How did I start

While working with a social organisation in India, I got to be a part of project helping poor girls get awareness regarding menstruation health and hygiene. As a part of the project we created a robust 3 days training setup. I got to visit few parts of rural India to understand the problem better by talking to our direct beneficiaries. All of this taught me the skill of problem-solving through deep user research and data analysis.

One day while talking to a friend from college, I mentioned about my work and he said that you might get interested in web design, it is all about solving user problems. I did not know much about web design, but I was looking for opportunities to discover and I started reading design processes on Medium. I stalked some of the well-known product designers and read articles about their creative process. Being a logical person (I always thought I was logical, shh, just let me claim this one), I instantly fell in love with the entire idea.

This is how I started designing!

Created few side projects, started freelancing created my website and got myself a full time job as a UI/UX designer wohoo!!! can you believe that? at that point of time it was like a dream come true, I am not exaggerating. I was in love with my job.

I thought I was doing UX

That doesn’t look good, we need more whitespace, font should be a pixel higher. The colours look weird together and the list of visual scrutinies goes on.

As I could recall, no one paid attention to my content hierarchy nor questioned why I used a card approach instead of a list. My pixel was just picked on, beauty is all that mattered. I became a designer because I fell in love with process but in practical life I was very much away from understanding UX and strength and the pride that a well thought design could bring.

But then, something happened. I found myself reading sprint by Jake Knapp. It just hit me, like a lightning bolt. Customer journey maps, Mood boards, User Stories, Prototyping, A/B Testing, why am I not adapting all of these methods? The more I read about UX, the more motivated I got to apply to it my design process. 

Becoming a UX Designer

The timing was just perfect. I was all hyped up and there was this new E-commerce project that was assigned to me. My team was very supportive and let me handle the client directly.

I was introduced to the client, and from there, I worked closely with him. Everything was set up. The project manager informed the client that he and a designer from the team would undergo a collaborative design process, do a kickoff meeting. It was refreshing and eye-opening.

Back then, it irked me why the client keeps on pushing his stupid ideas. Let me tell you, they’re not stupid! I learned that clients have good — even great ideas. They just need you to translate it to design, and that’s why they hired a designer in the first place.You learn a lot in this process of constant feedback and iterations, also it increases the quality of output.

I was inspired every day to work on the design. I no longer feel annoyed every time I get feedback. In fact, the feedback process was smoother then I expected. We have small changes to almost none and the client was happy. We are all happy. We both knew the design is inline with what we have imagined it would be. The client knew what to expect and he knew whether it was delivered or not.

Yes, I’m a UI UX designer

This is how I discovered my love for design and understood that design is not just the pixels, it’s not just the pretty details. It’s the process of empathy and reasoning.