Manikk R’s Post

Is it industry or designers? ____________________________ Matej Latin recently shared a report about the reasons designers quit their jobs in 2023 "Excluding the layoffs, boring work, low UX maturity, and no career progression are the main reasons,” Matej says. Well, I think it’s hard to find a designer who wouldn’t love to work on the most interesting projects and get a promotion every year. Fair enough. As for the low UX maturity, it sounds interesting. 77.5% of designers mentioned that UX in their former company was somewhere between “absent” and “emergent” levels. This makes me think that the digital product field is still quite chaotic and unstructured. The question that comes to mind: is it because designers fail to advocate their UX-driven solutions or because the business doesn’t believe in the impact of UX? I wonder if it would be a valid career strategy for designers to target those companies with low UX maturity levels and level them up. What do you think?

Are you also struggling with getting your portfolio finalized? You are not alone in it. One in two designers doesn't have their portfolio ready when they enter the job market. As a design recruiter who's hired for hundreds of design roles worldwide, I can confidently say that portfolio matters.  A portfolio is not just an online archive of your past projects. It shows the reviewer the depth and breadth of your understanding and practice of design. And what's really important — what makes you stand out 💡 This is the second post of our #designhiringhub series with a talented design recruiter, Lena Kul. We are sharing some tips and portfolio Does and Don'ts (WITH EXAMPLES!). Huge thanks to Julius Sohn - Senior Product Designer from Miro (ex-Twitter), whose portfolio we included as an example and inspiration. Do you agree with our points? What would you add? Let us know in the comments! K&L 💚 #design #careertips #portfolio #designhiringhub #portfoliotips

2023 marked an eventful year for the Design field, and 2024 promises excitement with numerous compelling topics: * What implications does AI's growing role in design tools, and enhancing workflows, hold for the future of design teams? * Enhanced features in tools like Figma narrow the gap between product and engineering, how can designers adapt to deliver maximum value? * The longstanding perception that organizations undervalue design sadly persists. In 2023, design teams were among the first to face layoffs amid recession fears and increased venture capital costs. How can design leaders reshape strategies to alter this perception? * Navigating a junior designer's realm is challenging and often disheartening, especially with minimal equity and no salary in a founding role for a pre-seed company. How can we safeguard young designers to prevent exploitation by companies? * Invision, founded in 2011, once valued at 2 billion USD, ceases operations by the end of 2024. Invision is not the first case and won't be the last. How can we prevent our design team from becoming dependent on tools from a particular vendor? We'll be talking about these and more during our next meet-up. 📅 24th Jan 📍 Monkey Pod. Sukhumvit 13 🥂 Come over and talk design!

I'm one of those who struggles upkeeping a portfolio. It's a pain and makes my brain feel like a tangled mess. And while being employed, it's not something that vies for my attention (out of sight, out of mind. IYKYK). After being laid off, I gathered what artifacts I could because I knew that I would eventually need to face the beast: updating my portfolio. In addition to the usual aversion to portfolio maintenance, there is now this added sense of urgency because I need it for job apps. This really pushes my brain into avoidance mode because otherwise everything feels too overwhelming. The brain really does its best to cope and keep you surviving - the downfall is that these protective measures don't always serve us in the way we need them to. (Yes, the brain can be rewired, but it takes a lot of awareness and intentionality. and energy. It's a process.) All that to say, if you're feeling the same way - You. Are. Not. Alone. Approach yourself with grace and softness during this time. And some deep breaths. We can (and will) get through this. Also, this article is really helping me break down the work I've done beforehand so that I'm not trying to articulate and craft a case study page at the same time: https://lnkd.in/ehQxvbQT #layoffs #layoffsupport #casestudy #portfolio #uxdesign #productdesign

🌟 Quick Tips from My Recent Hiring Experience! 🌟 A few days ago I sent out a post on LinkedIn for a Product Designer. I noticed a few mistakes a lot of applicants were making while reaching out, therefore sharing a few insights from my experience hoping people can benefit, from while applying for roles: 🔗 Resume & Portfolio First: Attach them in your first message – it helped me quickly evaluate your skills and shortlist candidates. 💡 Unique Identifiers: A lot of people were using Figma template designs. Candidates with distinctive design styles, even if lacking a strong design sense, stood out. Be memorable! 🚫 Short & Sweet DMs: I didn't read even a single long paragraph sent out to me instead I only looked for links. Keep it concise; with only necessary information. 🎣 Hook in First Two Projects: Make those initial projects captivating; if they didn't grab my attention, I moved on. #HiringInsights #DesignOpportunity #KeepItBrief

Layoffs have hit designers hard and while the design industry is in an era of efficiency (widespread adoption of component libraries, templates etc) this brings a dilemma 🤔 where convenience trumps user-centricity. As companies leverage a bounty of resources to swiftly create scalable, engaging user experiences, there is a but. Seeing organisations invest less in senior designers while in pursuit of efficiency, leaning more on ready-to-use components and designers becoming more ‘drag-and-drop designers’ organisations are in danger of their designers losing motivation to create the unique or answer difficult questions. The lack of mentorship from senior designers (due to layoffs) will skew solutions towards convenience, at the expense of user-centricity. The role of design leaders is critical. They ensure that the pursuit of efficiency does not undermine innovation and experimentation. How do you encourage experimentation in this era of rapid design?

Recommended reading ➡️ Brilliant article from Margaret (Mags) Hanley now live on our Aquent Australia blog 🙌 You can read "Designers: How To Future-Proof Your Design Career" via the link in the post below

"Hi Mercy, we're pleased to inform you that you've made it to the next round of the interview process, find attached below a document that entails all you need to do" Lo and behold guys, it was a design task😂 For a designer who hasn't been in the field all that long, I knew nothing about the fraud behind designs tasks. And so, I jumped right in, with all the excitement in the world. LMAO Tendered in my designs and waited for a response because I was well too sure that I had nailed it. 1st week, nothing.. 2nd week, nothing... 3rd week, still nothing... Came online one day and saw a new job ad from the start-up, same position, and bruh, I couldn't believe my eyes. So I sent a message to one of the hiring manager and he was like, Him: "we're sorry but the scope of the work has changed, it's no longer a remote but an on-site position. If you're still interested then feel free to apply again. Me: Don't you think it's rather very unprofessional to change the scope of the job and not even bother to let the applicants know? Him: It just happened." And that was it. No detailed explanation, no remorse. Heck! Turns out they didn't even view the Figma file. ------- This happened mid last year or so, and ever since then I've had my fill. I think companies need to stop this sham of a thing called design tasks. I mean, isn't that why we have portfolios? To show that we can actually do what we claim we can do?? I mean, the emotions that comes with job hunting is already daunting enough in itself, why make it worse for applicants?? That's one of the experiences that made me decide to never participate in any design task anymore, if you can't hire me based on what you see in my portfolio then please leave me alone abeg😂 Stop the fraud behind design tasks, T for tenks😙 Have you ever had a similar experience? Please share with us

Great read about the current and future position of Product Design in tech. Could not agree more. "Design workflows at most tech companies follow an incredible number of structured tasks: for each project, designers must create user personas, user stories, journey maps, wireframes, user interviews, and much more. These concepts originated in the service design industry and initially helped facilitate a very human-focused design process – which, of course, is good. However, driven by a desire from businesses to turn design into a process-heavy, measurable function, we’re filling our time with checklists instead of focusing on the very thing that makes designers relevant: our ability to propose new points of view and delight users with meaningful experiences. These core competences that were inherited from graphic design have been replaced with a poor man’s version of an anthropology major where the act of design is mostly based on averaging user opinions." https://lnkd.in/dwJhER7e

Dear community, We are starting to work on a piece about “the state of design” –the many whispers of doom and crisis– and thought the best way to discuss such a “polymorphic issue” is to open up the discussion to other voices and perspectives. 👉 We are looking for members to participate in the article. You can write something as long as you want (no format restrictions) —with links and references whenever possible. Your name will be displayed in the title of your section and profile details/link (at your discretion) at the end. 📚 Topics & themes 1️⃣ The state of UX or “late-stage UX”: - The “decline of design”, the “downfall of designers” - The commodification of the design process and/or activities - The layoffs; shrinking market; no more free money; low entry level / inadequate skills; etc - The replacement of design roles by [AI] 2️⃣ Beyond the hype, beyond clutter: - The future of design and designers’ role - Where should design be next? What should design do next? - What does that mean for organisations, services, products, human experiences; 3️⃣ Bonus/Critical thinking: - What are we missing? What are the misdirections? What are the false promises/apocalypses? What are the signals? 📆 Proposed deadline: April 12 2024 If you're interested to participate, please register here 👉 https://lnkd.in/eUiu3s-t Thanks, Kevin Richard #designers #design #ux #uxdesign #designthinking #designstrategy #strategicdesign #servicedesign #productdesign #designeducation #circulardesign #sustainabledesign #humancentereddesign #criticalthinking #systemsthinking #futuresthinking #foresight #designfiction