What motivates us to become UX designers may differ from person to person and where we are in our careers. If you are starting young, you may be driven by a passion to design delightful things, by the psychology behind UX, by the possibilities of technology. Or by the perspective of a nicer pay. 

If you are starting a bit older, your motivation might be, to finally have a say on what is being designed, rather than just executing what someone says should be designed, to be able to influence the business and have an impact. And perhaps the nicer pay, too [wink].

While all of the above are valid reasons for pursuing a career in UX, you should also consider how much UX Design could bring meaning to your life.

Knowing the real WHY

We don’t usually think “what job should I choose to bring meaning to my life”. If you normally think like this, congrats, you are ahead of most of us. Because this is the real question to ask. I believe UX designers have the power to change the world, and this brings meaning to my life. And by that I am not only talking about designing products that are better for the world, although that’s a big part of it, I mean designing better people for the world. By shaping behaviour through the products they use. 

Seems a bit extreme? Well, think about it. Do you use any fitness app to exercise? - what is the app’s ultimate goal? To make its founders money? That should be one of its goals, but it’s mission is to get you in the best shape you can be, or keep you healthy and sane. Think about your bank or broker. Yes they are in it to earn money but their mission should be to provide you the tools to propel and manage your wealth. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naively saying these products' intentions are pure. In truth I’m aware that many of them are luring people into buying things they don’t need. What I am saying is, there is an honourable purpose within many of these products and it is our job as UX designers to identify it and never lose sight of it. I find that this resonates with me.

In order for you to decide whether or not a UX Designer is someone you ought to be, let’s take a step back and look at what a UX designer actually does.

What a UX designer does

A UX Designer designs the experience that someone has with a digital product or service. For the sake of simplicity, I'll call it a product, but I’ll be referring to services as well. What does it mean to design the experience? 

Well it means to consider the chain of events that happen internally and externally when a certain someone uses a digital product - from the moment that the need arises, until the need is satisfied. Because this chain of events will dictate how it will look, feel and behave.

It doesn’t have to be a full digital experience. Think about a car, for instance. That’s a pretty tangible product right there. But besides the internal digital screens they have (especially the new ones) you also have apps that come with it, that help you communicate with it and vice versa (it can tell you the fuel is low and nearby gas stations, and you can tell it to cool itself a few minutes before you go inside). These are all digital interactions that are pieces of a larger experience. As UX designers we specialise in the digital parts but we have to acknowledge the full experience in order to do a good job.

How is UX Design different from UI? UX focuses on the overarching user needs and then the set of decisions throughout the usage of a product that will fulfils these needs. While UI focuses on the visual and interaction details users come across when using that same product. UX without UI is devoid of emotion, it can be confusing and unappealing. UI without UX can be like a beautiful book in a foreign language that you cannot read. 

What’s meaningful about UX, for you

As I mentioned before, aligning your life’s meaning with your profession can make a huge difference. Careers are not often linear, presenting us with many obstacles. UX is not an exception. In fact, it often entails many “convincing” and “proving” situations. You may be lucky to end up working in an organisation where UX is fully established and people realize its value. But you often have to prove yourself over and over in organisations with lower UX maturity. If you don’t truly feel connected to your profession, it’s easy to feel detached and unmotivated.  

Having been a UX designer since 2010 (back then we called ourselves Usability experts), I was challenged all the time. I took HCI at Carnegie Mellon and a Design degree before that. And I was fortunate not to struggle as much to find jobs as some of us did, I know several people who did. I struggled after being hired, having to prove to the people who hired me and everyone else that I could do this and they should let me. 

There are many interesting topics related to this that I’d like to cover, but I’ll leave it for future articles. What I wanted to convey is that a UX designer’s journey is not all roses and rainbows. It requires you to be passionate about it, in order to endure the hardships. No matter the UX work you are doing. Even if you are just asked to decide on a simple placement of a button, there is a reason to be passionate about this work. The research and testing you conduct in order to figure out where the button should be, may reveal other insights that you had never considered before. It’s this curiosity and fascination about discovering the truth of human behaviour, and design for it, that for some people is their WHY. 

The important thing here is to identify the WHY - what is it about this profession that you find meaningful and fulfilling? For some people it may be to improve people’s quality of life, for others it may be the excitement of crafting a new product, or the revamp of an existing one, for others even, it can be the intricacy of human behaviour. Or it may be to bring technology and Design together in an innovative way. UX design covers a wide spectrum of disciplines that you may find fulfilling. 

For me, the answer to “why I should be a UX designer”, is to make a positive change in the world. What’s yours?