In this article let’s take a look at whether UX design is in demand and good career or not or it is a dying and stressful job by looking at all the pros and cons of UX design as a career option and art.
This is the most comprehensive article on the topic online so I would recommend you to bookmark and share the article.
So without any delay let’s dive right in.
Table of Contents
Is UX design a good career & worth it?
Ux design is definitely a good career option and worth it, because there is a huge demand of UX designers, there is a high salary and it is also future proof, You don’t need a degree to become one, so overall it is a good career option.
There are a few disadvantages like it can be sometimes stressful and it also has high competition but overall it is worth it in my opinion.
You should choose and become UX designer if you have creativity, have good communication skills and critical thinking, analytical thinking and problem solving skills, and you are interested in designing, and you have empathy and want a high paying job.
Now let’s take a look at all the advantages and disadvantages of UX design.
Pros and cons of UX design both as career and skill
Pros of UX design
Creative work & requires a lot of problem solving
One of the main advantages is that it is a very creative profession.
If you think about it the main job of a UX designer is to improve the user experience when anyone uses the application or website or the software/ product and make the user happy while using the product or service, if the user is not happy using the product or service, he might not use the product again which is bad for the business
and in order to improve the user experience of the product, the designer has to do a lot of experimentation and testing, creating user persona,
doing user surveys, by getting lot of data, testing, understand the audience and their pain points, psychology and factors which influence Design, make users happy or sad while engaging with the product, So It requires a lot of problem solving, analytical mind, design skills and basic understanding of human psychology to become a good UX designer.
High demand
Another advantage is that it is in highly demand profession.
If you look at any business and company then their primary focus is to get more sales to their company so that they can make profit.
And user experience plays a vital role in improving the sales of any product of a business because UX plays important role in establishing credibility and trust with the business, UX is also important because there is a lot of competition for every product so if your UX is bad, your customers would purchase from your competitor, and good UX is key for capturing the attention of the users.
Adobe survey shows that 87 percent of managers said hiring more UX designers is the top priority for their organization: higher than graphic designers (76%) and product managers (74%), and tied with software engineers for the top spot, 73% of managers said they plan to double the number of UX designers in their organization in the next five years.
And according to study, improving the mobile UX led to, a 30% increase in sales and a 50% decrease in the bounce rate of the site, Bank of America witnessed a 45% increase in customers after spending in good UX design for the five-step online-banking enrollment process.
So, improving the UX can increase conversions and sales of any business a lot,
LinkedIn has listed UX design as top five skills to learn in 2020 because of huge demand and decreasing attention span of people and the data is that 83% of the people use mobile phones and e-commerce platforms to shop online so UX design plays an important role in online shopping.
And according to CNN the job growth is 18% for UX designers in 2020-2025, if you still want to know the demand then,
You can find more than 14000 jobs to apply for UX designers on indeed job portal, and
If you think about it for a second, basic work of UX designer is to improve the UX while using the product and Let’s assume you are a customer and you visit some website that has bad UX, would you purchase any product from that website or application,
You don’t most probably because it will decrease the trust and you also have less attention span, so, You will purchase it from some other website, so when every company focuses on sales of the product, then as a company owner why would you not hire a UX designer to focus on the design of your website to increase sales.
This should let you know that UX design is a career option that is highly in demand option.
High salary
Another advantage is you can have a high salary as a UX designer because you are working very close to the marketing team and you are an important guy in the sales of any company because of your work and contribution.
According to Glassdoor, the average salary of a UX designer is $115000, As per CNN, It is 89000$ average salary and 138000$ as top-earning.
So overall UX designers also get high salaries.
No degree needed
Another advantage is that you do not need a degree to become a UX designer because there are several boot camps, courses, and training programs you can attend to learn graphic designing, CSS and HTML, application architecture and
many more in less than 6 months and less money as compared to spending a lot of time and money in a college getting the degree which is not really worth it, you can also get a job based upon your skills and experience, to get some experience initially you can work in a startup, click here to learn all the pros and cons of joining a startup.
Work for many MNCs in various industries & jobs
Another advantage is that you can work in various industries like gaming, Government sites, e-commerce sites, travel industry, sales, and marketing departments,
the manufacturing industry, e-learning, banking and healthcare, pharmaceuticals, and many more because You can work in almost any business that is trying to sell the product online through website or application.
And there are also many multinational companies which hire UX designer like Amazon Uber Google Deloitte salesforce freelancer IBM Facebook Cisco at&t Microsoft and many more.
And After joining, You can get various job roles like,
User Researcher, Usability Tester, Information Architect, Experience Designer, Interaction Designer, Information Architect, UX Strategist, UX Architect, UX Product Manager, UX Analyst, UX Engineer, UX Developer, Product Designer, etc.
Future proof career
Another advantage is that it is a future proof career which means that artificial intelligence cannot replace UX designers in the coming years even though it is expected that millions of jobs will be automated and replaced by AI in 2050.
It is because This job requires a lot of creativity, problem solving skills and analytical thinking, emotional thinking and emotional intelligence because
you as a designer have to keep yourself in the shoes of the customers and look at what are the problems they will face while engaging with the product and come up with
the solution to it which requires a lot of empathy and understanding of human psychology which robots cannot acquire so this profession is also a future proof and cannot be replaced by AI but some of the works which are repetitive can be replaced and automated so the designers can focus on more important tasks.
Job satisfaction
Another advantage is that you can have high job satisfaction and happiness.
As per the survey of career explorer, UX designers have rated 3.5 out of 5 stars in terms of job satisfaction and happiness.
And if you think about it you can impact hundreds and thousands of people by making them feel good and happy while purchasing the product or using the service like website or software of the business, on the other hand increase the value of the business by getting them more sales.
No coding required
Another advantage is you do not need a coding knowledge to become UX designer.
Most UX designers do not learn coding and it is not a mandatory thing, but learning coding or even the basics of coding can help them while engaging with other people like web developers and app developers creating the prototype version of the product to do some user testing and also exchange your ideas with the developers.
But most of the time UX designers do not need to learn coding, and if you want you can take many online coding courses in a cheap price to learn coding like basics to be able to communicate your ideas effectively with the web developer or app developer who is working on the prototype.
Opportunity to work from home or freelance
Another advantage Is that you can get the opportunity to work from home and freelancer and all you need is internet connection and a computer, stay connected with your team on zoom calls and work.
You can spend some time with your family members and save time and energy instead of travelling back and forth to home and office, And if you are a freelancer you can be your own boss, You can manage your own time and earnings, etc.
These are all the advantages Now let’s see the disadvantages of UX design as a skill and career option.
Cons of UX design
Competition
The main disadvantage is the competition, there are more than 1.5 million UX designers in the world currently and most companies do not have more than a couple of UX designers to work for their company so because it is very easy to become a UX designer, there is a high demand and salary, so the competition is also very stiff.
Working hours & stress
Another disadvantage is the working hours and stress, and most UX designers work around 40-50 hours & sometimes you need to work more than that which can be quite stressful and hectic.
Some common works of UX designers are user research and persona development & understand the pain points, challenges, motivations, needs and mind-set of the target audience by doing surveys and
interacting with the audience and after that creating the prototype and user testing and working with the developers with the feedback to improve the product UX.
So, your work is not immediate, You will have to wait some time to see the result of your work which can be quite stressful and challenging because you can have more working hours.
These are all the advantages and disadvantages of UX design as a skill and career.
With that said let’s end the article.
Conclusion
These are all the things you need to know about UX design.
Do comment down what are your thoughts about UX design in the comment section below and also share the article and subscribe to my blog to receive notifications on whenever I publish a new article about any other career option like software engineering and ethical hacking in future.
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