Why UX Design? A Career Changer’s Top 5 Reasons

Perhaps you are considering a career in UX/Product Design? Maybe you’re already a designer and looking to re-ignite your passion? More likely, you are either a fellow Weingart cohort student or mentor. Regardless, we can agree that, like the users we serve, understanding the deepest motivations — our ‘whys’ — is empowering and essential to moving in the right direction.

DISCLAIMER: I’m only a couple months into what I hope to be a long and successful career in UX. I’m just a baby, I know, but I can already tell that I made the right decision.

Two months ago, I had a stable corporate finance job that provided a number of extrinsic benefits: respect, good pay, President’s Club, vacation, profit sharing, a cushy office, etc. But much was still missing — that sense of using your strengths towards a meaningful purpose, a sense of choice and ownership, a sense of continual learning and achievement — yea, nada. This situation was no one’s fault (other than my own), and I’m not saying work in finance cannot be intrinsically meaningful — it just isn’t for me anymore. After months of soul-searching, I quit.

That decision didn’t come easily, but I learned a lot about myself. Today I want to share some of the reasons I think UX is such a kick-ass career with the hope that it may help you too.

My top 5 reasons:

1. I love photography.
2. I love that learning is an innate part of my job
3. I love ideas.
4. I love tech, but don’t want to code.
5. I’m a happy pessimist, and enjoy improving things.

Photography. I spend part of my free time in the mountains hiking and photographing the beautiful landscapes in the US. Over the years, the universal concepts of visual design have played an important role in my compositions and my development as a photographer. From color theory to gestalt principles, I can’t believe how much overlap there is between UI design and good photographic composition.

Learning. You know that kid that took extra electives because, uh, he could? That’s me. Reading, especially with the purpose of gaining knowledge has always been stimulating and enjoyable. UX is at the cutting edge of many disciplines — tech, engineering, architecture, design, cognitive theory, psychology, business, AI, marketing, data, and more. New tech, new software, new trends, new levels of expectations; think of all the opportunity. Most importantly, UX allows you to learn about other fellow human beings at the level of their core desires.

Ideas. My mind has always been an endless source of (creative) ideas. UX is a field where you can use those ideas for the better. Testing your hypothesis is an integral part of the process in fact.

Tech (but no coding). I’m a big picture thinker, the type of person that likes to design something and then hand it off to those that like speaking other languages. I’m still scratching my head wondering why we don’t just code in English. Seriously though, UX is a tech career where you don’t have to write code!

Happy pessimist. I’m the first to notice when something is flawed. Some might call it negative, but I would argue that design is fundamentally about improvement. One who takes the time to observe develops an appreciation for how things work. And with that comes the ability to recognize patterns and see areas for improvement. UX allows you to tap into discontent and use it to affect change and make things better! We have championed problem-solving for decades now. But the first step and one often lacking is problem-spotting. You can’t fix it if you don’t know it’s broken.

Wrap it Up

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Hopefully, you saw bits of yourself in my story, or maybe your motivating factors are entirely different. That’s part of the fun! Either way, we chose a heck of a career. Feel free to drop a comment below with your top reasons for choosing a career in design.