One skill every newbie in the design industry needs to have

In our generation where information is virtually everywhere, finding the right content is a challenge especially for someone starting out in a particular field of interest in the design industry.

With social media being another factor, some influencers in the design field tend to pose more harm than good to the industry.

I recently saw a tweet from an influencer (designer) differentiating a product designer and UI/UX designer. The post basically says, a UI/UX designer is focused on designing websites especially landing pages and a product designer mostly is focused on mobile and web apps. It doesn’t stop there. The post elaborates on the fact that, a product designer is focused on user flows and ideating from scratch whilst a UI/UX designer is mostly into the aesthetics; that is interaction and visual design.

I was totally confused as to whether it was one of those sarcastic tweets but reading the thread made me realize it wasn’t. I wanted to reply but I realized the comment section was flooded with people in support with the tweet.

I can go ahead and explain the difference between those two titles but I wrote a similar article on these roles.

https://link.medium.com/4PpeLIBrumb

The alarming part of this tweet is the newbies in the UX industry picking up this information. Now imagine the harm it can do to the industry if most newbies entering this field are fed with this kind of false information.

As a designer one valuable skill you can acquire is the ability to learn on your own. As the world is constantly changing, so is design.

For example, you can tell the difference between a poster made in the 90s and a Gen-Z poster. Despite design being dynamic, some core principles of design are still relevant and constant.

I’m sharing this to emphasize on the fact that, one priceless skill you can gain as a creative is the ability to learn on your own.

This is not to say you shouldn't learn from other designers in the industry but as a creative, you should be able to dig for information on your own and gain the mastery of differentiating the good ones from the bad ones.

My mantra is learn, unlearn and relearn. The design industry is an ever evolving industry so knowing when to let some information go and adopt a new one is very important.

My advice to designers out there is to make up time to learn and your future self will thank you for that.

Special credit: Ivymintah