UX Design Tutorial For Beginners | ( Course 1/7 ) Foundations User Experience Design

companies of all types and sizes rely on user experience designers to help make their technology easier and more enjoyable to use the demand for user experience designers is so high that a lot of companies can't fill their job openings luckily there are lots of people like you who are excited to enter the field of user experience design also known as ux design and here's the good news ux designers come from all kinds of backgrounds and experiences lots of ux jobs don't require a specific work history or a college degree in fact some ux professionals have

taught themselves the skills needed to land their first job that's where this program comes in through these courses you'll gain the foundational skills hands-on experience and confidence you'll need to become a ux designer this program is for anyone who wants to find a job in ux design and when you complete this program you'll have the opportunity to share your information with top employers like google that are interested in hiring entry level ux designers so welcome to google certificate and user experience design we're so excited you're here this program is split into seven courses with each

course concentrating on a different part of ux design from explaining the basics of ux design to designing your first prototype be sure to take the courses in order so you can build on your knowledge and skills as you go with every new assignment each of the seven courses is broken down into weeks and each week includes videos readings hands-on activities discussion prompts and quizzes whether or not you complete the material in a week is up to you you have the flexibility to go at your own pace throughout this program you'll learn how to conduct research

draw a wireframe and create your own designs using tools like figma and adobe xd you'll also complete three unique projects to demonstrate what you've learned and to earn your completion certificate when you're finished you'll have a portfolio of work a polished resume and interview skills to support you as you apply for jobs as a ux designer whether you've been experimenting in ux design for years or you're completely new to the field you can complete this program everything is entirely self-paced which means you decide how much you want to do each week along the way you'll

learn from other google employees or googlers each with their own unique perspectives and backgrounds we'll share how you became ux designers give professional tips and provide you with a glimpse into our day-to-day work keep in mind depending on where you work your ux role might be general or specialized your responsibilities could vary widely from role to role and so could the members of your team we'll cover all that in more depth as we go because googlers created this program you'll learn the most practical information needed to launch your own ux design career so let's meet

your instructors my name is michael and i'm an interaction designer in the privacy and data protection office at google i'll be your instructor for this course where we'll cover the most fundamental principles of user experience design i'm super excited to guide you through the first part of the program now i'll let the rest of the instructors introduce themselves hi i'm emily i'm a senior ux researcher for google assistant i'll be your instructor for user research empathize define and ideate which is about understanding your user and the design problem you're trying to solve my name is

karen and i'm thrilled to lead you in this next part of your ux design journey i'm an interaction designer on the material design team at google we'll soon be creating storyboards wireframes and low fidelity prototypes i'm jason the head of equity engineering at google i'm your instructor for course 4 where we'll use your newly acquired research knowledge to conduct studies and test those early ideas hi i'm kunal a ux designer for the material design team i'll be instructor for course 5 where we'll cover how to create mock-ups and high-fidelity prototypes in figma a digital design

program i'm dave and i'm a ux manager on google maps i'll introduce you to adobe xd which is a design tool you'll use to create the second project for your portfolio i'll be there to guide you through each step as you design a responsive website hey i'm paulo and i'm the director of ux for youtube ads i'll be your instructor for course 7 where you'll create a third portfolio project and build a portfolio that's ready for the job market and i'm shabby an interaction designer for the central accessibility organization i'll be stopping by throughout the

program to show you how accessible and inclusive design should be included in every step of the design process so you've met your instructors and heard a bit more about what you'll learn in this program coming up we'll explore the field of user experience in more depth so you can decide if you want to pursue a career as a ux designer are you excited let's get started welcome to your first course anyone interested in ux design can complete this course because you don't need any previous experience in design and you don't need a college degree in

this first video we'll cover the goals of the course and the history of ux design ux designers help make technology easier to understand and more enjoyable to use so when did the study of user experience or ux begin let's learn some quick history to get us up to speed the phrase user experience was first coined in the 1990s by cognitive psychologist don norman as technology use expanded and evolved although the term came about relatively recently the principles of user experience actually stretch back thousands of years all the way to ancient china where the practice of

feng shui began practitioners believe that the arrangement of a physical space like how furniture is positioned in a room could bring someone luck or improve their health and happiness today lots of different industries still rely on the same basic ideas in the tech world user experience mostly focuses on how people use or interact with products in this course we'll explore the foundations of ux design and why it's so important for consumers and businesses we'll learn common terms tools and frameworks that ux designers use we'll discuss how to plan and participate in design sprints a common

method for collaborating on projects and finally you'll begin to build your professional presence online including starting your portfolio to help keep track of what you're learning you'll take practice quizzes and complete peer reviews and self reviews you'll get plenty of chances to go over the materials in practice at the end of the week you'll wrap up the course with a graded assessment to show what you know so let's start at the beginning and learn the basics of user experience design i started off my career in animation and i worked in the industry for a number

of years and at one point when i saw the internet really maturing and i saw all the opportunities online i started to realize that there was a bigger canvas there where i could display my work so i felt that i could pivot to ux design and use some of my interaction design skills that i inherited from that industry to help me in my career in ux design one of my first jobs in ux was working at a startup and it was a really great opportunity because i had the chance to work through the whole ux

pipeline all the way from doing research all the way to launching the product so i had the opportunity to wear a lot of hats and i got to work with a lot of different people outside of my ux field you know like engineers and project managers and things like that so it was a really great opportunity to try all these different things and also just to learn the craft of ux in a very deep way and at that time i was the only ux designer at the company so i was also doing branding and marketing

and you know iconography and you know basically everything you can think of under the sun i came in knowing some of the skills that i needed but i actually learned quite a bit on the job just from working and collaborating with other people i learned the process along the way the more websites the more products that got shipped is the more i learned about the process and the more i started feeling more comfortable it was really exciting to see a product finally launch that we've been working on for for so long and it was also

really rewarding to get feedback from users about what they thought of the product that i've designed so i'm super excited about this certificate because of all the opportunities it's going to give people around the world when i first got started in ux there weren't a lot of opportunities available for resources to get started so i feel that this certificate really will help everyone regardless of what your background is regardless of whether you have a background in ux design or visual design or anything you can get started with a certificate and you can get a really

great foundation and get the ux design job of your dreams hi my name is michael and i'm a ux designer at google hi again earlier we discussed how ux designers help make technology easier to understand and more enjoyable to use in this video we'll define user experience and ux design we'll review why ux design is important for consumers and businesses let's get started the user experience is how a person the user feels about interacting with or experiencing a product and a product is a good service or feature it might be a physical product like a

video game controller or a bag of potato chips or a technology product like an app website or smartwatch there are many things that can make up a good user experience in this video we'll highlight some of them for example for a user to have a good experience the product needs to be usable equitable enjoyable and useful let's break that down to begin user experience is about improving usability or making something easier to use this means that the design structure and purpose of the product are clear to everyone think about a ketchup bottle historically ketchup came

in a glass bottle the user had to hit the bottom of the glass to make ketchup come out often no ketchup or too much ketchup would come out of the bottle today the ketchup bottle has been redesigned into a plastic squeezable bottle which makes it easier to use and allows users to control how much ketchup comes out ux designers need to think about every person who uses the product this might include people with disabilities or people with very different life experiences from your own for example one user might find an app with a lot of

text easy to use on the other hand a user with a visual impairment might want different features like sound considering the unique needs of many different people is important work and thinking about equitable design is key being equitable means your designs are useful and marketable to people with diverse abilities and backgrounds user experience is also about making things enjoyable to use which creates a positive connection between the user and the product ux designers foster that positive connection by taking a user's thoughts and feelings into account when making products think about ordering take out food online

when you search for a restaurant in google or yelp you can see photos of dishes and read reviews from other people who have eaten there this experience is enjoyable because you can make a more informed choice about what to order leaving you feeling happier about the product so how do we figure out what makes a user happy with the product that's where research comes in to know how users feel we have to collect evidence on how they're experiencing that product in real time and ask them about it too we'll discuss this in a lot more

detail later as humans we want products that are useful meaning they solve our problems for example if you're lost a map app telling you how to get home is useful but if the app can't find your current location it's not so useful anymore so now we know what it means for a user to have a good experience why is it important to business in 2018 the research firm mckinsey and company studied companies in three industries medical technology consumer goods and retail banking they found that regardless of industry businesses that focused on good usability and design

perform better than their competitors basically it comes down to this when people like a product they use that product a lot and they recommend it to their friends and more people using the product means better business for the company plus when users have a good experience with a product they're more likely to have a positive opinion of the company that made it a win-win for the user and the business can you think of a product you love so much that you shared it with a friend if you did that's a great example of user experience

design in action despite all this a lot of companies don't understand the important role that ux design can play in improving their business and that's where you as a ux designer come in so now you know how to describe user experience and ux design and you understand why ux design is important for consumers and businesses next up we'll learn more about what ux designers do okay so we've covered the basics of what user experience design is and why it's important now let's discuss different roles within ux design and colleagues you might work with ux designers

come from a lot of different backgrounds marketers artists teachers small business owners cashiers or anything really rather than sharing similar work histories ux designers tend to share common skills and interests instead a lot of ux designers have a good sense for visuals which means you recognize when an image fits or doesn't fit in a space or what colors complement each other but you don't need to know anything about graphic design or even be able to draw to be a ux designer ux designers tend to be curious about people and like thinking about how people's minds

work they also enjoy figuring out how people use products and how to make those products easier to use ux designers are empathetic too empathy is the ability to understand someone else's feelings or thoughts in a situation and it's a major part of ux remember earlier when we mention equitable design and designing for everyone well in order to design for everyone we need to understand how a person might feel or what they might think in any situation just like a lot of ux designers don't share work histories they don't always share educational backgrounds either a lot

of ux designers learn on their own by taking courses like this one and teaching themselves the skills they need to get entry-level jobs they're pretty resourceful too tapping their experience from other jobs or hobbies to build a foundation for their new careers so we've covered common characteristics of people drawn to ux design now let's explore what those ux designers actually do when you think of the word design you might think it's all about the visual aspects of a product but it's only one small part of what the ux designers might do in fact there are

many different kinds of ux designers interaction designers visual designers and motion designers let's start with interaction designers who focus on designing the experience of a product and how it functions they figure out how to connect the user's needs and the business's goals with what's actually feasible to build as an interaction designer at google my team and i are responsible for defining the user experience for security and privacy related tools in my world users always come first there are also visual designers who focus on how a product or technology looks they might be responsible for designing

logos illustration or icons they might also decide font color and size or work on product layouts motion designers are another common type of ux designer they think about what it feels like for a user to move through a product and how to create smooth transitions between pages on an app or a website similar to ux designers there are also graphic designers who create visuals that tell a story or message graphic designers usually work on the appearance of a physical product like an invitation or a poster while ux designers focus on how users interact with a

product outside of design there are many other roles in the field of ux collaboration is an important part of a ux designer's job so let's talk about a few of the most common colleagues a designer might work with ux researchers conduct the studies or interviews that help us learn how people use a product then there are ux writers who think about how to make the language within a product clearer to make the user experience more intuitive this could include writing labels for buttons or adjusting the tone to be formal or friendly next up we have

production designers who often act as a bridge between interaction designers and engineers they make sure the first and final designs match in the finished product materials that the assets are ready to be handed off to the engineering team the assets are everything from text and images to the design specifications like font style color size and spacing which brings us to the ux engineers one of the groups that ux designers work with most frequently ux engineers translate the design's intent into a functioning experience like a website or an app and finally ux program managers ensure clear

and timely communication so that the process of building a useful product moves smoothly from start to finish this might include setting up goals and writing project plans in this video we've explored different types of ux design roles you might pursue and introduce you to other colleagues you might work with coming up we'll talk about how to create a good user experience through design welcome back as you learn more about ux design you might start noticing functionalities in phone apps or store layouts that you've never considered before have you ever created an account on an app

and had no idea what to do next or have you pressed a button only to find out that what you thought was going to happen didn't protecting user roadblocks and potential design mishaps is what good ux design is all about in this video we'll explain what makes a user experience design good or poor it might seem like a good design is based on personal preference but most designs that are considered poor or unpleasant for the user don't reflect the user's needs think about a product as simple as a door have you ever tried to leave

a room pull the door handle but the door didn't budge that's because you are supposed to push the door handle not pull it as designers we have to think about how to improve the user experience with the door so that we can easily exit and enter doors with this kind of poor user experience are called normandors remember don norman who invented the term ux in his book the design of everyday things he first describes this phenomenon and he explains how a user's experience isn't always considered in a product design all right so doors are just

one example of user experience let's think about ux design in technology well-designed apps aim to save space on the screen by using icons instead of text so more information can fit icons are also pleasing to look at and easy to understand no matter the user's native language but sometimes the meaning of an icon is impossible to figure out unless you tap on it in that case text would be a lot more useful good design considers the user's needs for the user to have a good experience the product needs to be usable equitable enjoyable and useful

among other things for example the purpose of a shopping app is to buy things if you put a pair of shoes in your virtual shopping cart you expect to be able to buy them but if you add the shoes to your shopping cart and are then told they are out of stock that is not a good user experience and good user experiences should create products that are intuitive and easy to use each product should be designed to make the user feel a certain way a key task for ux designers is to tie a specific emotion

to the experience of using the product so start paying attention to the things you use every day the direction you have to turn the faucets in your bathtub the way your baby's pajamas button what error messages on your phone mean and which way to open doors you start to recognize both positive and negative aspects in each of their designs use your own experiences to think about what makes a design good or poor what could be made better what's already working we're going to continue exploring these ideas during the rest of this course and for the

entire program exciting right so far we've explored the different types of ux designers over the course of this program you'll become much more familiar with the most important tasks that ux designers do you might even be drawn to a particular path or specialty to get started let's identify some typical responsibilities of entry-level ux designers researching wireframing prototyping creating information architecture and communicating effectively entry-level ux designers start their careers by doing a lot of tasks to learn the basics one of those tasks might be research ux designers use research to understand audiences and learn about their

backgrounds demographics like age and location motivations pain points emotions and life goals there's a lot to learn about users and their preferences and ux designers want to discover as much as they can in order to inform their product's design an entry level designer also creates wireframes a wireframe is an outline or a sketch of a product or a screen it helps the designer figure out how a page is arranged where each piece of a product fits in with the others and how users will likely interact with the product wireframing is one of the first steps

designers take when building a new product or feature it's done after or at the same time as the research we can wireframe by drawing on paper or digitally on a computer here are some examples of wireframes i've done this is for a web page on google's transparency report notice that they're just basic drawings but you can tell what goes where these wireframes were designed to demonstrate the basic structure of the page to gain support from key stakeholders people with a business interest in the final product a ux designer will also create prototypes a prototype is

an early model of a product that demonstrates functionality like a wireframe but a lot more advanced while a wireframe gives you a general idea of where things go and how the product will function a prototype illustrates a progression from one screen to the next we can draw prototypes on paper create a physical prototype or build a digital prototype here's a prototype for google's transparency report that i created and here's the final version the purpose of wireframes and prototypes is to figure out the best design for a product inexpensively and quickly another responsibility of an entry-level

ux designer might include creating the information architecture which is the framework of a website or how it's organized categorized and structured for example when you click the file menu on a word processing application like google docs you expect certain options like new or print to appear in the drop down menu or when you click on the company's home page you expect to find a link to an about page that structure is the website's information architecture finally an entry-level ux design job like many jobs also requires a lot of communication like meetings with colleagues writing emails

creating proposals or pitching clients so in short entry-level ux designers should know how to research wireframe prototype create information architecture and communicate effectively your exact responsibilities will vary depending on where you work and how specialized you need to be for your particular job up next you'll learn about being a generalist or a specialist and what that means for your career options intrigued let's go my name is dane and i'm a visual designer at google the life of a ux designer at google is pretty interesting and really fun so when you're working on a product you'll

either be drafting up a new solution or a new feature of that product or you'll be building upon something that already exists and finding a way to improve it you'll start by identifying the problems what are the issues going on within this product and why are we even looking to improve or introduce this feature and once you start to find those problems you'll start to realize what the solution is and why it needs to be done a certain way you chat with other people on your team to see what solutions could be feasible and you

get to work you're going to be interacting with everybody on your team there are other visual designers that you can chat with there are researchers that can tell you what has been decided in the past and what hasn't been explored yet there's also interaction designers who can tell you oh well this page should move in this way or this should happen as soon as you tap this button this is an opportunity to get the feedback that you really need to be able to push your project to success once you go into a ux critique session

you'll present that to the team and that's when you'll start to get really high level feedback as to how the interaction should change or how it can be improved for the success of the product when you're a full-time ux designer you're going to expect a lot of critiques a lot of ux critiques that help contribute to the success of the product and what's really important is to remember that it never has anything to do with you as the designer it just has to do with the solution and how we can collectively make sure it's the

best that it could possibly be and as soon as you come to a solution that's when you go in and you chat with the higher-ups and the leads to see if if this is a solution that's ready to be implemented and once you get the pass for it to be implemented you then start passing it on to engineers who will be able to build out your solution and then you get to see it come to life as a visual designer being able to create something that's going to impact other people every single day and because

i'm focusing on the front-facing visuals it's our job to determine how this is going to look and how it's going to to work for people and i think having that impact and having having that role is pretty important and pretty meaningful as a ux designer hi again so far we've learned about some of the tasks an entry-level ux designer might do each day we've also mentioned that your role might differ depending on where you work in this video we'll explain the differences between generalists specialists and t-shaped roles in ux design a generalist is a ux

designer with a broad number of responsibilities most ux designers begin their careers this way doing various tasks for example you might do a bit of interaction design work a bit of visual design work and more one benefit of being a generalist is that you get to try out roles and find a specialty that you're passionate about generalist ux designers are common at smaller companies with fewer employees as these companies don't have big design departments so you might have to wear many hats a generalist might be responsible for a combination of user research branding user flows

ux writing visual design prototyping production design information architecture and usability testing among other things most generalists start their roles knowing about one or two of these topics they learn about other areas on the job from their colleagues or mentors ux generalists can also continue the education through professional development doing their own research to keep up with industry trends and participating in online ux communities to learn from other designers on the other hand if you become really interested in one part of ux design you might find your niche as a specialist a specialist dives deep into

one particular ux design role like interaction visual or motion design while a generalist has a breath of knowledge a specialist has more depth of knowledge in one kind of ux design specialists usually work at large companies where the organization can afford to have a big team of ux designers at google we have thousands of specialized ux designers take me for example i specialize in interaction design we covered some specialist tracks earlier in the course if you need a refresher check out the glossary as you advance in your career you may become a t-shaped designer a

t-shaped designer specializes in one kind of ux design and has a breath of knowledge in other areas this is called the t-shape designer because your skills look like an uppercase t the vertical line of the t is the kind of ux design you specialize in like visual design the horizontal line across the top of the tee includes your complementary skills these skills might come from other fields like interaction design that cross over with your specialties or soft skills that help you work more effectively becoming a specialist or generalist isn't always a conscious choice it might

be based entirely on where you work and what skills are needed when i started in ux design i was a motion graphics designer then i worked on video games apps for businesses and apps about financial technology now that i work at google i focus on privacy as an interaction designer the more experience you get in the industry the broader your perspective you'll be exposed to a lot of different companies design principles and work styles and you'll learn how each one can better inform your designs as a ux designer there's always room to grow and opportunities

for change so whether you become a generalist or a specialist there are plenty of options [Music] my name is erica and i'm a senior visual designer a visual designer is someone who uses iconography typography color space and textures in their products to create consistent and accessible design patterns for example if you were to look at an app pretty much anything you see on the surface the buttons the colors the typography the white space around all of those elements is what a visual designer would be responsible for during my last year of college i worked at

a web design and development agency where i got a ton of experience with graphic design and actually ux design before i even knew what that was from there i went to work at a startup called waze before they were acquired by google and there i was hired just as a general designer where i worked on things like our website our app designing little icons illustration research i was considered a generalist and i worked on a lot of different design roles from there we were acquired by google and so my role became a little bit more

formalized and i was technically a ui designer but i still was a generalist and i worked a lot on marketing design um the app ux and as well as a lot of web design for things like dashboards and analytics i kind of branched out to the visual design path at google and that's what i've been ever since for the last few years as a generalist designer you work on a bunch of different things from interaction design and visual design to user research this would typically happen at maybe a startup or an agency where you work

on a variety of different projects and your responsibility depends on whatever hat you need to wear that day some of the benefits of being a generalist designer are that you can learn a ton and often times this will be in like a fast-paced environment so you don't really have time to stop and really go deep into any of these roles rather you just learn by doing and it's a really quick and effective way of seeing what all the possibilities are within ux at bigger companies there are specialist designers for instance at google there are interaction

designers visual designers ux engineers ux writers and ux researchers for these roles the expectations are a little bit more clear for you so you'll be evaluated based on what work you're doing specifically within a product so a ux writer will be responsible for all of the copy and all of the strings throughout any product you might see and they are within their team known to be the expert in their field the benefits of being a specialist are that the expectations are very clear for what your role is and there are a ton of resources that

you can continue to just develop your expertise and what i like about being a specialist is that i know that anyone on my team trusts and knows my work and can come to me with any of their visual design problems having been both a generalist and a specialist um i've really really enjoyed both and especially earlier on in my career being a generalist it was a really good way for me to ramp up on all things ux i got to work on such a variety of projects and it really really helped me hone my craft

once i had been in the ux space for a while i realized that i really was kind of more drawn to visual design challenges and that's what kind of led me along the visual design path and so now being a specialist it feels good to know that you're kind of an expert in your field and so i can definitely see the benefits in both being a generalist and a specialist and maybe more so being a generalist when you're first starting out so far you've learned about common responsibilities of ux designers and the types of roles

that ux designers might have but like many people ux designers don't work alone they work on cross-functional teams that might include other designers engineers researchers product leads or program managers in this video we'll discuss how these cross-functional teams work together to build a product imagine you're working on an app for ordering food you and your team want to build a new feature that shows users restaurants that offer allergen free meals the product lead decides the scope of the project the ux researcher tries to understand user trust like whether users will trust the information about allergens

or trust the app itself the interaction designer figures out the flow for ordering like how to include allergen free foods in the search filter the visual designer thinks about how to make it easy for users to find allergen free foods in the product these ux designers create wireframes and prototypes to show the experience that users will have in the app the engineers bring these wireframes and prototypes to life and create ways for restaurants to each add information about their allergen free options as you might have noticed it's important for ux designers to collaborate with engineers

because engineers build the final product this collaboration happens throughout the entire process there are multiple opportunities for ux designers and engineers to provide feedback to each other to make their changes together there are a lot of moving parts here this is where the program manager comes in to ensure clear and timely communication across the team so the process of building useful apps moves smoothly from start to finish every team and team member has a different task to complete but ultimately they all have the same goal to build a product that's usable useful equitable and enjoyable

for users and businesses coming up we'll discuss the types of companies ux designers work at i think you'll be pleasantly surprised by how many options you have welcome back so far we've discussed why user experience is important the job responsibilities of a ux designer and the teams that ux designers often work with now we're going to explain the types of companies you could work at as a ux designer and how your job may differ depending on that company's size and industry say you're hired by a startup or a small business first what's a startup well

in simple terms a startup is a new business that wants to develop a unique product or service and bring it to market startups generally have tight budgets and few employees so each person has to perform a variety of jobs and move quickly if you're a ux designer at a startup or other small businesses you'll likely be a generalist designers at companies with fewer employees get involved in many parts of the business you might be responsible for both interaction and visual design conduct user research or even help with marketing talk about having a lot of jobs

to do working at a startup or small business can be stressful but also very rewarding you'll learn quickly so it can be a great way to launch your career another job a lot of ux designers start out in is freelance freelancers work for themselves and market their services to businesses to find customers as a freelancer you get to pick projects that interest you make your own schedule and work with a lot of different brands another common place ux designers work is at advertising agencies advertising agencies are teams of creatives hired by clients to build marketing

campaigns for example a beverage company might hire an ad agency to create a campaign for a new soda as a ux designer you might be responsible for developing wireframes and designs for digital products for the new campaign you may also do work that's outside of the usual ux design tasks like graphic design or writing working at an ad agency is a lot like freelancing in that you get to work with a bunch of different brands but you'll be employed by the agency instead of being self-employed and you'll be part of a team design agencies and

design studios are another option for jobs a design agency provides a one-stop shop for the look of brands products and services they're usually more specialized than ad agencies because they focus on design and branding your average day working at a design agency is a lot like working at a startup you'll probably be a generalist and the only designer on the project you'll be exposed to a lot of different industries and get to solve unique problems but since design agencies work with multiple clients you might not work on a project from beginning to end ux designers

at design agencies regularly move between teams and work on different stages of a product's development finally you can work as a ux designer at a big company like google big companies have thousands of employees working on lots of different projects ux designers are typically specialized in their work and focus on one project from beginning to end working at a big company is a great way to learn about a specialization within ux design plus you get to learn from other experts one trade-off is that you might have fewer options to gain skills outside of your specific

role so a desire to specialize is key now that you know what's out there which types of companies are you most excited about working at if you're inspired share it with other learners in the discussion forum you're making awesome progress you've learned all about the ux design industry and explored where you might work now let's talk about common career paths for ux designers and the kinds of jobs you'll be qualified for after you complete this program an internship is a great way to start your career an internship is usually a short-term job with limited responsibility

you often work closely with a supervisor to learn more about a job or industry that you are interning in it's a fantastic way to get real job experience plus an internship might lead to a full-time job in the future another way to start your career is an apprenticeship apprenticeships provide on-the-job training to help you develop real skills apprenticeships are similar to internships because you work closely with an experienced professional however apprenticeships generally last longer than internships around one or two years instead of a few months and apprenticeships are always paid you could also explore freelancing

which we discussed earlier you may recall freelancers work for themselves and market their services to businesses to find customers working as a freelancer can help you gain experience on real ux design projects a good way to get started as a freelancer is to offer your services to a small business or a non-profit in exchange for a good recommendation and a project to include in your portfolio once you have a couple of projects under your belt and some references you can begin charging customers if you're excited to explore freelancing we'll discuss it more in detail at

the end of this program the most common way to start your career in ux design is an entry-level job entry-level jobs are roles that do not require prior experience in the field the skills and portfolio pieces you'll develop in this program will help you get started as an entry-level ux designer plenty of companies might be interested in hiring someone who's completed this program and produced a portfolio of outstanding work someone like you a job that says it requires a year of experience might instead accept your certificate and portfolio as proof that you have the skills

for the job it clearly communicates your value so don't limit yourself [Music] hi my name is juan i'm a visual designer at google and i'm from dominican republic especially from a small town in dr where i don't have access to internet my passion for computer and internet was very very high that every day after school when i get home i take my cpu and put it in my head and walk more or less one month to connect to this small lab because this was the only location in my town where i can get access to

internet and the first thing that i do when i went to the lab was open google search dot com and just find tutorial about how use photoshop how use the software that people in that time use for design and i remember that that was very fun to me i'm an immigrant i remember i moved to united states like 10 years ago and i can find job in design because first struggle i can speak english even now probably you need to use society to understand me well because even now i can speak english very well but

i try as an immigrant when we come from our country to united states the first idea that we have in mind is just apply in fast food i remember back 10 years ago when i moved to connecticut i went to multiple fast food places and i never get a job and my first job experience in united states was cleaning toilet in a hotel i really love that job i never imagined that years later i gonna start my first koreans in design how i get from working from a hotel doing housekeeping works into google is interesting

it's a crazy and interesting journey i apply in others design and studio and i learned a lot doing draft or rough design for digital agencies and after a couple years working on the industry i just studied by myself using google source to find how you photoshop how you internet how you freehand all the design software and after that i remember that our friends suggest me like hey i think youtube were for google you have the potential to work for google but at that time i don't believe that i can work for google because i never

went to college all the design thing that i know i learned by myself if you recommend me i didn't get the job i don't i didn't pass the second call from the interview process and year later the recruiter contacted me and because they think that i could be a good fit for the company i received an email hello from google and that was really interesting because in the beginning i thought that that was a spam but i decided to up him because i'm curious and when i read the email where the recruiters say hey we

believe that now you could be a good fit for the company and we want to have a call with you i used to want to work for google of course i was very nervous i can't believe that i was reading that email that google want to have a call with me i feel very important and of course after 10 minutes i after take a deeper breath i decided to answer the email and i answered and the recruiter was very humble they made me feel important they was very friendly with me and this kind of interaction

made me feel more confident then i moved to the second step of the interview with a visual designer whether that person was asking me questions about how i design what is my design process they try to understand how i work and the next step was go to the office and have an interview in person with eight people that was very intimidated to me again especially that i don't speak english but i prepared myself i have a problem with my language but i know that i was good in my design i feel confident with that and

what i did i did amazing presentation with a lot of interaction because i want to show them all my potential and then i receive the code that they want to hire me i really like to share this because sometimes we don't believe that we can go far and me that i came from a village or a small town in the caribbean without internet assets and now working for google is something that made me feel proud my name is mike and i'm a design manager at google growing up i always had a computer in the house

and mostly we would play games and things like that but we learned to be comfortable with a pc early on when i was in high school i was in a drafting class and it was using we used computers to to draw i spent a lot of extra time learning from the teacher outside of class hours playing on the computer so around that time i moved from the northeast i was just outside of philadelphia and south jersey so i moved to the south in north carolina and there was a lot of culture shock for me and

also sort of a disconnect of parents there was a lot of autonomy or sort of freedom in a lot of ways so i ended up dropping out of high school just for a number of those discomforts um and and kind of wandered off on a different path for a while i did a number of different things i worked at car washes i worked at restaurants i did network cabling i put installed network cabling in offices and buildings eventually you know i bought a computer a few years later and started tinkering again so i started learning

the tools to create a website for my dad's company so i know i had like kind of a client um and i just learned i just kept learning one thing after the other i'd build it design it publish it and then i started wanting to make it do more and i wanted to have some functionality so i started learning simple scripting and it just kind of continued to evolve from there in the beginning you're learning things so quickly and there's just like this this excitement that comes with everything that you figure out that that works

and in one day you know you could figure out how to do a layout and manipulate colors and fonts and each one of those is like a little wind it's just like a little boost that keeps you going for the next thing and eventually they get harder and harder and soon enough you're building fairly complex systems i definitely struggle with imposter syndrome even to this day and i've been in my career for 25 years sometimes it's just struggling to figure something out and then just starting to to fall into the pit of thinking i just

can't do it or i and then i just drive myself forward just kind of a work ethic approach persistence was a lot of it and also not being afraid to ask others or to look for other inputs and resources you can't do and solve everything by yourself knowing when you're stuck and what maybe why you're stuck and thinking of creative ways to get unstuck that really helps with imposter syndrome and that's true today the nature of my work isn't as technical as before when i run up against something i haven't dealt with before i don't

feel like i'm the most informed person in the room i listen or ask questions i try to find other resources to to become more informed okay we've sure covered a lot this week let's quickly recap what you've learned we've explored how this program works the definition of ux design why ux design is important for consumers and businesses the different roles within the field of ux what makes a user experience good or poor and entry-level ux designers job responsibilities how a ux designer works with cross-functional teams differences in ux design jobs depending on company size and

industry and how to pursue a career in ux design we've got a lot more exciting topics to come as you continue through the program think about the type of job you might be interested in pursuing when you're done every new thing you learn here takes you closer to your first role in ux design and closer to landing your dream job up next we'll explore common concepts tools and frameworks that ux designers need to know to excel in their careers keep up the great work hi there great to see you again we just finished learning about

why ux design is important an entry-level ux designer's job responsibilities and how to pursue a career in ux design coming up we have a lot of exciting material to cover we'll start by introducing you to common ux design terms and frameworks we'll think about user centered design and how it's applied we'll introduce you to popular ux design tools and will learn how ux designers think across platforms from mobile apps to hardware devices first i'd like to share a little about myself my path to google wasn't straightforward i started my career in industries like animation and

gaming and i moved to ux design later so i've been in your shoes i know what it's like to learn new skills and enter the world of design for the first time i love teaching and sharing my knowledge because it allows me to help others overcome hurdles that i myself may have encountered good luck as you continue the program so let's start by identifying the difference between user and end user in the field of user experience design one of the most important terms is user a user is any person who uses a product in addition

the end user is the specific audience a ux designer creates something for our goal as ux designers is to think about problems and needs from the end user's perspective and design an experience to meet those needs think of it like this an animated movie about talking cars is designed with kids ages five to seven in mind those kids are the movies and users but adults and teenagers will be in the audience too so they're also users user experience is how a person the user feels about interacting with or experiencing a product do you think everyone

in the theater experiences the movie the same way not likely but if the end users five to seven year old kids stay focused laugh a lot and cheer at the end it's safe to say it was a good user experience on the flip side if those kids don't want to watch the movie again they probably had a bad user experience when it comes to evaluating user experience there are a few key questions to examine is the product easy to use is the product equitable does the product delight the user does the product solve the user's

problem answering yes to these questions are all goals of a good user experience as we previously learned and these are questions ux designers are constantly asking themselves to create great user experiences as a ux designer you will focus on the end user acting as the user's advocate and balancing business needs your team members might prioritize other goals for a product like sales or marketing and some stakeholders might forget the fact that they are not the end user that's why you as a ux designer need to keep the end user as your main priority for example

imagine you're developing a children's toy your sales and marketing teammates might try to encourage parents to buy the toy but ultimately you need to design the toy to appeal to the child who is your end user okay now that you know the meanings of key terms like user end user and user experience so it's time to move on to frameworks hi in this video we're going to explain user centered design why is it important that designs are centered on the user because the user buys and uses your product in addition it's also important to solve

problems that people actually experience rather than only trying to solve problems you personally experience focusing on real user problems reduces the impact of designer bias larry page one of google's founders highlighted just how important user centered design is when he said there is no substitute for personally watching and listening to real people at google we take this to heart larry's statement has morphed into one of google's core values today focus on the user and all else will follow user-centered design puts the user front and center focusing on the user means considering their story emotions and

the insights you've gathered about them to keep our focus on the user the user-centered design process has four steps understand specify design and evaluate following this framework helps us build products people actually want to use first understand how the user experiences the product or similar products really understanding the end user requires a lot of research and we'll talk more about this later next specify the end user's needs based on your research you'll narrow down which end user problem is the most important to solve then design solutions to the end user's problem this is where you'll

come up with ideas for what the product might look like and actually start building the product and finally evaluate your design against your end users needs does your design solve the end user's problem you'll find out here and you'll also do it by testing your product with real people it's important to keep in mind that as you go through this process iteration is key iteration means doing something again by building on previous versions and making tweaks let's think about an example of user-centered design in the real world five years ago we launched google photos as

a place to store photos and keep them organized over time we notice that users also want to revisit memories and relive treasured moments to make it easier for users to do this we use the user center design process to redesign google photos now users can easily search to find their memories so now you understand the importance of user centered design and why designers always keep the user front and center up next we'll check out two additional frameworks that are popular among ux designers see you there welcome back now that you've learned about the users end

users user experience and the user-centered design process we're ready to go through other common user experience frameworks and their purposes a framework creates the basic structure that focuses and supports the problem you're trying to solve you can think of frameworks like outlines for a project there are many ux design frameworks and over time these evolve or become obsolete thanks to the fast changing world of technology we've already discussed the user center design process now let's check out two other frameworks you might use the five elements framework and the design thinking framework the five elements of

ux design is a framework of steps a designer takes to turn an idea into a working product this framework consists of wait for it five elements strategy scope structure skeleton and surface each element refers to a specific layer involved in creating the user experience and each layer is dependent on the one below it the bottom layer is strategy this is where you'll define the user's needs and business objectives the next layer is scope this is where you'll determine what you're building you'll decide on features and content to be included in the product the third layer

is structure you'll figure out how to organize your design and how the user will interact with it the next layer is the skeleton which you can think of as the layout similar to how the layout of our bones shape our skin this layer helps detail how the design works but just like our bones the user won't see these inner workings instead you'll see the surface which is the top level of the user experience the surface is how the product looks to the user so to recap we have strategy scope structure skeleton and surface together these

layers make up the five elements framework a second common framework is design thinking design thinking is a way to create solutions that address a real user's problem and are functional and affordable design thinking has five actionable steps empathize define ideate prototype and test the first step is empathize which is about discovering what end users really need and learning how to think and feel like them you might conduct surveys interviews or observation sessions to pin a clear picture of who your end users are and the challenges they face the next step is to define the problem

by creating a clear problem statement the problem statement is a clear description of the user's need that should be addressed the problem statement should be based on user research and it focuses the team on a clear goal we'll talk about problem statements in more detail later once we've defined the problem we can start to ideate or brainstorm solutions you should aim to come up with as many ideas as possible by focusing on the quantity of the ideas not the quality you're more likely to come up with innovative solutions eventually we need to narrow down to

a few ideas that we can prototype a prototype is a scaled down version of a product that shows important functions you should have a clear goal for your prototype in mind and finally we test the prototypes with users testing keeps the user front and center as it gives users an opportunity to provide feedback before the product is built based on user feedback you can make changes and improvements or come up with a completely new idea okay now you know three of the most used frameworks in ux design the user center design process the five elements

framework and the design thinking framework adapting any of these frameworks to suit your specific design needs is really important depending on what company team or project you work on you won't use the same framework every time coming up my colleague shabi will talk about inclusive design enjoy hey there i'm shavi an interaction designer here at google my role focuses on scaling accessibility across google's design systems after high school i wasn't really sure what kind of career would be a good fit for me i was interested in technology but i didn't have any technical knowledge so

i was afraid i wouldn't do well in the fields but eventually i realized what a huge impact advances in tech had on society and my life i wanted to harness this power to positively affect the lives of people around me especially those who tend to be marginalized or forgotten as an intern in ux design i worked on products for people with chronic pain i realized how important and impactful it is to consider the needs of people with disabilities and how much i wanted to create products to help them so i continued researching and empathizing with

those who are disabled to understand how i could uplift them with my work it's a passion i'm looking forward to sharing with you during this program so far you've learned about user-centered design which concentrates on meeting users needs as we mentioned before there are many ux design frameworks and those frameworks change over time in this video we'll talk about three more ways to put the user first in your designs universal design inclusive design and equity focused design let's start from the beginning when designers began considering how to include an even broader range of people in

their designs they called it universal design universal design is the process of creating one product for users with the widest range of abilities and in the widest range of situations think of it like a one-size-fits-all approach designers propose one solution for everyone the problem is that when you focus on creating one solution for everyone the designs lose their effectiveness it's often difficult to achieve any goals with your product when you have so many intended users it's like when you go to a store that sells a hat in just one size the label might read one

size fits all but the hat still won't fit a lot of people universal design had the same problem even though it had the intention of being inclusive it excluded a lot of people it turns out one size fits all isn't a great solution as ux designers realized that universal design didn't meet the needs of every user the approach to including people began to change designers started thinking about the concept of inclusive design which focuses on finding solutions to meet different needs inclusive design means making design choices that take into account personal identifiers like ability race

economic status language age and gender inclusive design includes researchers and designers from traditionally excluded populations in the process so they can provide their unique perspectives during all phases of the design process if universal design is a one size fits all solution then inclusive design can be described as solve for one extend to many with inclusive design you solve for one type of user and the benefit of that solution can extend to many other types of users our goal as designers is to build experiences that are accessible to users with the widest range of abilities in

other words no one should be excluded from using a product that we built because we didn't consider their needs when building it in inclusive design there's no such thing as normal there's no average person or target audience that we should design for for example when designing we focus on the needs of people who are blind and deaf even more than we consider the needs of those who rely on their sight in hearing to communicate then as we build more versions of a product we design for additional excluded groups like those with physical or cognitive disabilities

designing products devices services or environments for people with disabilities is called accessibility accessibility is just one aspect of inclusive design and we'll explore accessibility in more detail later but keep in mind that the idea of solve for one extend to many only benefits the group the design was created for and existing users many groups are still left out over time ux designers realized that inclusive design wasn't always enough and that's where we find ourselves today as equity equity-focused design becomes a new industry goal equity-focused design takes the idea of inclusive design one step further it

asks designers to focus on designing for groups that have been historically underrepresented or ignored when building products the goal of equity focused design is to uplift groups that have been excluded historically in order to design with equity as a goal we first need to know the difference between equality and equity the two words sound similar but they're actually two different concepts equality means providing the same amount of opportunity and support to all segments of society in other words everyone gets the same thing equity means providing different levels of opportunity and support for each person in

order to achieve fair outcomes to better understand the difference between equality and equity check out this illustration the illustration on the left represents equality because every person gets the same box to stand on but because each person is a different height the tallest person has a better view the illustration on the right represents equity because each person is given what they need the shortest person is given the tallest stack of boxes to stand on so let's explore how this relates to design equity focused design is a newer concept in ux and one that we often

discuss at google instead of building products for groups of people who are currently being excluded which is the goal of inclusive design equity focused design seeks to build products that meet the needs of specific individuals in groups who have been excluded in the past so what does this look like in the real world start by identifying a product you want to build then think about the groups that have not been served by this type of product in the past finally build your design while keeping the groups you identified as underrepresented front and center it's important

to keep in mind that equity focused design doesn't solve all problems just like inclusive design and universal design don't either the key point is that these are all different approaches to solving issues of underrepresentation and designing for a more equitable future these issues are massive but vitally important often schools and companies consider accessibility inclusive design and equity focused design as methods to consider during the design process but not as a requirement but i'm a firm believer that every designer should know the basics of accessibility and why creating products for those who are underrepresented and excluded

is a must as you continue through your career you'll gain more practice and understanding on how to implement these ideas we'll get to some more applications of this soon hi there earlier we introduced inclusive design as a method for making design choices that take into account personal identifiers like ability race economic status language age and gender and one of the biggest parts of inclusive design is designing for accessibility in this video we'll explore the concept of accessibility first we'll review what accessibility means in the field of ux design then we'll discuss how many people have

a disability globally finally we'll go through three ways to think about disability let's recap the term accessibility refers to the design of products devices services or environments for people with disabilities we call it a11y in the industry and it's something that should guide all of our work and because i'm sure you're wondering the 11 in the middle refers to the number of letters between the first letter in the word accessibility and the last letter all right let's zoom out a little what are some of the groups of people we're considering when we think about accessibility

in academia and the tech industry we tend to think about accessibility in four big categories people with motor disabilities people who are deaf or hard of hearing people with cognitive disabilities like developmental learning or intellectual disabilities and people with vision disabilities it's also important to keep in mind that some people have concurrent disabilities where for example a motor or cognitive disability can contribute to challenges with speech it's easy to assume that accessibility just means solving for one specific need like mobility but accessibility is much broader than that accessibility is about making things accessible to all

people whether they have an obvious disability or not you might be surprised to find out that more than 1 billion people around the world have a disability that's right 1 billion that's out of a global population of 7.8 billion this means 13 of people around the world have a disability in the u.s one in four adults identifies as having a disability in other words people with accessibility needs are a huge percentage of the population and we're missing out on helping a lot of users if we don't build accessible products but demographics can be misleading there

are a lot more people with a disability than the statistics account for in the disability community and as ux designers we focus on the social model of disability which defines a disability as being caused by the way society is organized or how products are designed rather than a person's ability or difference as designers we need to account for disabilities that are permanent temporary or situational in our designs someone with a permanent disability might have permanent loss of hearing sight or smell someone else might have a temporary impairment like a broken arm or loss of hearing

after a loud concert we also need to consider situational challenges situational challenges often aren't considered legal disabilities but we still need to solve them an example of a situational challenge is when you're driving on a dark road late at night your vision is probably not as clear as it would be in the daylight which is a situational challenge another example is if you're visiting a country where you don't speak the language your hearing is situationally limited as ux designers we need to keep all of these types of disabilities in mind as we design features or

new products think about inclusive product features that increase magnification like enlarged font or features that help everyone understand videos like closed captions these features were designed to enhance the experience for people with a disability but are used by a wide variety of people and sometimes products that are originally adopted by the disability community can reach a wider audience for example when the typewriter was invented hundreds of years ago it was an incredibly useful device for people who were blind but most people who did not have a disability didn't see why was necessary when they could

just write with pen and ink later the typewriter gained more mainstream popularity and of course much later it inspired the design of personal computers here's the key takeaway if we make the design of a product easier for people with disabilities we also often make it a better experience for everyone else designing for accessibility isn't an obstacle but a way to get our products to as many users as possible we'll elaborate on how you can apply accessibility principles to your designs throughout the rest of the program we'll explore the idea of equity focused design in more

detail later so we've started discussing designing for accessibility but as i've said there's another important factor to being inclusive equity focused design in this video we'll discuss equity focused design specifically as it affects race and gender but keep in mind that this conversation extends beyond just race and gender to things like ability age and socioeconomic status let's explore how this applies to the field of ux equity focused design means thinking through all the aspects of a design product and making sure the product is both accessible and fair to all genders races and abilities plus the

designs need to specifically consider underrepresented and excluded groups job applications and census forms are one area where gender and race need specific attention because they usually involve collecting sensitive data from users you might have already heard about the importance of having gender neutral pronouns on these kinds of forms but that's actually just a starting point when designing these forms you should also consider whether a certain question even needs to be included in the first place ask yourself why you're collecting this information and whether or not you really need it for example a job application probably

doesn't need to include a question about gender identity if a question does need to be on the form like in a census that's collecting population data carefully consider the wording and make sure it doesn't have a bias toward what's considered the culturally accepted norm for example imagine you have a form that asks respondents to select their gender one form gives three choices male female and other the second form offers a wide range of choices male female gender non-conforming non-binary and a blank field to allow for a written answer the second form is much more likely

to make everyone feel included and it will also probably do a better job at gathering accurate data gender non-conforming means having a gender identity that doesn't conform to a society's gender norms in non-binary means having a gender identity that's neither entirely male or entirely female another example of how equity affects gender is with public restrooms if a business offers a men's room in a women's room each with the same number of stalls that would be an example of equality however that's not an equitable design for one people identifying as female often need more time which

means the bathrooms are more crowded plus people who identify as gender non-conforming or non-binary are not included at all restrooms that are gender neutral however are an example of a physical space that's designed to treat everyone equitably everyone no matter their gender identity has the same opportunity to use each bathroom let's review a few ways this has played out in the tech industry when voice assistants were first introduced at google they were trained primarily with male native english speaking voices as a result the voice assistants could easily understand and respond to male voices but they

had a hard time understanding female voices because of the higher pitch and voices of people with strong accents when the product launched users were extremely frustrated when the assistant could not understand them this example highlights how testing with a diverse set of users can truly improve a product another important aspect of designing for equity is using inclusive images imagine you're designing an app and you need to create an illustration to use as a mock profile photo when a user hasn't added their own profile photo to their account yet what does that illustration look like as

a designer would you automatically create a picture that looks like you or would you be more inclusive in your representation representing diverse people through icons illustrations and photographs requires viewing everything we design through a critical lens avatars like those used in account profiles should also consider age race and gender among other things sometimes designers consciously include an avatar that specifically challenges the mainstream image of a user for the product to be more inclusive and equitable inclusive and equity focused design are principles with endless implications and this video is just a starting point for you to

build from as we continue through the program and start discussing user research we'll explore biases and other factors that impact equity focused design coming up we'll consider another group of users to design for the next billion users hey there great to have you back user experience doesn't just focus on the experience of existing users it also pays special attention to people who are about to become internet users these are the people around the world getting online for the very first time did you know that globally there are a billion people right now just starting to

use the internet we call these folks the next billion users or nbu in this video we'll explain why understanding the next billion users is crucial as a ux designer and how to get into the mindset of people who are new to the internet to start let's break down the big issues facing our next billion users and what these issues mean for us as designers the first big issue is cost people might not be able to afford expensive phones with big screens and lots of storage the next issue is connectivity users might not have constant or

unlimited access to the internet digital literacy is also a crucial issue people might not be familiar with certain design patterns calls to action or icons that we take for granted for example they might not know what swipe means in relation to a touch screen they may not even know what a touch screen is this can affect their confidence and willingness to explore new technology and the final issue to keep in mind is literacy in general some users aren't able to read others might need to switch languages depending on what they're trying to do all right

let's check out each of these four challenges more closely we'll start with cost for example people with fewer resources tend to buy less expensive devices with low ram and limited storage when a phone has low ram it means that the phone might load web pages more slowly and people might have problems trying to download files to solve this problem a company is not likely to lower its standard price instead it's up to us ux designers with a lot of help from engineers to figure out how to improve storage without raising the price point the ability

to temporarily disable apps is one way ux designers and engineers can make this happen next let's discuss connectivity a lot of our next billion users don't have continuous access to the internet this might be because the data they have purchased has run out or because their network coverage is inconsistent or sporadic ux designers should try to find ways to make the offline experience as rich as the online experience for example giving users the ability to load video offline and making sure that feature and experience is well designed moving on to digital literacy it's important to

mention that your users might not know how to use a phone download an app or set up an account without clear guidance they might only use the part of the app that they're already familiar with or worse they might stop using the app altogether when designing for our next billion users keep it simple consider things like video tutorials to help new users understand how to install and to use an app and explore new features with greater confidence finally there's the issue of literacy in general some users aren't able to read or type and others might

want to switch languages on their device depending on what they're trying to accomplish for example a user might want to read in hindi but type using the english keyboard designing a multilingual keyboard option and using universally understood icons like an icon with a currency sign for a banking app are just a few key ways ux designers can make it easier for the next billion users beyond these four common challenges there is a lot more you need to consider when designing for the next billion users for example if you live in the united states canada or

western europe you might have certain design biases like leaving white space to make a document look less crowded or designing for left-to-right languages all right now you have an understanding of the issues that the next billion users face our goal is to make every user feel like we designed the experience just for them no matter who they are where they live how much they earn or how highly they're educated gaining a comprehensive understanding of your user's context is an important place to start and you're already on your way [Music] my name is akil and i'm

a ux designer at google i'm a part of the next billion users team we design products for users that are coming online for the first time in my job i make sure that people can interface seamlessly with technology so an example of that would be let's say you want to send your mom a text and the phone has the capability to send a text my job is to bridge that gap and make sure that you can tell the phone to send a text to your mom now if done well you won't be pulling your hair

the strange thing about ux design is that you won't really notice it if it's good design you only notice it when it's bad so there's about a billion users that are going to come online from countries like india indonesia brazil mexico these users have slightly different constraints from [Music] users that we typically design for one of them is that a lot of these users are using low end devices so what does that mean it could mean that they don't have enough storage on their phone which means they can't install a big enough app so that's

an example of using a low storage device sometimes they won't have access to data or they'll have access to flaky data so you want to make sure that your app works offline just as well as it works online another example could be literacy a lot of these users aren't literate or they might not speak english whereas a lot of the internet is kind of serving people who speak english so that's another thing to think about how do we make multilingual interfaces or how do we make interfaces that don't rely on language at all for someone

who can't read so an interesting example of this could be the music icon something as simple as a music icon that we take for granted then the music note is something that a lot of people don't understand or they don't know what it means the reason for that we think is because the music icon is a very western classical music piece of iconography and since a lot of our users aren't exposed to that they don't actually know what that icon means i think when technology is built correctly it can be a very effective tool so

for things like navigating to a place or finding a partner or seeking information or learning a new skill i don't think your access to these things should be based on how old or new you are to technology a lot of our users that are coming online for the first time aren't often confident with technology and so to not design for them and not help them have access to the internet and to technology it feels like a great disservice to them so far we've learned about popular user experience design frameworks and equitable design now let's explain

the advantages of using design tools later on we'll teach you exactly how to use specific tools and you'll begin to notice how awesome these tools can be what are the advantages of using design tools first tools allow designers to prototype ideas and iterate on them second tools make it easier for designers to test their prototypes and third design tools make it possible for multiple teams to work on the same product ux designers use tools to create wireframes prototypes and more engineers use tools to make adjustments to the product before launch other teams like marketing use

these tools to get a sneak peek at your new feature so they can create supporting content think of tools as a way to make designing easier and more collaborative the two tools you'll use in this program are figma and adobe xd as a learner you'll have free access to both tools the ux design industry evolves at a rapid pace the tools ux designers use are constantly changing so you'll learn new tools throughout your career in addition if you work at an agency or as a freelancer you'll need to adapt the tools you use based on

client requirements the good news is most design tools have similar features once you know one design tool it's pretty easy to pick up a new tool keep in mind tools are simply there to support your work it's most important that you learn how to think like a designer we'll go into more details about how to use tools like figma in adobe xd later soon enough you'll be bringing your ideas to life welcome back we just finished learning about the advantages of using design tools now we're going to talk about why ux designers need to keep

different platforms top of mind as they build user experiences a platform is the medium that users experience your product on such as desktop mobile web mobile apps tablets wearables tvs smart displays and more it's important to design with multiple platforms in mind because users want a product to look and feel similar no matter what platform they're using in the past ux designers could have focused on creating a website only for a desktop computer but today users might look at that same website on multiple platforms like their mobile phone smartwatch and tv ux designers now have

to plan for a nearly infinite number of different devices and screen sizes even though ux designers need to think across platforms it's important to focus on one platform first when you build a new product the platform you select should be the one that best meets your end users needs later you can design for additional platforms in addition to having a consistent user experience across platforms it's also important to have a consistent brand identity in this case the brand identity refers to the visual appearance and voice of a company for example google search should look and

feel the same on your desktop computer and mobile phone it's important to keep in mind that some functionalities only exist within certain platforms think about a voice assistant which allows you to ask questions or control your phone with your voice pretty clever right at first only mobile phones had voice assistance so if the product you were designing required the use of a voice assistant the only platform it would have worked on was a mobile phone but fast forward to the present and voice assistance are integrated into many other platforms like desktop computers tvs and even

refrigerators today there are more platforms than ever which gives us even more opportunities to design features for our users it's definitely an exciting time to become a ux designer next up we'll dive deeper into designing for web mobile apps and mobile web we've started thinking about designing across platforms now it's time to learn how users engage with different devices first we'll discuss user behavior on mobile phones and desktop computers then we'll move on to design considerations when designing for mobile devices let's start with an overview of the current landscape there's a big difference in the

amount of time users spend on mobile phones compared to desktop computers an average mobile session is 72 seconds while the average desktop session is 150 seconds more than twice as long why is this important because it tells us that people use different devices in different ways mobile users tend to be goal-oriented and they're focused on completing a single task on mobile phones gestures like tapping and swiping help users move around the screen test this out for yourself next time you're using a mobile phone think about your own behaviors and remember the next billion users we

discussed earlier as those users come online they're mostly accessing the internet from mobile devices this means the amount of desktop web traffic compared to mobile web traffic will continue to shift it's important for ux designers to consider mobile users connectivity limitations like slower processing speeds and longer load times to be inclusive we need to design for all types of phones whether they cost fifty dollars or five hundred okay so users interact with devices in different ways now let's go through the design differences we need to consider based on the devices we're designing for first let's

talk about responsiveness in the past most mobile websites were a mini version of the desktop site which often made the mobile websites difficult to use now almost all websites use responsive web design responsive web design allows a website to change automatically depending on the size of the device for example a website home page might have multiple columns when a user experiences it on a desktop computer with responsive web design when a user visits the same website on a mobile phone the multiple columns are automatically condensed into one column to better fit the smaller screen all

the content is still there and the usability is way better internet browsing on desktop computers has been around for longer than on mobile devices but since mobile device usage has been booming designers have had to start focusing on designing for mobile so let's think about a few best practices when designing for mobile user experiences first call to action buttons should be placed front and center allowing the user to easily complete the desired task like joining an email list or adding an item to their shopping cart second navigation menus should be short and simple we want

to simplify the user experience on mobile so menu options should only highlight the core functions of the product third use gestures that users already do like tapping and swiping gestures should be intuitive and familiar to users fourth designed for both directions a phone might be held we need to consider the vertical portrait view of a mobile phone and the horizontal landscape view we want users to have an effective experience no matter how they hold their phone and fifth reduce visual clutter mobile phones have smaller screen sizes so it's important to keep the visual experience simple

that was a lot of new information to take in remember this main takeaway users behave differently depending on their device ux designers help make that transition happen as seamlessly as possible it's a big responsibility but a lot of fun too up next shabi will be back to talk to you about designing responsively to meet users needs hi nice to see you again earlier we discussed the concept of accessibility now we'll explore the various assistive technologies that can empower anyone with a disability the term assistive technology or at for short is used to describe any products

equipment and systems that enhance learning working and daily living for people with disabilities in this video we'll examine several kinds of assistive technologies including color modification voice control screen readers and alternative text then we'll explore a few design considerations to keep in mind when designing for accessibility let's get started first it's important to call out that there are lots of people who don't identify as having a disability but still use assistive technologies that's because ats make our lives easier and help provide a better user experience when we think of assistive technology we might think of

computers tablets and smartphones but at covers a wide range of devices like prosthetics pointing devices electric wheelchairs power lifts eye gaze and head trackers and a whole lot more at can also encompass something as low-tech as a pencil holder not only does a pencil holder keep your pencil from rolling away it also makes pencils easier to grip which can be essential for people with certain motor disabilities understanding how people with disabilities use your product is a critical part of the ux design process first up let's examine color modification modification like high contrast mode or dark

mode on a device increases the contrast of colors on a screen black text on a white background or white text on a dark background are both examples of high contrast high contrast makes the interface easier to see for people with low vision color modification also helps anyone who might experience eye strain when viewing screens in the dark or midday when the sun is creating an intense glare lots of people use it just because it's easier on the eyes next let's go through voice control and switch devices both of these help people with limited dexterity and

can serve as an alternative to a keyboard or mouse voice control allows users to navigate and interact with the buttons and screens on their devices using only their voice lots of devices have settings with this feature a switch is an assistive technology device that replaces the need to use a computer keyboard or mouse switch devices can allow users to control technology like a computer or smartphone there are a lot of different kinds of switch devices but they all help people with limited motor ability use technology more easily next up screen readers screen readers are one

of the most common assistive technologies for people with limited vision the software works on mobile and web devices and reads out loud any on-screen text screen readers also read any interactive elements like buttons along with non-visible text like the button names in any alternative text for images alternative text or alt text helps translate a visual user interface into a text-based user interface it essentially uses words to describe any meaningful image for someone who isn't able to see the image alt text is also super helpful for those with low bandwidth connections too if your device is

unable to maintain a connection to the internet it may struggle to load a big file or image alt text is useful for context when an image fails to load as i said before you don't need to have a disability to benefit from assistive technology speech to text is a great example with speech to text a user composes text by speaking into their phone or computer the voice recording is automatically converted into text a lot of people find it much easier to text by talking to their device because it offers a hands-free experience and reduces the

amount of mental energy needed to type let me show you here i am using the speech to text feature on my mobile device pretty cool huh there are tons of design considerations to take into account in order to meet the needs of all users later when we build wireframes we'll go through exactly how to incorporate accessibility into your designs alright that's it for now you've learned the common ux terms and frameworks what user-centered design means the tools that ux designers use and how ux designers work across platforms plus you've gained a deeper understanding of inclusive

design in equity focused design you practice thinking like a designer which is a core skill you'll continue to build on throughout this program my name is elise and i'm the accessibility and inclusion lead for corporate engineering the work we do touches most of google's products and that we are creating the internal stuff that helps ensure the products that we create eventually are accessible and inclusive i love teaching teams that there's value and difference that in the difference that we find with within human beings difference helps us think creatively and helps us see gaps in our

products often when we look into those gaps and the insights that we gain from looking at people who experience the world differently we build better products that are more adaptable that are longer lasting and more innovative when we talk about accessibility we are talking about how to make a product accessible by people with different abilities but when we talk about inclusive design what we're doing is we're looking to difference to their different experiences and their needs because of their different capabilities and gathering these insights and applying it in a way that it will benefit everyone

whether they have a disability or not if we go back in terms of how we used to do websites they used to be very text heavy they used to be more like a book and people with disabilities for years had been advocating for larger texts and less content you know much more like smaller smaller chunks of text and when we started to design for accessibility we created sites that were much more easily consumed so accessibility is important to me personally because i have a hearing loss a severe hearing loss i began losing my hearing at

10 and it progressed over five years until it reached the profound range so if you were to cover your mouth um say 100 words and i guess that every single one i might get one right as someone with a hearing loss i'm constantly struggling with situations where i need to communicate with others i use assistive technology in a lot of different ways captioning is the most valuable thing for me i also use things such as google's live transcribe which helps in real time conversations with people i use google meets closed captions to help me understand

meetings that i have with my colleagues there's also something called intercaption which which captions telephone calls using live transcriber that completely changed my world because before that was created i couldn't use telephone and that was something that really blocked my capabilities as in the work setting the first piece of advice is to consider edge cases or users with difference in all of your product development processes this is where you're going to gain some really valuable insight it should be a normal part of your development process it shouldn't be an add-on it should be considered from

the beginning but i think it also it's extremely important to diversify your own network start getting to know people who are different from you start learning from them ask them what their experiences are like with different technology as they go about their world learning these unique experiences is what's going to make you see opportunities for great design in your products hey welcome back so far we've covered common terms frameworks and tools that entry-level ux designers should know we've also talked about the importance of user-centered design and why ux designers should focus on equity in the

design process let's start with a little exercise take a look around the room you're in right now notice the shape of your table and the ergonomics of your chair what about the device you're using to play this video on right now all that stuff and almost everything else around you started off as a design problem or design challenge so how does something go from a design challenge to an actual user-centered product one way is through design sprints a design sprint is a time-bound process with five phases typically spread out over five full eight hour days

the goal of design sprints is to solve a critical design challenge through designing prototyping and testing ideas with users at google we use design sprints to answer questions define product directions figure out cross-team strategies and even build team culture for example i was recently a part of a design sprint for google's transparency report the goal was to better understand how our users experience the reports we also discuss the website's goals values and future vision design sprints generally include five phases understand ideate decide prototype and test we'll come back to these phases and investigate each one

later so what makes a design sprint so useful for one design sprints save time with a sprint your team can cut the decision making process down from several months to a single week sprints also create an effective path to bring a product to market sprints prioritize the user putting their needs front and center and sprints allow you to fast forward into the future to test your product and get customer reactions before making any expensive decisions running a design sprint is like using a superpower with all these benefits you'd think every product team would want to

run design sprints but that's not always the case before launching into a design sprint you need to review your design challenge and ask yourself these key questions are there many potential solutions to your design challenge does the design challenge require people from cross-functional teams to weigh in is the design challenges scope wide enough for a sprint if you answered yes to any one of these questions a design sprint might be the right move all right so you've got the basic idea behind design sprints down now you know what a design sprint is the benefits of

running a design sprint and how to identify when to use a design sprint next let's check out each phase of the design sprint process hi again let's think back to those five design sprint phases we introduced earlier understand ideate decide prototype and test now we're going to go beyond introductions and really get to know each face a traditional design sprint lasts five days with each phase taking up to one full day the whole process is super hands-on creative collaboration is at the core of every phase let's explore how a team might conduct a design sprint

imagine you're a ux designer for a company called cycling enthusiasts your latest app lets cyclists track their distance ridden and calories burned sadly the app's sales have started slumping kind of like how your energy would start slumping if you had actually taken a long bike ride today so how can a design sprint solve this problem let's find out the understand phase sets your sprint on the right track and helps your team get a clear picture of the design challenge your team takes time to learn from experts and engage in creative discussions with a lot of

different people from other departments and industries these conversations help you more clearly understand the design challenge but what's the first rule of ux design the user comes first this means everything your team does during the sprint should focus on the user so now your team understands the design challenge for our imaginary sprint let's say sales are slumping because the app doesn't offer bicyclists anything new your team arrives for phase two of the design sprint pumped full of inspiration and ready to ideate some solutions to get the creative juices flowing you start this phase by coming

up with ideas and building off of them to create solutions once you've got the team thinking each participant takes time to sketch and present their ideas don't worry about your drawing skills here the idea is what matters on top of all the ideating that happens in phase 2 you also need to start planning for user testing which happens in phase 5 of the sprint during user testing you'll have a diverse group of people test your product and provide feedback to be able to do this you need to start recruiting users that fit your target profile

now so the sprint stays on schedule by the time you reach phase 3 you have a lot of potential solutions for your design challenge now it's time to decide which solutions you want to build together your cycling app team discusses each possible solution and eventually decides on the one solution that is most likely to excite users and increase sales for example the solution might be a feature that uses the cyclist's location to create customized routes that meet their fitness goals sounds pretty cool right finally you'll wrap up the day by creating a step-by-step blueprint for

your prototype next phase 4 prototype time you're now ready to build the first version of your new app feature at the end of this phase you don't need a finished product just something realistic enough to test with users by focusing only on what the user experiences on their screen your team creates a working prototype of the new customized roots feature way to go during this phase you also finish prepping for user testing by confirming the test schedule finalizing interview questions and making sure your prototype is good to go alright it's been a busy week but

you did it you reached the final phase testing now it's time to put your prototype in front of users as users test your prototype you observe how they react and then interviewed them about their experiences your team gains critical insight about changes that need to be made before you launch the new feature to recap the five phases of design sprints are understand the scope of the design challenge ideate possible solutions decide on the most viable solution create a workable prototype and finally test that prototype with actual users congrats you made it to the end of

the sprint now your team knows exactly what to adjust before launching the new cycling app feature promotions for all design sprints are a big part of the ux design world so you'll probably participate in a lot of them and even lead a few someday coming up we'll explain why design sprints are beneficial to ux designers ready to learn even more about design sprints me too from tech to finance to retail future forward companies in all kinds of different industries use design sprints to solve complex problems in other words sprints are pretty much a game changer

but what makes design sprints beneficial and why are they so darn popular here's what a few seasoned ux designers have pointed out first in design sprints it's all about the user sprint participants make sure the design challenge is always focused on the user and their needs after all it's the users who ultimately decide if your product is successful right second sprints value every person in the room from the office intern to the senior stakeholder including people from lots of disciplines and experience levels is a key part of the process why because considering all angles of

the problem in the solution means the best ideas will rise to the top next sprints give the core team time to focus solely on design challenge think about it five work days devoted entirely to distraction-less gadget-less creative collaboration now that's a recipe for some serious problem solving also sprints lowered the risk of an unsuccessful market debut because the team gets feedback from real users and can make critical adjustments before the product launches and finally sprints are versatile because they can be scheduled at any point during your project when a challenge arises you've always got the

design sprint option in your back pocket so are you sold on the benefits of a design sprint yet awesome next let's focus on how to plan an effective one hey nice to see you again as an entry-level ux designer you probably won't be expected to lead a design sprint but it's still helpful to know what it takes to plan a successful one let's check out some of the basic ideas first up user research if you're lucky enough to have a dedicated researcher on your team they can own this step if not well you might be

taking it on yourself user research is always the first step in any sprint planning process your research should focus on the user problems you're trying to solve during the sprint you don't have to detail out a specific problem right away but getting a rough idea of what your sprint will focus on will help you decide which research methods make the most sense we'll discuss different research methods in more detail later next it's time to call the experts if you're planning to sprint it's up to you to schedule short talks with colleagues or industry experts you'll

listen to these info-packed talks during the understand phase of the sprint a good talk helps clarify the problem your sprint is trying to solve keep in mind the more experts you bring in the more schedules you have to accommodate so start planning early we promise it'll be worth it step three find the right space sounds a little obvious right but trust me booking the right room can make all the difference it's important to ensure that the space allows all employees equal opportunities to perform their job let's talk about a few things you should look for

white boards to capture your ideas or hang sticky notes acoustics so participants can hear each other easily accommodations for anyone who needs them and comfortable furniture that you can move around easily you're going to be spending a lot of time in this room so get cozy once you've found the right space it's time to gather supplies if you're planning the design sprint it's your job to make sure everyone has what they need to participate kind of like a teacher handing out classroom supplies some essentials include markers sticky notes and a lot of snacks and water

on to step 5 establish the rules of the sprint if you want this to be a gadgetless distraction-free zone now is the time to say so figuring out the ground rules in advance sets the tone for the sprint gets everyone on the same page and helps your team stay focused so you've done your research called in the experts found the right space gathered supplies and established your sprint rules what's next step six is planning introductions this can be pretty important since sprints involve cross-functional teams that may have never met before we all know icebreakers can

be a little cheesy but there's still a great way to help your team get comfortable with each other plus choosing ice breakers that are relevant to your sprint can motivate your team and put them in the right mindset here's an idea for an icebreaker ask everyone to talk about a time they call customer service to complain this puts the team in the shoes of a user exactly where you want them to be when solving ux design challenges alright we made it to the final step post sprint planning that means thinking about what will happen after

the sprint wraps up like how your team might use what you've learned to achieve other goals to do this you need documentation make sure you enlist a few people to help document the design sprint by taking pictures collecting sticky notes and jotting down ideas okay let's recap the sprint planning basics to prepare for a design sprint you'll need to conduct user research schedule talks with experts find the right space gather supplies establish ground rules break the ice with your team and plan out post sprint action items sound about right awesome let's keep going up next

we'll walk through a design sprint brief hi again so we've covered the basics of sprint planning now let's build a five-day design sprint brief the sprint brief is a document that you'll share with all your attendees to help them prepare for the sprint so let's check out the things that make up a design sprint brief start with the design sprint challenge this introduces your team to the sprint objectives think back to the cycling app from earlier if you created a brief for that sprint the design challenge might be build exciting new features for the cycling

app in time for relaunch later in the year next you need to identify the key deliverables meaning what your team actually wants to create by the end of the sprint so for the cycling app you might say that we want to have a complete prototype that includes the feature update then it's on to logistics first everyone participating in the sprint needs to know where the sprint will happen and when it will be held you also want to list who's attending and the name of the sprint master usually the sprint master is the person who sends

out the brief but that's not always the case if you want to designate a sprint master you should do it before you send the brief next add approvers got some higher-ups that need to sign off on the product before launch this is the place to note it if your cycling app needs the official approval of miscycling enthusiasts ceo before launching the sprint brief should mention it your sprint brief should also include a list of resources for short-term sprints there's probably a team already assigned to this project for long-term sprints you may need to create a

plan to secure additional resources for example with the cycling app you might need to assign resources from engineering to take on the work needed to launch the new feature next we have the project overview where you should explain the current state of the project call out roadblocks that stand in your way state early winds if you have any and outline the estimated launch plan finally we wrap it all up with the sprint schedule an hour-by-hour schedule of the five-day sprint including break times this lets people know what to expect and gives them time to prep

so you can keep things moving along during the sprint and you're done you've planned your design sprint and created your brief the only thing left to do now is to put the sprint in motion if you're still a little confused about what goes in the design brief you'll find some great examples in the readings okay next up we'll learn more about the role of an entry-level ux designer in the sprint process welcome back let's do a quick recap of what we've covered so far we've defined the design sprint identified the five phases and explored what

goes into planning a successful sprint now you're probably thinking that's great but where does a newbie ux designer like me fit into all this as an entry-level ux designer you won't be running the show but you'll play an important role contributing to every phase of the sprint let's check out what your sprint week might look like when you get to the sprint space you'll find everything you need to do your work you'll have office supplies a bottle of water and maybe some snacks the sprint master will welcome everyone and lay out some ground rules for

example you might have to give up your phone and keep your laptop closed until the end of each day there might also be a team icebreaker like the example mentioned earlier and then you'll get down to it the first day is the understand phase where you'll get a clear picture of the design challenge there will be plenty of short talks by experts that are designed to inspire you so make note of any thoughts you have phase two is the id8 phase the sprint master will guide the team through brainstorming activities to spark creativity and generate

tons of possible solutions to the design challenge your main focus is coming up with ideas and putting them out there welcome to phase three the decide phase congratulations you're halfway through the sprint your team will decide on the solution with the greatest chance of success as a newbie ux designer you'll get involved in every stage of the decision-making process when potential solutions fight it out you'll vote for the one that has the most potential as you might remember at this point you also need to start planning ahead for testing or phase five of the sprint

as an entry-level ux designer you might help by scheduling testers creating survey and interview questions and gathering necessary equipment phase four is all about creating a prototype of your product as an entry level ux designer you'll be actively involved in creating a solid prototype for users to try out you'll ask questions offer ideas and review the completed prototype you might also confirm the test users for phase five we've made it it's test day the test phase is the final phase of the process where you put your prototype to the test as a newbie designer you

might be asked to collect user feedback by observing and interviewing users this feedback helps the team know what to revise before bringing the product to market and that's it you've learned all about an entry-level ux designer's role in the design sprint process as you reach the design sprint process finish line expect to feel like you just completed an actual sprint and a track meet a successful sprint will leave you tired but energized chock full of new ideas with a fire in your belly to get to work i still remember the first sprint i was a

part of i came up with some cool ideas but also a lot of bad ones no worries if this happens to you as well this is why validating your ideas with users is baked into the design sprint process you'll have ideas and so will the rest of your team meaning it doesn't rely solely on you it's a team effort and by the end of the process you'll have a better sense of whether your idea is working or not before implementing it coming up we'll talk about retrospectives and why it's important my name is jason and

i am an interaction designer at google the goal of a design sprint is to take really complex problems and come together with other people on your team like product managers engineers and marketing and try to solve that problem together and you do it over the course of a week and you have you do multiple design activities like from wireframing and prototyping and then at the end of the week test with users and it's a really good way to get quick feedback and test those initial hypotheses and that's why it's so important to bring people with

multiple perspectives together you know you may bring this fresh new perspective and you may have somebody else with historical knowledge on this project but we also are bringing people together from product management and marketing to bring all these unique perspectives i think that this just proves that sprints at their core are about inclusivity we really want to bring people together with multiple perspectives to surface these multitude of ideas it's always important to understand who your participants are and make sure this overall experience is thoughtful you put everyone's needs first and i think that it's in

a way a condensed version of your user experience job where right now when you're designing a sprint that these participants are your users and it's important to understand their needs and put them first when designing a sprint here's some exciting news you now know how to prepare for and execute a design sprint there's just one last thing to do the sprint retrospective so let's check out what a sprint retrospective is how it's conducted and why it's important we've all experienced seeing someone make the same mistake over and over again chances are we've sometimes even been

that person what if there was a way to stop making mistakes for good well that's exactly what retrospectives do the retrospective is a collaborative critique of the team's design sprint we usually do retrospective meetings immediately following the sprint so that everyone's thoughts are fresh retrospective meetings don't have any particular agenda the goal is to make sure everyone who took part in the sprint has a chance to give feedback the two key questions we aim to answer in the meeting are what went well and what can be improved the person who led the sprint will guide

the conversation and someone will take notes so that the team can use the feedback to make the next sprint even more productive retrospectives are super useful they can help you to work better as a team improve how you communicate with clients and even point out areas where you can grow as an individual retrospectives are all about empowering not shaming if something didn't go well this is your chance to make sure you have the resources and the tools to do better next time one of the most effective retrospectives i took part in was one where people

actually felt comfortable contributing and we focused on continuous improvement speaking of retrospectives let's recap what we learned we now know what a design sprint is what's involved in each design sprint phase and how to plan a design sprint we highlighted where you as an entry-level ux designer fit into the design sprint process and we learned about the importance of sprint retrospectives next up we'll focus on how to build a professional presence but first we've got your next assessment you've got this and if you need any refreshers you can always review good luck hey welcome back

you now know all about design sprints and how you fit in as an entry-level ux designer next you'll learn what a portfolio is and why ux designers use them how to choose a website builder for your portfolio and start to create your website how to demonstrate your unique value and personal brand through the story you tell how to describe your work concisely and articulately and how to create a consistent online presence and finally how to network with others and find a ux design mentor i'm lisa i'm a visual designer at google a visual designer at

google is a user experience designer that really focuses in on the creative expression of a user experience so when i decided i wanted to get into user experience design i had no experience i didn't have a real first job yet i had a very traditional graphic design and branding portfolio and i had new projects from doing an internship for nine months that i had created but then i decided that i wanted to go into ux and i needed to recreate that portfolio having no work experience in ux to still be a user experience portfolio when

i was just applying to user experience jobs i knew i wanted to be a visual designer so even though at heart i was still unsure if i wanted to call myself that i knew it was important to identify that myself like that strategically in the portfolio so i said that i was a visual designer the actual portfolio in itself i had to completely redo the layout i don't need to start from scratch i don't need to panic everything is there i just need to reroute the way that i am storytelling and bringing some of these

elements to life so it does feel more like a user experience project so i really focused in on the storytelling and the thinking like user experience designer it was interesting because when i got to google i felt okay i can think like this i just now need to catch up on the day to day the tools the software the things that most people kind of know going in that somehow i sort of faked it till i made it and the funny part about that is my team didn't seem to care that i didn't know any

of that they were just happy that i was curious that i was hungry to learn that i was anxious to get started on a project what really defined how i got into the job was a curiosity to learn and to grow and to project myself as a ambitious visual designer as we mentioned at the beginning of the program our goal is for you to learn the skills you need to get a job as an entry-level ux designer but how do you demonstrate those skills during the job application process that's where portfolios come in in this

video you'll learn what a portfolio is and why ux designers use them a portfolio is a collection of work that you've created that shows your skills in a certain area like painting photography or ux design ux design is a creative field so it's important to show hiring managers examples of your work and demonstrate the skills you can bring to the job in the past portfolios were usually a physical collection of work like a giant briefcase full of drawings but in today's world it's more likely that your portfolio will be on a website which is much

easier to update and share next you'll build your own website to showcase your future portfolio you don't need to know how to write code or have any work to include yet as you build your own projects throughout this program you'll add them to this new portfolio sound fun it is creating a showcase of your work and skills is a great way to start feeling like a part of the ux design community keep in mind that the design of the website itself is also important having a well-designed website is another way to demonstrate that you understand

the principles of ux design you wouldn't want your website to have a bad user experience when you're applying for a job in ux as you design the website you want your portfolio to tell a story and grab the user's attention this will help you stand out after all the user might be a recruiter or a client interested in offering you a job next up you'll meet entry-level ux designers explore real-world portfolios and learn how those portfolios help lead to jobs in ux design ready let's get started hey there now that you know why you need

a portfolio let's find out how to make one coming up we'll explain how to build a personalized online portfolio and will help you choose the website builder that works best for you building a website might seem intimidating but there are a lot of tools to help you most website builders are simple to use and don't require any coding or technical knowledge plus they have a support team on staff to help website builders often have tutorials to help you figure out what layout to use and how to add text sound and images these user-friendly website builders

feature wysiwyg editors wysiwyg stands for what you see is what you get in other words you can type and make your text bold or italics as you would in a word processing program like google docs and microsoft word all this might seem obvious but web-based wysiwyg editors have only been around for 10 years or so before website builders were widely available you had to create everything in html and css which are the coding languages used to build the internet fortunately things are a lot simpler now so you don't need to know any code to build

an impressive portfolio if you do know how to code or if you like the challenge and flexibility that you get with coding awesome you can choose to build the website from scratch instead of using a website builder just be sure to put your ux design work front and center and prioritize the ux of the site remember recruiters and employers want to know about your ux design work not how good you are at coding now let's check out some common website builders used by ux designers to build portfolios there are lots of options for website builders

but in this video we'll focus on the three of the most popular wix squarespace and webflow for this program you can choose any of the three they all have benefits and drawbacks so choose the website builder that works best for you don't worry that your portfolio might look similar to your classmates there are a variety of templates to choose from on each website builder you'll personalize your template to convey your unique style communicate the value you bring to the ux design industry and showcase your designs now we'll quickly review each website builder then you can

use the links in the readings to learn more and decide which website builder you'd like to use the reading also has step-by-step instructions on how to set up your website wix is easy to use and a favorite with folks in all kinds of creative industries there are plenty of templates and even some templates specifically for portfolios templates mean that you don't have to start from a blank slate which makes it easy to achieve impressive results in no time squarespace is also popular especially with visual designers squarespace is best known for its blog function but it

also has beautiful website themes there are a bunch of templates to choose from and it's flexible to allow for personalization if you're new to website building it's definitely a great choice finally webflow is a well-known option among ux designers for its on-trend styles and layouts and high level of customization you do need some knowledge of coding though so if you'd like to practice your coding skills webflow might be a good choice for you each of these website builders offer their own add-ons that you can purchase one option is a domain or the address of your

website it's better to have your own domain name for personal branding you'll personalize your template to convey your own unique style communicate the value you bring to the ux design industry and showcase your designs okay now you know why website builders are helpful tools for building your ux design portfolio take some time to check out each tool so you fully understand the options available then pick the one you want to use based on your needs and your career interests next we'll cover the best practices and essential features of a ux designer's portfolio see you then

congrats on setting up your website now that you've got that first step out of the way you can start personalizing the website in this video we'll share best practices and highlight some essential features of ux design portfolios keep in mind there is no right way to build your portfolio every designer recruiter and client has a different idea about what should be featured in a portfolio it's most important to find a way to make yourself stand out from the other designers you'll also want to express yourself in a way that fits your job interests for example

if you're interested in specializing in interaction visual or motion design your portfolio should showcase that type of work ready let's get started pro tip number one establish your personal brand your personal brand is the way in which your personality unique skills and values as a designer intersect with your public persona we'll learn more about branding later but the main thing to know is that your personal brand is the first impression you make your personal brand should clearly demonstrate who you are and what makes you interesting pro tip number two tell a story your website could

easily turn into a list of links and photos but to engage your audience you need to tell a story about your design process with a beginning middle and end this might mean that you start with an introduction of the design problem then in the middle show the process you followed to complete the designs like user research sketches and wireframes then end with an image of the polished design and an endorsement from your client or another person whose opinion you value pro tip number three be concise use minimal text to describe your work and highlight the

key insights that help inform your decisions let your work speak for itself if you need to explain your work in more detail add links to other pages or pdfs pro tip number four keep your navigation simple and intuitive the navigation is the way users get from page to page on a website users should be able to reach the home page from any part of your site and your navigation should lead them from one project to the next it should also be easy for users to navigate to the contact page if they want to get in

touch with you your contact page should include your email address a copy of your resume and links to your professional social media accounts pro tip number five go beyond the template although a website builder's pre-designed layouts make it easy to get started you need to go a step further customize your website to align with your brand and the story you want to tell you should demonstrate your design skills and provide a good user experience for example remove the text that comes pre-loaded in the template and replace it with your own content also register your own

domain name so that your website's address doesn't contain the name of the website builder you can buy a domain directly through website builders or through a third party service pro tip number six include a diversity of projects you should have three to six projects in your portfolio that demonstrate the range of your skills at the end of this program you'll have created at least three projects so you'll be well on your way make sure each project shows a different facet of your design talents pro tip number seven feature case studies a case study leads the

user through your design process from the beginning to the end your portfolio should feature case studies not just mock-ups of design ideas a case study answers these questions what was the problem you were trying to solve what process did you follow where did you succeed or fail what insights inform your design decisions along the way and what was the ultimate solution and why do you feel that solution was the best when describing case studies you might want to include things like the project's name and duration your role on the design team including your personal contributions

to the project the project's goal the research that was conducted the intended audience any sketches or wireframes user testing results the final design and a conclusion about what you learned in the process you'll learn more about each of these elements as you continue through the program one more thing to keep in mind about case studies be careful not to share any proprietary information or break a non-disclosure agreement if you have one a non-disclosure agreement is a contract an employee might sign when working with a business in which they agree not to share sensitive information like

designs in the process of being developed pro tip number eight make sure your website is responsive remember that responsive means the on-screen appearance of the website adjust based on the user's device so whether someone looks at your website on the desktop computer or mobile phone they'll have a good experience and finally pro tip number nine test your website it's important to test your website on different devices to make sure it functions properly for example you might need to move buttons around or adjust images to fit on the mobile version of your site you don't want

to lose a recruiter's interest because they decided to pull up your website on their phone instead of their computer and found the text misaligned like we mentioned earlier having a portfolio with a great user experience will impress potential employers all right that's it it's a lot of work to build a design portfolio that tells your story and connects with users that's why we're starting now if you add new pieces to your portfolio as you build them you'll be in much better shape when it's time to apply for jobs to stay on track schedule time to

work on your portfolio every week we'll remind you to add to your website as you complete projects and learn new skills coming up we'll explore personal branding and why it matters so you can get to work personalizing your portfolio let's get to it hi again we've established that your personal brand is the way in which your personality unique skills and values as a designer intersect with your public persona your personal brand is an essential way to demonstrate your value as a designer and should be a central focus when building your portfolio but why do personal

brands matter let's investigate when you think of the word brand well-known businesses come to mind how do you think about a company when you hear their name what's your perception of mcdonald's as a brand or starbucks what about apple all of these are major brands with very different messages about their business products and the value they offer consumers they might even make you feel a certain way when you think about them like hungry or excited but branding isn't just for big companies people think about their brands too for example celebrities choose their work and philanthropies

they support based on the personal brand they want to convey you can do the same thing as a ux designer you want to build a personal brand that showcases the type of work you want to do your personal brand is your primary source of marketing which is why it's so important to be your authentic self so how do you figure out what your personal brand should be you can start by asking yourself a few questions what am i naturally good at what have i learned to do well what do i enjoy what do i value

how do other people describe me and my talents and what do i want people to recognize me for if you're already answering those questions in your mind fantastic later you'll complete a worksheet that will help you answer these questions now let's explore why branding is important when you're working as a ux designer or in any other creative role your personal brand is a way for you to stand out from the crowd otherwise it's easy to get lost in a sea of job applicants you want recruiters to understand who you are your passions and your strengths

right away having a strong personal brand can also help match you with companies that share your values when a company looks for a designer it's helpful for them to understand your personal brand before they hire you think about how you might shop at a certain store based on their branding for example what brand comes to mind when you hear the words inexpensive or expensive what about healthy or comfort food and how about celebrities who would you describe as a social activist or generous or humble ideally you want the way you think about yourself and the

way others describe you to be similar when you think about your personal brand it's useful to come up with a list of your talents and values when doing a personal branding exercise you might realize that your self-perception and public perceptions are different that's perfectly normal but it's not ideal when you're trying to project a particular brand so you might want to think about how you can bring your self perception and public perception closer together in addition your brand should be consistent everywhere you have a presence online that includes your social media accounts your profiles on

ux design communities your resume and your business cards if figuring out how to communicate your personal brand in writing makes you nervous we've got your back later we'll go through best practices to describe your work in writing keep up the awesome work great work on your portfolio so far you've accomplished so much already like setting up your website and learning best practices for writing in this video we'll explain how to build a cohesive and consistent presence online we covered how to apply your personal brand to your portfolio in an earlier video your personal brand should

come across in your portfolio on social media in online ux design communities and on job search websites you'll also want to keep handy the worksheets you completed about your personal brand so you can reference them in the next few videos so what does it mean to build your professional presence online start with your personal statement which was part of the branding worksheet you completed a personal statement is a one or two sentence phrase that describes what you do and what you stand for think of a personal statement like your own slogan or tagline you want

your personal statement to highlight what makes your work unique the best personal statements are memorable and catchy consider including a version of your personal statement on the about me page of your portfolio website it's helpful to repeat words that you use to describe yourself in order to reinforce the key elements of your brand you might also want to include your personal statement on your social media profiles or your resume keep in mind whatever your personal statement communicates should also be reflected in your work for example if you describe yourself as organized that should be evident

in your designs or if you're passionate about working in virtual reality you should include a design for a virtual reality experience even if it's not your own design you can describe why it's inspiring to you in addition you probably know that you should be thoughtful about posting pictures of yourself on the internet since we're trying to build a cohesive professional presence online your photos should be consistent across platforms like your portfolio and linkedin profile for example using the same photo of yourself everywhere can help recruiters identify you across platforms and when selecting a photo of

yourself to use you should express your unique style culture and interests finally make sure your color scheme logo font and other design elements are consistent across platforms this includes websites like your portfolio and social media accounts as well as physical products like your business cards of course there's only so much customization you can do on some of these social media sites but try to keep the look and feel as consistent as possible whenever you can keep in mind that your online presence and personal brand are important in landing a job and growing your career it's

also a chance for you to be creative so have fun with it next we'll explore how personal branding is useful when creating profiles on social media sites and online communities for ux designers see you soon welcome back now that you've defined your personal brand and built your own website it's time to think about professional networking on social media in this video we'll discuss how you can use social media as a tool to connect with recruiters potential employers and your peers in the ux design community there's a good chance you already have a profile on at

least one social media site like facebook or instagram that you use to connect with friends and family social media can be a great way to connect with potential employers learn about new concepts and ideas and network with other ux designers right now let's focus on two of the most popular social media sites for ux designers linkedin and twitter linkedin is a professional networking site where you can connect with people you know learn more about companies read about interesting ideas and post your own content linkedin is a great place to host your resume and get noticed

by recruiters it's one of the top websites recruiters use to find job candidates in fact many of my job opportunities over the years started with networking and making connections through linkedin so how do you set up a profile on linkedin first you go to the linkedin home page and create an account then create your profile be sure to list your job history or other professional experiences along with descriptions of your role at each organization once your profile is filled out you're ready to connect with people it's best to connect with people you actually know especially

people you've worked with you might also want to connect with former teachers coaches classmates or family members you can add a connection by clicking the connect button personalize your connection request with a short message that reminds the person how you know each other once they accept you'll get a confirmation saying you're connected you should also use linkedin to connect with recruiters in the ux design industry add a note to your connection request that you're looking to learn more about the company and their job openings you can also consider connecting with employees at the company you'd

like to work for browse the linkedin profiles of people associated with the company check out if you know anyone who currently works at the company or has worked there in the past if so don't be afraid to send them a personalized message linkedin will also tell you if you have friends of friends who work at the company if this happens reach out to your friend to see if they're willing to make an introduction to their friend who works at the company if you don't have connections to anyone at the company send a personalized message to

someone at the company whose work impresses you you can ask if they'd be willing to have a 15-minute conversation about their day-to-day job and how they like working at the company finally join a linkedin group these are groups of people in a particular industry or who share a specific interest there are dozens of groups already dedicated to ux design so join one or two that interest you get involved in the group conversation then feel free to connect with folks in the group you can also follow a specific company or hashtag on linkedin like ux design

to learn new trends read articles and chat with people who share your interests another great place to network with professionals is on twitter if you aren't familiar with twitter it's a social media platform where you can follow people interact with their posts and share your own ideas twitter isn't as focused on professional networking as linkedin it's usually better for reading posts from prominent people in the ux design industry starting conversations with peers and learning from industry thought leaders on a more personal level it's okay if you're not ready to start tweeting about your ux design

knowledge while you're still learning about the field you might start by following industry insiders and liking and retweeting their posts if you're feeling bold you can add to the conversation by replying to their tweets you can also tag industry professionals in your own tweets this is just like striking up a conversation in real life who knows they might want to connect keep in mind that linkedin and twitter have different tones and it's a good idea to treat them that way you might be more professional and focused on linkedin but more open and conversational on twitter

that's great it gives recruiters and other designers the opportunity to see different sides of your personality remember anything you post on social media is public facing even private messages to other users can be copied and shared widely so be smart about what you post and like you should also be smart about sharing photos or posts that don't align with the personal brand you're developing as a ux designer when in doubt set your personal accounts to private mode there's a reading included this week that outlines how to do just that alright you've got linkedin and twitter

covered now let's keep going with popular online ux design communities we just discussed how linkedin and twitter are great places to network with recruiters and professionals there are also online communities specifically for ux designers having a presence on one of these sites is a fantastic way to gain exposure and demonstrate your skills in ux design in this video we'll talk about some of the most popular ux design communities dribble behance and medium you can create accounts on these sites to learn more about ux design in general and to get design inspiration from other professionals in

addition posting your own designs on these sites is a great way to get feedback on your work from experienced ux designers to get started let's dig into dribble dribble that's three bees is a community of designers who want to share their work ask for feedback get inspiration and find jobs the designs that people share on dribble are usually not full case studies like what's in your portfolio instead they are small snapshots of work that highlight a particular skill or interest like branding product design or typography if there's a specific design you like you can follow

that designer it's also helpful to check out designers with the most followers in order to understand popular kinds of designs and get ideas about how to present yourself effectively similarly you can follow teams on dribble these might include companies like google or independent design groups that have their own pages plus liking and commenting on projects is a great way to start conversations with other designers and make connections in the ux design community finally dribble is a great community to join if you're looking for a job dribble has a robust job search forum including a job

board and a freelance marketplace employers pay to list their jobs and internships in this forum so the posted positions are legitimate opportunities in addition recruiters look for designers on dribble so being an active member is another way to demonstrate your skills and get hired a second popular community for ux designers is behance many features on behance are similar to dribble for example you can discover designs from around the world and follow specific designers behance also has a job board that features full-time jobs freelance roles and internships you can narrow your search on the job board

down to very specific fields in addition designers frequently live stream from behance to demonstrate their skills in real time finally a third online community for ux designers is medium you might be familiar with medium already it's a popular blogging platform featuring articles on all kinds of topics there's a vibrant ux design community on medium specifically at ux collective a subset of the website medium is pretty different from dribble and behance for example on medium your designs are not the main attraction instead the medium community focuses on long-form writing about ux design sometimes including visuals so

start reading there are lots of articles on medium from leaders in ux design including googlers medium is a great place to discover the processes of top designers and learn about industry trends we even have a google design collection keep in mind that articles on blogging sites like medium should be considered opinion pieces not objective research that said you can still learn a lot from the resources on medium like tips for using a specific design software or how to build equity and accessibility into your work you can communicate with other designers by responding to articles in

the comments section and giving claps which are basically medium's like button you can also follow designers who inspire you and sign up for the newsletters it's a great way to expand your network you can even publish your own medium post medium offers plenty of resources to help you get started polish your story and find your audience you can find more details on how to create a profile on each of these platforms in the course readings get creative and don't be afraid to start posting your design ideas requesting feedback and becoming an active member of online

ux design communities you'll do great next we're going to explain how recruiters and interviewers might check out your online presence see you there okay we've covered the essentials of a good portfolio and the importance of communicating your personal brand next up let's talk about writing concisely and articulately in your portfolio communicating through design and through writing are similar skills the main goal for writing your portfolio is to structure the information clearly and concisely focus on highlighting the most important parts of your story and keep your writing succinct and easy to skim most recruiters and hiring

managers review a lot of portfolios you want them to stay engaged let's start with your introduction the introduction to you and your portfolio should go above the fold on the home page of your website the term above the fold comes from the design of a newspaper if you're holding a newspaper in your hands the most important information is on the top part of the front page before you unfold it or flip it over the same concept applies to websites what's above the fold is the content on a website that doesn't require scrolling down your introduction

should be clear and to the point your name and what you do you might also include something that establishes your personal brand for example hi i'm michael i believe that creative collaboration between design and technology is the magic that takes experiences from good to great if a recruiter is searching for a motion designer and can immediately tell that's your specialty by glancing at the introduction on your home page then great they're more likely to continue going through your portfolio but if your homepage uses vague language or doesn't communicate anything at all the recruiter might not

bother going further next up the about me page this is exactly what it sounds like a professional page about you try reading about me pages on the websites of a few ux designers or companies you admire you can write in more detail on your about me page since you want potential employers and recruiters to be able to learn more about you you might include what kind of work you do what you're passionate about or things you value where you work currently if your job is in a related field your credentials like this certificate and any

additional education any notable projects clients or awards and your contact information including your email address links to your profiles on professional networking sites and where you currently live and finally you want to include descriptions of your work in your portfolio within the case study for each project you should write about the topics we discussed earlier such as your role in the project your process and the final design throughout your portfolio let your designs tell the story and provide evidence of your talent to keep your writing concise and articulate here are a few tips use as

few words as possible to make your point avoid complicated language you don't need three adjectives when one specific one will do the words you choose should be clear descriptors not buzzwords avoid jargon jargon are industry terms that people who don't work in ux design may not know your writing should be easy to understand and approachable include keywords that might be in a job description or concepts that every ux designer should know like the user journey or design sprint this is a good way to increase your site's discoverability on search engines inject personality be conversational your

website should accurately reflect you your work and your brand you've established last tip find a trusted editor everyone even professional writers make mistakes ask a friend to check your writing for spelling and grammatical errors or to point out any places where the writing is distracting from the projects you're trying to highlight that's it now you know some tips for writing in your portfolio writing well takes practice and it might take a few tries to get it right you'll have the opportunity to practice your writing in an upcoming activity if you're having trouble check out the

discussion forum and ask a classmate for advice coming up we'll talk about building a cohesive and consistent presence online let's keep going hi again good job setting up profiles on social media sites and ux design communities these profiles are helpful to find a job and to connect with other ux designers now we're going to put your online profile to use in this video we'll discuss networking and finding a mentor and how both of these can help you kick start your career in ux design before we dig in let's explore why networking is important networking means

interacting with other people to develop professional contacts and learn more about a job industry you can network online or in person networking can be strictly professional for example you might attend a lecture at a design conference and meet other ux designers in the audience you can extend your conversation beyond the conference by connecting with your new acquaintance on linkedin or other online platform or you might find someone on linkedin who works at a company you're interested in you can send them a personalized message and ask them to share details about their experience as a ux

designer or you can connect with folks who are also enrolled in this program in the discussion forum beyond a professional focus networking is social too your network includes all of the people you already know from former teachers and counselors to your distant relatives you can join a professional organization to expand your network too you can find design-related associations in your area by searching online asking your local librarian or visiting a workforce development office for advice many of these professional organizations hold happy hours or picnics so members can connect in a more relaxed setting it's smart

to think about the benefits of social connections over the long term a new person you meet at a happy hour might not be able to advance your career right now but if you keep in touch in the future your new friend might know someone who is looking to hire a ux designer at their company you never know where connection might lead making connections with people in the ux design industry is also an excellent way to find a mentor a mentor is someone in your field who gives you advice about your career a mentor can be

someone with many years of experience in ux design who can provide tips on growing your career organizations to join and books to read or a mentor can be a newbie ux designer who gives pointers about creating an online portfolio or acing the job interview keep in mind most people like to help other people succeed and experience ux designers remember what it's like to start their career don't be afraid to seek out a mentor you might be surprised how happy people are to help you there are a lot of ways to find a mentor is there

someone you used to work with who you admire is there an event coming up in your community where you can meet someone new or should you send a message to the designer on behance that you love to follow when you find a mentor and are ready to ask for their advice be prepared it's helpful to have clear goals for the conversation some topics you might want to ask a mentor about include finding your first ux design job developing specific skills or learning a new tool moving from the type of company you currently work at into

ux design specializing in a type of design like interaction visual or motion versus being a generalist designer or getting feedback on your portfolio before the first meeting with your new mentor write a list of questions that you want to ask her this will help you feel prepared and keep the conversation flowing after the first meeting you should consider how often you want to meet moving forward it helps to set the expectation about your relationship up front for example you might want to meet at a local coffee shop once a month or check in over the

phone every other month networking and finding a mentor can be a lot of fun the more you take part in conversations in this program's discussion forum on social media and in ux design communities the more comfortable you'll become with talking to new people it gets easier and more natural with practice an early mentor of mine provided some great advice that i still use today she suggested sharing my work with the design community regularly to receive feedback she also taught me that it's important to not just focus on what i can get from networking but more

importantly what i can give back to the community i think we can all really benefit from a mentor's advice start building connections now and it will prove valuable to you in the long term if you're nervous about meeting new people or sharing your work with the world that's completely normal in the next video we'll talk about overcoming imposter syndrome so you can shine see you there good to see you again in the last video we talked about the importance of networking and having a mentor like we said networking gets easier with practice and it's completely

normal to be nervous at first one obstacle we all face when growing our career is imposter syndrome which is what we're going to talk about in this video imposter syndrome is the belief that you're unskilled inferior to others or bad at your job despite your successes in other words imposter syndrome occurs when you think you're a bad designer even when everyone else tells you you're a great designer everyone feels like an imposter sometimes from the brand new person on your team to google's most senior leaders imposter syndrome looks different for each person but there are

some tell-tale red flags symptoms of imposter syndrome might include lack of self-confidence feeling like a fraud constant comparison to other people self-doubt not trusting your intuition and capabilities negative self-talk or irrational fears of the future do any of those sound familiar to you in professional settings imposter syndrome can come to life in many ways a few examples include not applying to jobs unless you meet every requirement taking on extra work to make sure you're doing it all and shrugging off compliments there are countless reasons why we might feel impostor syndrome the good news is that

there are some small steps we can take when imposter syndrome kicks in first acknowledge the thoughts recognize how you're feeling and think about why you're feeling this way understand your own patterns and identifying situations that make you feel impostor syndrome is a helpful place to start second own your accomplishments your success is not due to luck or help from others your success is due to your intelligence and hard work take responsibility for the role you played in the accomplishment third make a list write down five things that show you're qualified for the job you are

considering or write down five accomplishments you're proud of focus on all the unique skills you can bring to the table fourth have a conversation to address your inner critic it's helpful to talk about what's going on in your mind many people hesitate to share how they feel because they're scared about how others might respond but remember your new mentor i bet they still feel like an outsider sometimes too especially when they change jobs or take new responsibilities at work ask your mentor how they handle imposter syndrome lastly realize you are not alone if you feel

like an imposter no matter what the reason you are not the only one ux designers with decades of experience still feel like frauds at times i still get imposter syndrome every now and then too figuring out my strengths as a designer over the years has helped me become more confident in myself i also find that celebrating my achievements has helped make creeping feelings of imposter syndrome go away starting a new job or changing careers takes time give yourself a break and understand that you'll make mistakes along the way by taking this program you are already

proving that you have curiosity persistence and grit and this demonstrates you have the drive to be successful if you start questioning your ability remind yourself that everyone started off at the beginning so the next time you feel you're not good enough to be a designer consider whether it's just a bad case of imposter syndrome if you acknowledge that feeling and follow the advice from this video it might seem less scary [Music] my name is catherine and i'm vice president of user experience at google my first exposure to tech was probably in my senior year in

a summer program that was called wise women in science and engineering i'll never forget that experience i was working in a pathology lab and i felt like a total imposter i was the only high school student working with all these people in this medical lab and one day the doctor who i was working for handed me some graph paper and he said catherine could you create these graphs for us and give me some some data and i thought okay i can do this and i looked at the graph paper and i thought i remember my

mother who's an academic had this new software program where you could create graphs using software and i thought okay i'm going to actually try and create the graphs instead of on graph paper in this software program and it went home and i did it i was really happy with how my bar charts and my pie charts came out and i brought them back and the whole staff they thought it was from the future they had never seen anything like this before they were so impressed and suddenly i went from feeling like a total imposter to

the smartest person in the the room so it was my first lesson in realizing that so often you feel like an imposter when you're in a new role or a new situation or maybe you're younger or you don't have as much experience but everybody's got something unique that they can bring to the table and value that they can add that experience is definitely carried through in terms of my love of working on software products and also in terms of how i approach new challenges one of the things that was very obvious to me early on

when i started my professional career and even in my education i was in an industrial engineering program was that i was one of the few women in my program it was often doubly intimidating if i was taking a new job i was the one with the least experience and i sometimes was the only female in the the room what i came to learn to do was to use that intimidation as as fuel and one of my most important philosophies is always to ask my peers whether they were male or female or more senior or more

junior to ask for help and without fail people were always willing to help me and very quickly i would go from place from feeling intimidated and maybe out of place to suddenly having bonds and connections with people and recognizing that these people were more than happy and in most cases actually really wanted to see me succeed i'll never forget when i had my first mentor my boss came to me i was probably a year into my very first job in my career and said hey catherine i'd like you to work with joe i think he'd

be a really great mentor for you and someone who is new in the field i suddenly thought what have i done wrong i mustn't be doing my job correctly why why am i getting a mentor i was thinking it was some bad thing and some kind of punishment and very quickly realize how i completely had misinterpreted my manager's intentions i look at different people and things that i value that they do whether it's someone's public speaking or someone's business acumen or someone who is able to influence and i will ask them or try to model

their behavior so i feel like i've had many mentors throughout my career to help me with different things one of my pieces of advice for people new to the field of user experience would be to leverage the community it's really such an amazing open community of people and if you're new to it it can be daunting and intimidating there's so much that may be unknown so join some local groups who focus on user experience find a mentor find a peer you will be amazed how people are willing to help you whether it's reviewing your portfolio

or helping you think about companies that would be a good match for your skill set so i absolutely encourage you to leverage the amazing community of user experience professionals out there who are open and willing to help congratulations you've completed the first course in the program you worked incredibly hard and it shows you should be very proud of yourself back when you started this program you might have been nervous or excited or both and you might have wondered what ux even meant now look at you you now know what a ux designer does and what

drives us to make products better for users plus you already started building your portfolio and thinking about your career let's review your accomplishments in this course you discovered user experience and why it's important for users and businesses and learn what makes a design good for the user identify different disciplines within ux and what sort of tasks you might do as a ux designer learn the common tools frameworks and platforms used in ux design identify the steps of a design sprint and how you as an entry-level ux designer can take part in that process and start

developing your portfolio personal brand and online profiles so that you can start networking you've covered a lot you have a solid foundation and user experience that you can add to throughout the rest of this program we'll build on your knowledge in the next course where we'll get started with user research understanding design problems and brainstorming early solutions emily who you met briefly in the introduction to the program will be your guide for the next course emily is a fantastic instructor and really knowledgeable about the field of ux so get ready to learn a lot now

it's time for me to sign off it's been such a pleasure taking you through this course i can't wait to experience your designs in action one day good luck as you continue the program