Getting started with UX design, feeling unprepared?

For those of you who are learning UX design, I think many of you are faced with a problem: there are too many design resources on the Internet, and sometimes it is even difficult to find out what is important. What do you need to learn?

We opened the design website, platform, public account, full of design articles, design skills, software skills, the latest design trend analysis, the design of the latest works of Daniu, daniu company just released product interpretation. Then we had a lot of new ideas: what new projects do I need for my portfolio? Am I going to this design meet-and-greet? Should I learn about the latest prototyping software? Which interaction design books are recommended as must-read?

Faced with a new field, there is so much information to learn, it seems that there is a whole Internet of reading and skill learning waiting for us. But apart from eating, sleeping and working, the time to learn new knowledge is too limited. Yes, our cost of learning is decreasing and we can find whatever we want on Baidu. However, faced with abundant resources and limited energy and time, we often seem to have no clue.

If you’re experiencing this, don’t worry, you’re not alone!

              

I recently read an article on Medium that described a learning technique that helped me while I was learning UX and working on both UI and visual tasks, so I was intermittently confused and anxious. The article is easy to understand, and the learning techniques discussed are not limited to the UX field, but can be applied to many fields. So I’m going to share it with you.

This article is called New to UX Design? Feeling overwhelmed? (Getting started with UX design, feeling unprepared?)

Tasking Author Guy Ligertwood first mentioned the concept of multi-tasking, or the ability to “multi-tasking” that many Internet companies nowadays expect their employees to have. Guy quotes from Larry Kim’s article Multitasking is Killing Your Brain.

Multitasking has been found to increase the production of cortisol, the stress hormone, which causes our brains to constantly shift gears, causing stress levels to rise, leaving us exhausted and emotionally exhausted.

15.Tasking We did not discuss whether multi-tasking was an effective way of working, nor did we judge whether it was scientific. In Guy’s article, he argues that in the complex UX world, chunking is the concept of figuring out what you want to focus on, focusing on learning and exploring, and making it a daily habit to keep up with the latest news on these things every day.

“Chunking things relaxes our minds.”

Chunking, as the name suggests, is the idea of grouping your attention into “chunks of knowledge” of modest size. The author believes that chunking can relax our mind and help us better position ourselves to achieve our goals.

Guy details the chunking thought process, so let’s look at it.

  Start by capturing what do you want to do

The first thing to do when chunking something you want to learn is capture. This is the process of collecting all your thoughts in your head and recording them, on paper, on a computer, on your phone, or whatever medium is appropriate. Make a note of what you want to do this week. This could be reading a design article in a particular category, attending a design seminar in a particular area, learning more about Sketch, or reading a few chapters of a design toolkit.

Important caveat: Most people can only focus on a limited number of things at a time, so start with two or three. Keep in mind that these are learning tasks outside of work, so keep your time and energy under control.

“Turn your mental goals into reality and write them down.”

  Look for common

You’ve found what you want to accomplish, now you need to look for commonalities. What specific area is related to a book you’d like to read, a knowledge you’re interested in, or a design software you’d like to learn? Put it all together and you have an area you want to work on.

Once you block your tasks together, you’ll have a better idea of what you need to do this week. When you focus on the big picture, you’ll have a better understanding of what your goals are. When you are more in control of what you are doing, you will be constantly inspired.

“When we change our attention, we change our lives.”

Complete your chunking task

First, schedule more time – it’s not a formal technique, but I’ll use it first. I calculated how many hours a week I would need to do related design and study. This also includes planning to sacrifice other things in your daily life to make time.

You have a backlog of blocks to complete, you’ve figured out how much time you have available this week, and now you can plan how you’re going to use that time to get things done.

The most Important Task method – Rank the block tasks from most important to least important, and you complete them in that order.

“Until done” method – Takes a task in a block and proceeds from the first step to the last. The author says he will use this method to write articles on Medium.

The Tomato Method – a time management method developed in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo. This method is to use the timer to complete the task divided into multiple periods, each period of 25 minutes. The author uses this method for reading design articles in the morning.

  Create a habit

If you don’t want to be caught off guard when learning design, all you need to do is break it down. You’ll be less distracted and more motivated to learn. The next step is to make it a habit, and that’s when change happens. It can be a long process to develop a daily habit of methodically chunking tasks. Take your time, step back once in a while, capture your thoughts and reorganize them. Be tough on yourself, take the time to create a new habit.

Tip: Don’t worry about what other designers are doing. What matters most is what you do in the process of learning something new, so focus on your own business.

“Motivation gets you going. Habit gets you where you want to go.”

After summing up the block learning method described by the author, I deeply felt that, yes, anxiety and pressure will overwhelm us little by little with seemingly endless tasks and skills to learn, especially when facing a new field. I also feel overwhelmed by the plethora of new design software and design trends, and the new techniques that come with them. I’m afraid I won’t be able to keep up. Block learning helps us better manage our anxiety, relieve stress, and learn new knowledge and skills efficiently. I think the purpose of extensive learning is to find out what we are most interested in and then explore it more intently.

Reference link: https://uxplanet.org/new-to-ux-design-feeling-overwhelmed-40ea8e330ab1

Guy Ligertwood

Original translation: Zhen Damiao