2
Industry
overview
How to find your place in an ever-growing industry and an ever-evolving discipline.
Hey, there’s room for everyone.
![Illustration of a colorful banana](https://i-p.rmcdn.net/5ecbe27f82f5b3005df02f46/1937030/upload-fca36dd8-492e-4349-ab23-ed51c66a532d.jpg?w=1006&e=webp)
Goal
Understand the big picture of the design industry, and consider potential career paths for you.
Illustrations by Michela Picchi
Since companies started to realize the importance of user-centered design, our discipline has seen immense growth. Every now and then, we hear stories of companies who have become hugely successful because of good design. These design-driven companies are radically reinventing entire industries by putting their customers first and providing experiences that change the old way of doing things. Same problems, new solutions.
From a business perspective, design has gone from a nice-to-have that will make things look better, to a crucial element that drives user engagement and, therefore, profit. Companies of all sizes are looking for designers who can help them achieve their business goals. So the next thing you want to think about as you start to define your career path as a designer is where you want to work and in which terms.
You can be a designer in a large tech company, at a small startup, at a consultancy. You can work for non-profit organizations, small businesses, enterprises. You may prefer not to associate yourself with an organization and become an independent freelance designer—so you can select the specific projects you work on. You might focus on research, or visual design, or UX strategy. You could become a content writer, an information architect, or really specialized in motion design. Whatever your work style may be, it’s essential for newcomers to understand the possibilities ahead of them.
“If you think good design is expensive, you should look at the cost of bad design.”
Ralf Speth
Design becomes really valuable to companies when we focus on listening to customers and understanding their expectations and needs. Companies that can anticipate and exceed customer expectations and solve real pain points will see more loyalty and brand love in the long run. Think about some of your favorite brands today—chances are you’ve had positive experiences with that brand in both physical and digital channels (like their website or mobile app, for example). Even more important: people stick to brands that have a positive impact in the world; brands that are mindful of pursuing profit but not harming the environment, the economy, or culture.
When companies can quantify the impact of good design (in other words, when they can show that it improves their numbers), they want to invest more money into design. Modern, design-driven companies are often investing part of their revenue into hiring more designers, expanding their digital product teams, and increasing the influence designers have inside their organization. This creates a really optimistic scenario for anyone starting their career as a designer—it creates exciting opportunities for doing great design work.
Designers don’t work alone. Design artifacts (the things you create on the job—like a mockup or a prototype) are a blueprint for the product that users will actually engage with. Product managers use them to make strategic business decisions about features, and developers use them to make sure that what they code matches the design you envisioned.
Multi-disciplinary teams are the essence of digital product design. As a designer, you’ll learn to work with developers and product managers to achieve the best possible outcome and user experience—while balancing things like the technical feasibility of an interaction, or the business viability of a product feature. You don’t want to design something that’s impossible to build, or that will create more costs than profit for the company you work for (with exceptions, of course). Design is a conversation.
Of course, this is a pretty simplified view of how teams are structured. Designers also work with so many other disciplines across an organization, like Marketing, Brand, Legal, Data Science, Customer Service, and others. Don’t be scared, though: the reading list for this chapter will give you a better sense of the other roles designers work with, and how they intersect with the work of a designer.
Reading list
1.
Designing for
the Digital Age
An overview of multi-disciplinary teams needed to design successful products and services in the digital age. By Kim Goodwin.
Borrow this book from local public libraries or buy it from local bookstores.
2.
The difference between art and design
John O’Nolan (4 min)
3.
UI, UX: who does what? A designer’s guide to the tech industry
Lo Min Ming (8 min)
4.
How to choose your first design gig: startup, corporate, or freelance?
Alexis Collado (7 min)
5.
Five ways to tell if a company is really design-driven
Ryan Quintal (7 min)
6.
Interface lovers: interview with designers
William Channer, Timothy Achumba, Iheanyi Ekechukwu (~30 min)
7.
The disconnect between students and the design industry
Sanjana Galgalikar (9 min)
8.
10 heuristics for user interface design
Jakob Nielsen (45 min)
1.
High Resolution: a video series on product design and design thinking
Bobby Ghoshal and Jared Erondu
2.
Great design is serious, not solemn
Paula Scher
3.
What does a UX designer do?
TechCrunch
Watchlist
What would you describe as your dream job as a designer? What types of digital products and services do you see yourself creating? For what industries? In which channels? For which audience?
When you hear about companies you admire in the news, what makes you excited about working for them as a designer? What are some of the not-so-good news about those companies, and how would you feel about working for them when those things happen?
Think about your average day. What are 3 issues you have to deal with on a regular basis (big or small) that you believe could be solved with good design? Which ones do you think are not solely a design problem, and why?
Reflection
See it in practice
Jakob Nielsen is known for defining the ten usability heuristics checklist, a comprehensive list of broad usability rules of thumb listed on the readings section of this chapter. It's a handy checklist still broadly used in the industry. See in practice how designers apply his usability checklist as part of their process and try it on your own: pick your favorite app and do a similar analysis following what you learned.
![Abstract pattern](https://i-p.rmcdn.net/5ecbe27f82f5b3005df02f46/1937030/upload-a874fca7-169f-4b5a-9dfc-c415a76ddd91.png?w=1006&e=webp&nll=true)
![Book: designing for the digital age](https://i-p.rmcdn.net/5ecbe27f82f5b3005df02f46/1937030/upload-734a1b98-b88d-4033-91fe-141f093c0cce.png?w=196&e=webp&nll=true)