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Why you should read this:

Are you tired of feeling stagnant in your UX career, unsure of how to improve your skills?

Continuous improvement is essential to achieving success in UX Design, but without a clear direction or starting point, it’s extremely challenging to make progress.

After years of trial and error in my UX Design career, I’ve found the top 5 most actionable and realistic UX practices that will help you on this journey.

By using these practices as your North Star 🌟, you can boost your skills and knowledge and achieve your UX career goals faster.

Let’s dive in 👇

Practice 1: Learn the UX Design basics and fundamentals

The foundation of UX design lies in understanding the basics and fundamentals. Without this basic knowledge, you can’t build or create designs that work for users.

Here are the 3 most crucial Design fundamentals to get familiarized with:

• Principles of visual hierarchy, color theory, typography, and layout design.
• User research methods such as surveys, interviews, and usability testing to understand user needs and behavior.
• How to create user personas, user journeys, and wireframes to effectively communicate design solutions.

If there’s too much information and knowledge for you to consume, I’d suggest you focus on learning from a few credible sources first.

❌ Avoid over-consuming and under-applying

Check out my UX Playbook for a step-to-step, all-in-one Design process guideline. More actionable tips and fewer headaches.

Practice 2: Go Beyond UX Design

Although design knowledge is essential to learn, what makes you successful as a UX Designer is your solid understanding and implementation of other disciplines in your design, including:

• ​Marketing​
• ​Psychology​
• ​Human behavior​
• ​Mental Mode​

→ This knowledge ensures that your designs are:

✅ Practical, accessible, and usable (meet the actual needs of users)

❌ NOT just pretty UIs

In addition, as you advance in UX, you need to understand how the product you work on impacts your company’s business goals and objectives.

So start learning about Business Acumen, Sales Strategy, and Finance/Investment Basics as early as you can in your UX career.

Practice 3: Find your UX Design niche

As UX design is evolving and expanding constantly, the KEY for you to stand out and become a sought-after Designer:

→ Find a specialized niche that you’re passionate about and become an expert in it

This practice helps you:

• Provide more specialized, effective solutions to design problems
• Create more targeted and successful user experiences
• Differentiate yourslef in the job market
• Increase your value to employers

For example, you can position yourself as:

Mobile App design, E-commerce design, or Healthcare design,…

→ Build your portfolio around your expertise in this niche + the solutions you’ve created

Practice 4: Learn from other UX Designers

Learning from others is the best way for UX Designers to gain:

• Valuable insights
• Constructive feedback
• Opportunities for growth and collaboration in your UX career

I've learned that the more Designers I talk to, the more successful my design approach becomes as it’s helped broaden my perspective.

If you don’t know any UX Designer personally, you can always find them through:

• Joining and contributing to UX Design communities like APDList and Designer Hangouts​
• Posting or sharing your UX career’s personal experiences online
• Supporting local Designers by following or sharing their work

Practice 5: Explore multiple Solutions and Perspectives

Design is subjective, and what may work for one user may not work for another

→ This is why you can’t afford to be close-minded in UX Design.

Here are some of the practices I personally implement to explore more diverse solutions:

• Test out different design solutions to the same problem
• Use questions as your compass: Why? What If? How can I…?
• Put yourself in the user’s shoes and imagine how they would interact with the design
• Consider the user's perspective and how they might interact with your design
• Solicit feedback from non-design stakeholders, users, and other designers to gain a deeper understanding.

Key takeaways

5 UX Design Best Practices that have fast-tracked my UX career:

1. Learn + Absorb + Apply the most fundamental UX design knowledge
2. Expand your knowledge to non-design but impactful fields (Psychology, Marketing, Human Behavior,…)
3. Find a Design niche and become an expert in it
4. Learn proactively from other UX Designers
5. Broaden your Design solutions and perspectives

Hope that these practices can help you become a better designer and succeed in your UX career.

Chris Founder @ UX Playbook​ I help UX designers go from Fuzziness to Focused. Get unstuck with UX Playbook.

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