Comments on: How to Survive as Your Company’s Solo UXer

By: Brooke Webster

Brooke Webster — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 16:19:32 +0000

In reply to M. Thank you so much for your insightful comment, M. I feel like I want to print it and put it on my wall to keep me going LOL

By: Brooke Webster

Brooke Webster — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 16:16:47 +0000

I may have rose colored glasses on, as my comment has a different tone than many others. :P

I’m just getting started as the one-woman design team at a startup. Throughout my recent job search I got a lot of feedback about my work being “too UXy” to land a Product Design job, which I applied for almost exclusively. So, the thought of being more UI focused is OK for me to get balanced. At the same time, I’m excited about the idea of bringing the user’s voice into the process here for the first time. There are so many processes to be put in place that I took for granted at my last big corporate job. So I am hoping that I can prove out these processes to be valuable.

There’s a lot of opportunity for me to learn and grow here. Whether or not that will be a pleasant experience overall is another topic. We shall see. :)

By: Gillian

Gillian — Fri, 12 Mar 2021 00:23:25 +0000

I’ve been the solo UXer in my company for a while now. When I started I had to prove the value of my work – answering what felt like 100s of questions about my process, presenting and writing documents about what I was doing and why (especially why we actually needed to talk to users).

But, it only one project, with real comments from real people to sway the right people. Some of those have left (and I’ve had to train new people in the joy of UX) but those who are still there value me, my work and are my champion. Yes it can be tough, but if you do a good job, get the right people on your side and continue to prove the value of UX the work can be varied and fun. It’s all about what you make of the job.

(PS… and when I wonder if I am missing new skills by not being elsewhere I train – go to a conference, read, I even once went to a beginners UX course to check my processes. I’m alone but not on my own!)

By: Anne

Anne — Mon, 14 Sep 2020 04:36:29 +0000

In reply to Kevin.

This article and comments really speaks to my experience as a solo UX designer at a tech start-up. My company has no product team, no user-centered design, user testing or real involvement with users or user research.

Our design process consists almost entirely of engineers sitting in a room having never spoken to nor met a single user of our product and arguing about UX design. I do not consider this to be design but they see no issue with it.

Since they’re the ones that have to build the product, their opinions carry the most weight and like others have mentioned, I’m basically a UI designer but not by choice. I would not recommend this experience to a new designer as you will almost always be outnumbered and outvoted by whatever the pre-dominant force is at the company (in my case, engineering).

By: M

Sat, 01 Dec 2018 17:43:16 +0000

I think this article is spot on. I’m a UX of one, but have years of experience in this field that include multiple years of consulting with high level clients. The truth is, that this is not for everyone. You have to be established in your methodology and have the experience to understand where to integrate when no one knows what you do. This is not suited for entry level designers and even most mid level. Our field is a bit ambiguous to most not in it. Even amongst each other you find a struggle in explaining what we do. However, this falls on us to educate our clients and organization as to the benefits of an experience focused approach. Understanding that UX is just a small piece of the experience process is key in understanding how to interface with your leadership. I have interacted consistently with CEOs and all levels of executives and have stood in front explaining why their vision is flawed and why we should initiate better processes and workflows that focus on the experience while aligning to business objectives. It is not easy, but for those that enjoy creating strategy and evangelizing the practice, this is well worth it. Be confident in your expertise and as far as salary goes, you hold the keys by commanding your worth based on your knowledge. Believe me when I say that as long as you are knowledgeable and keep up to date with your practice, you would be amazed how much can get done. Also, be willing to understand all aspects of your company or client. Understanding their part to play will give you the foundation to start conversations on how you can improve them.

By: Lindsay

Lindsay — Tue, 06 Nov 2018 13:06:19 +0000

In reply to Brendin du Plessis. One thing that is critical to note going into a job like this, is make sure upper management already has support/buy-in during the interview process. I did this with my company and I have full support. One of the first things we're doing is defining that process as a team to make it work for our company. My last company is exactly the same situation you're going through. I learned from that experience and was able to arm myself with questions to ensure I was finding myself in the right place. What does User Experience mean to you? What is the value of User Research to your company? (I also had a requirement that they MUST ASK ME about my process.) I also asked them what the differences between UI and UX design was. Basically grilled them on their understanding.

By: Doug Collins

Doug Collins — Tue, 16 Oct 2018 15:06:58 +0000

In reply to Kevin. I can definitely understand this sentiment. Working on your own you're swimming upstream all the way. It can be a great way to build skills and learn lessons, but may not be a great fit for everyone - especially those new to the UX world.

By: Jim

Jim — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 08:03:56 +0000

Good user experience is clearly good for business,” he writes. “ Studies show that companies that invest in UX see a lower cost of customer acquisition, lower support cost, increased customer retention and increased market share.”

Can you link to these studies, it would be so helpful. I’m in this position right now in my career.

By: Hollie Phillips

Hollie Phillips — Thu, 14 Jun 2018 20:13:17 +0000

I completely agree with the comments here. It sounds like the fundamental problem in these companies is that they lack sound product development practices (ya know, business strategy, who’s our target customer, how are we gonna make money? type stuff), without which, it’s pretty impossible to have user-centered design.

I got out of a similar situation by finding an advocate among leadership. I think that’s really key.

By: Brendin du Plessis

Brendin du Plessis — Mon, 23 Apr 2018 15:13:10 +0000

Guys… The struggle is real! I’ve been recruited to be a Lead UX Designer at a company (startup environment) and one would think, people advocating for UX, understands UX… Uhm, clearly not! As many of you mentioned, I’m a glorified UI Designer, not by choice but by how we approached things.

I’ve read this approach to establish a process – First thing I tried to do but there’s absolutely NO interest or buy-in to establish a process. Despite our KanBan inspired approach with no roadmap or proper prioritizing, I often hear the words: “If this process will help YOU understand the problem better / to achieve optimal outcomes, then go for it!” I’ve refined my Strategy documents to literally 4 blocks to try and get engagement, due to the fact that everybody hates documentation but still nothing. No one seems to agree on any outcome nor how it should be measured. Workshops are out of the equation as the whole team is hardly available. I’ve been pushing to be included in meetings whenever we have a roadmap / possible direction meetings, but I’m being excluded from those, according to me, deliberately.

So our team is currently doing a KanBan approach as mentioned, so we keep on feeding the conveyer belt, operating from a point of subjectiveness when it comes to prioritizing and ignoring some of the IN-HOUSE clients’ frustrations.

In all honesty, I’ve sort of given up to establish a UX process or to change the inner workings of the company to be more User Centered. Especially when I’m constantly being overruled by Head of Dev or PM’s purely because the process seems like a drag.

I agree that it can be very rewarding and that it can be done BUT without any real investment or collaboration, I can’t think of a way that UX will ever work apart from UX-ers being utilized as UI Designers…