UX Design: Avoid These Career Mistakes!

This is NOT an apology video… In this video we share some of the BIGGEST career mistakes that our UX Designers & Product Designers have made when starting out in their UX careers. Learn from their advice and fast track your way into a new job, or promotion within the user experience industry.

The video features a range of experiences, from our CEO Jonathan Courtney, Sprint Lead / UX Designer Amr Khalifeh, and Product Designer Jonas Schmahl. They share the key mistakes they made, when looking back at the start of their careers, and the tips and tricks you should take on board to avoid this happening to YOU!

Let us know in the comments below, what mistakes you’ve made so far, or which piece of advice from our designers resonated with you the most?!

Books Mentioned by Jonathan:

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UX Design: Avoid These Career Mistakes!

[dan.carino]

The mistake that really resonated with me was what Jonathan said about being dogmatic. I was so convinced that I was right because I was the user advocate and thought everyone else was ignorant or focusing on the wrong things.

Now, I focus on the big picture; product, business, marketing etc. and that has made me into a much more attractive ux designer. Listening to Jake & Jonathan (formerly Product Breakfast Club #buysprint) was a big part of that. Thanks!

[joelparke]

Brilliant content as always, super helpful, thank you so much!

[presseddrinks]

Great shout about having more than one home screen designs to work from. Getting great value of information.

[Shuriko]

Owning your mistake, even if someone else was involved or influenced it, and being able to grow from that.

[marianav]

Thank you very much for sharing your experiences as UX Designers.

[isaiahmcclean]

Really great video i agree the best thing to do is to take responsibility and own up to mistakes.

[neemok]

Very useful video thank you very much ! :)

[sancharitalukdar]

Hello,

Thank you for providing these pieces of information about personal mistakes and figuring out the solutions. I found Jonas's mistake-solution very relatable.

ST

[sandeshfernando]

Always helpful and quality 👌
Thanks AJ & smart wish you guys the best and all of the viewers..

[chaitanya]

Most of the points have been covered in this video. I am glad to hear these point at this point of time.
Hey i have checked out for your design sprint book, but its not deliverable to INDIA, would you let me know when it's available. Eagerly waiting for it . Actually i got that in Portuguese :) but I don't know that language.

[abdurrahmanhalis]

Amr's mistakes resonate with me the most. Going after everything moves is the worst thing for someone with an objective.

[planetraveling]

Great video and awesome insights! Thank you for sharing your experiences team!

[Clarafail]

My biggest learning was not to get too attached to my solution on an emotional level. Keeping it on a professional neutral level and always being open for different solutions helps me to lead the way to the - in the end - best solution for all stakeholders.
Also: A great design is worth nothing when the content isn't relevant for the user.

[cjblah]

This is very helpful! Thanks, AJ&Smart! Love from PH 🇵🇭

[jabumadinane]

Very important this was... I am still a graduate and one of the most important things I am learning in my career right now is to not take things personally. I constantly needed to remind myself that I am still learning and all this is still new to me and that I stop acting and thinking as if I know stuff when I really don't. How I solved it? I took more of the back seat (humbling self) and started being more of an active listener and a deliberate perpetual learning. In this industry I will be learning till I die.

[andersonfoscarini]

Great video as always AJ! Owning mistakes is such a hard thing to do, but it gets better once you start realizing that it helps you be transparent and people like it.
I just missed hearing from the women on the team, next time put them in the mix! :)

[erickespinosa]

One great resource to elaborate on Amr’s great advice about owning your mistake is Jocko Willink’s book “Extreme Ownership” his podcast clips are also pretty amazing; thanks for this video anyway 🤙

[arnabdey]

Thanks AJ& Smart. Amr just opened my eyes. Damn! 😂

[AqwaQwakks]

I think the one that Jonathan was talking about, not being a UX and usability Preacher. Being a perfect guy to build things with all its vontext doesn't relly bothers the real business people. They only care Bout what results they're gonna get through this.

[ranzteeezy]

My biggest mistake is not following instructions really well, the most recent fuck up that I did is with our new company's client. The client asked us to do a simple prototype because they only need to see the button interactions but guess what did? I actually went all out with the illustrations, icons, colors even hover and micro-interactions, etc. and now I wasted their time I made something that they didn't need, I did not hit the deadline and now our boss has no choice but to give them free time. I feel so fucking terrible now