

When trying to become a UX designer, reaching out to seasoned designers who have more years of experience working in the field can provide valuable insights into how to be successful.

You can learn what tools are best to learn, what trends are emerging, and more. If you develop a meaningful relationship with them, then they may even let you know what job opportunities are available at their companies and refer you.

To find designers with skills and experiences that you’re interested in, try joining a design community like on Discord or on LinkedIn.

8. Apply for UX designer jobs.

With your education, experience, and portfolio, you’re ready to start applying to jobs.

LinkedIn, Indeed, and Glassdoor all have hundreds or thousands of UX designer job listings. For example, Indeed has almost 14,000 UX designer jobs listed currently.

UX design skills can be applied to a range of different job titles, which emphasize different skill sets, like coding, content strategy, or usability. In your job search, look out for any of the following titles, but make sure to read the descriptions and qualifications to see if they align with your skills and interests:

• UX designer.
• Experience designer.
• Visual designer.
• UX writer.
• UX architect.
• Information architect.
• UX researcher.
• UX engineer.
• Interaction designer.

9. Keep learning.

Once you land a job as a UX designer, it’s imperative to keep learning to improve your skills, create new types of design solutions, and stay on top of new trends and tools.

Pro tip: Leizel Laron of says ongoing education is the most important thing for UX designers: “I’ve found that it’s about more than designing — it’s also about problem-solving and critical thinking, which are both needed to keep up with evolving technologies."

You can do this independently by reading and creating designs for your portfolio site, or you can continue to take design courses. Look for courses that specialize in a topic or area of your field that you don’t have much experience in, like , for example.

Top Advice for Getting Into UX Design

One of the questions I asked each of the UX designers I connected with was, “What is your top advice for new UX designers?” Here’s what each of them had to say:

Design with your target audience in mind.

Florence reminds you to stay focused on the people you’re building for.

“Test your knowledge by applying heuristics and design improvements to things you use every day. If you can, test with people, listen to them and observe what they actually do - don’t forget to document your findings and designs for your portfolio!”

Understand your strengths.

Xu shares the importance of finding something that appeals to you.

“My primary advice is to understand your strengths. UX is a broad discipline, often conflated with UI or product design by many companies, so reflect on what excites you — is it creating visually appealing designs? Brainstorming product functionalities? Conducting research? Something else?” Xu says.

Share your thought process with stakeholders.

While Naylor began as a designer, these days, he wears a hiring manager hat and recommends that new designers share their process.

“I want to see how you think, how you understand a problem, and the approach you take to solving it. UX is about SO MUCH more than how something simply looks. Great visual design is important, but it's only a piece of the puzzle to a great product and experience,” Naylor says.

Showcase your portfolio.

Benedict shares that having a portfolio served her well as she was learning how to get into UX design: “My biggest advice to UX designers just starting in this field is to create self-initiated work, especially for the industry (or type of business) that you want to work with. This shows initiative and the ability to solve problems, which is extremely valuable in this field.”

Continue to skill up.

Laron rounds out the discussion, saying, “The best advice I can give to future UI/UX designers is to be flexible and keep your skills up-to-date. With the latest trends in design and technologies, you can enhance your effectiveness in your work and be a reliable part of the team too."

Starting Your Career in UX Design

UX designers must understand how programs work, how people think, and be able to design products in ways that are human-centered.

To succeed in UX design, you might use a wide range of qualifications that could include everything from understanding responsive design to user research and testing, and much more. It can take time to acquire the right skill set, but there are no formal requirements or a single path to becoming a UX designer. That means anyone could have a lucrative career in UX design. So why not you?

So, my advice? Take the advice of these experts to heart, choose a starting point, and dive in!

Editor's note: This post was originally published in April 2022 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

Free UX Research Kit + Templates

3 templates for conducting user tests, summarizing your UX research, and presenting your findings.

• User Testing Template
• UX Research Testing Report Template
• UX Research Presentation Template

Download for Free

Download Free

All fields are required.

You're all set!

Click this link to access this resource at any time.