I’ve made a huge mistake, I thought to myself, as a realization washed over me in the middle of an interview for a product design role.

我对自己想，我犯了一个巨大的错误，因为在接受产品设计职务的采访中，一种意识被淹没了。

“This is not what I want to do.”

“这不是我想要做的。”

It wasn’t a shock, necessarily. I had been fighting this feeling for months. I had known for a while that product design was not how I wanted to use these newly-developed skills in human-centered design.

不一定是震惊。 我几个月来一直在与这种感觉作斗争。 我已经有一段时间知道产品设计不是我想要在以人为中心的设计中使用这些新开发的技能的方式。

But I left a career to pursue a boot camp. I invested a lot of resources into this. And product design, while competitive in this tough job market, is still lucrative.

但是我离开了职业，开始了新兵训练营。 我为此投入了大量资源。 产品设计虽然在这个艰难的工作市场中具有竞争力，但仍然是可观的。

But product design doesn’t capitalize on what I know to be my strengths.

但是产品设计没有利用我所知道的优势。

我怎么到这里了？ (How did I get here?)

I had been an administrator in various positions in higher education for well over a decade. I had assessed my strengths and researched lots of different career paths before deciding on the UX route. I had lots of enjoyable experiences leading people through change, managing teams, and improving individual performance, so I knew I wanted to keep my career people-focused. I’m also a systems thinker, so I explored strategy-oriented fields, but none felt like the right fit — project management was too detail-oriented; change management was too limited in scope; product management was too big of a leap without prior technical experience.

我担任高等教育的各种职位的行政人员已有十多年了。 在决定使用UX之前，我已经评估了自己的优势并研究了许多不同的职业道路。 我有很多有趣的经验，可以带领人们进行变革，管理团队和提高个人绩效，所以我知道我想让我的职业生涯始终以人为本。 我也是系统思想家，因此我探索了面向战略的领域，但没有一个人适合自己-项目管理过于注重细节； 变更管理的范围太有限； 没有事先的技术经验，产品管理的飞跃太大。

I chose to pursue UX design because I thought it was the best combination of these interests. I gravitated toward the theories of human-centered design — iterative improvement plus empathy.

我选择追求UX设计，因为我认为这是这些兴趣的最佳组合。 我趋向于以人为本的设计理论-迭代改进与同理心。

I knew I would need additional education, but didn’t want another Master’s degree. I would need to choose a field that would provide entry-level opportunities from a boot camp. And that boot camp would need to provide the hands-on, practical experience that would help land that first job.

我知道我需要进一步的教育，但不想再获得一个硕士学位。 我需要选择一个可以提供新兵训练营入门级机会的字段。 而且该训练营将需要提供动手的实践经验，以帮助他们找到第一份工作。

In my boot camp, we were forced to choose a focus on either UX or UI. I had no interest in UI, for the aforementioned reasons, so I eagerly dug into the UX process. I loved pouring over research; connecting the dots; synthesizing data into artifacts like personas, journey maps, and task flows; brainstorming solutions; pitching ideas; strategizing approaches; testing and iterating concepts through the use of low- and mid-fidelity wireframes and prototypes. I was taught that these were things UX Designers did.

在我的新手训练营中，我们被迫选择专注于UX或UI。 由于上述原因，我对UI没有兴趣，因此我急切地探索UX流程。 我喜欢倾注研究； 连接点； 将数据合成为角色，旅程图和任务流等工件； 集思广益的解决方案； 宣传思想； 制定策略； 通过使用低和中保真度的线框和原型来测试和迭代概念。 我被告知这些是UX设计人员所做的事情。

After completing my program, I quickly discovered that UX Designer roles, as strictly as presented in my boot camp, are largely a myth.

完成我的程序后，我很快发现，严格按照我的训练营中介绍的UX Designer角色在很大程度上是一个神话。

If being on the UX job market for several months has taught me anything, it’s that the word “designer” is reserved for those with UI and visual design skills.

如果在UX招聘市场上工作了几个月使我学到了什么，那“设计者”一词是留给具有UI和视觉设计技能的人的。

All the entry-level roles are called Product Designer or UX/UI Designer and rely heavily on UI skills.

所有入门级角色都称为产品设计器或UX / UI设计器，它们在很大程度上取决于UI技能。

Job duties that just one year ago I learned as ‘traditional UX design’ activities have been repackaged into titles that eliminate the word “design,” like UX Researcher, UX Architect, or UX Strategist. And access to these roles tends to be limited to individuals with senior-level experience.

一年前，我作为“传统UX设计”活动学到的工作职责已被重新打包为标题，以消除“设计”一词，例如UX Researcher，UX Architect或UX Strategist。 而且，只有具有高级经验的人员才能使用这些角色。

If a role is called UX Designer, it’s typically an interaction designer who sometimes does user research and yet still somehow still needs to have advanced knowledge of Illustrator and examples of “pixel-perfect mockups” in their portfolio.

如果将角色称为UX设计器，则通常是一名交互设计器，他有时会进行用户研究，但仍然需要以某种方式仍然需要Illustrator的高级知识以及其产品组合中的“完美像素样机”示例。

Further, many product companies now have a design system in place, so that elements or components are ready-made for insertion into a wireframe. I’ve wondered how this level of design maturity impacts the designers’ continued development of creative and strategic skills.

此外，许多产品公司现在都具有适当的设计系统 ，因此可以随时准备将元素或组件插入线框中。 我想知道这种设计成熟度如何影响设计师不断发展的创意和战略技能。

I imagine that at these companies, design thinking is reserved for people in senior design roles under the label “strategy” or exists within the realm of product managers situated outside the design department entirely. In this environment, product designers run the risk of simply being assembly-line wireframe production artists. How human-centered can this work be?

我想在这些公司中，设计思想是为具有“战略”标签的高级设计人员保留的，或者完全存在于设计部门外部的产品经理范围内。 在这种环境下，产品设计师冒着成为装配线线框生产美术师的风险。 这项工作如何以人为本？

At the same time, design thinking is experiencing a surge of interest from other fields that have begun to realize advantages to the process. In fact, I would venture a guess that, given the maturity of design in product companies, the activities associated with human-centered design currently seem more accessible — at least for entry-level and junior roles — in areas like business and education than in design.

同时，设计思想正受到其他领域的关注，这些领域已经开始意识到该过程的优势。 实际上，我敢作一个猜测，鉴于产品公司中设计的成熟度，与以人为本的设计相关的活动目前似乎比在企业和教育领域更容易访问(至少对于入门级和初级职位而言)。设计。

The activities associated with human-centered design currently seem more accessible — at least for entry-level and junior roles — in areas like business and education than in design.

目前，在企业和教育等领域，与以人为中心的设计相关的活动似乎比设计更容易访问(至少对于入门级和初级角色而言)。

So, have I made the wrong choice? Do I have to go back to school yet again? Have I wasted time and money?

那么，我选错了吗？ 我需要再次回到学校吗？ 我浪费时间和金钱了吗？

怎么办？ (Now what?)

It’s a scary and vulnerable proposition to approach your own career as an iterative design process. Testing and trying new things will yield dead ends, just the same.

在迭代设计过程中接近自己的职业生涯是一个令人恐惧且脆弱的主张。 测试和尝试新事物会产生死胡同，就像以前一样。

It’s a scary and vulnerable proposition to approach your own career as an iterative design process. Testing and trying new things will yield dead ends, just the same.

在迭代设计过程中接近自己的职业生涯是一个令人恐惧且脆弱的主张。 测试和尝试新事物会产生死胡同，就像以前一样。

Also the same, then, is the need to approach each dead-end not as a failure but an opportunity to learn.

因此，同样需要解决每个死角的问题不是失败，而是学习的机会。

So, nothing is wasted as long as I learn.

因此，只要我学习，就不会浪费任何东西。

Therefore, I have been exploring other avenues where one might carve out a path putting to use skills in human-centered design. After all, an important skill in this work is the ability to pivot!

因此，我一直在探索其他途径，在这些途径中，人们可能会开辟一条以人为本的设计中使用技能的途径。 毕竟，这项工作的一项重要技能就是枢转能力！

The following areas and roles capitalize on a similar combination of strategic and empathetic skills seen in the rare UX designer role. Many of these are extremely exciting paths that can lead to leadership roles or overlap with adjacent career trajectories.

以下领域和角色利用了罕见的UX设计人员角色中类似的战略和同理心技能组合。 其中许多都是非常令人兴奋的途径，可以导致领导角色或与相邻的职业轨迹重叠。

This LinkedIn Learning course was a great overview of different User Experience and UX-adjacent roles.

这个LinkedIn学习课程很好地概述了不同的用户体验和与UX相邻的角色。

用户体验研究 (UX Research)

The most likely place to look if you want to engage in traditional UX activities that support the design of a product. As product companies grow larger and more mature in their design departments, opportunities for researchers tend to increase.

如果您想参与支持产品设计的传统UX活动，则是最有可能看的地方。 随着产品公司的规模越来越大，设计部门越来越成熟，研究人员的机会也越来越多。

Designers at these companies, though not engaging in the research themselves, still need to understand their users. Dedicated user researchers conduct formative and evaluative research in the form of user interviews, competitive analysis, concept evaluation, and usability tests using various qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Some duties may also overlap with data scientists or product managers, which is handy if those are future career interests.

这些公司的设计师虽然自己并不参与研究，但仍然需要了解他们的用户。 专门的用户研究人员使用各种定性和定量方法，以用户访谈，竞争性分析，概念评估和可用性测试的形式进行形成性和评估性研究。 某些职责可能还会与数据科学家或产品经理重叠，如果这些是将来的职业利益，这将很方便。

For more information, check out the Mixed Methods podcast and Slack community, as well as the People Nerds blog, with this post in particular.

有关更多信息，请查看“ 混合方法”播客和Slack社区，以及“ People Nerds” 博客 ，尤其是本帖子 。

服务设计 (Service Design)

Service design is to customer experience what UX design is to digital user experience. In other words, if you want to design experiences that aren’t necessarily limited to a screen, this is a great place to look.

服务设计是客户体验，而UX设计是数字用户体验。 换句话说，如果您想要设计的体验不必局限于屏幕，那么这是一个很好的外观。

Service Design is extremely popular in Europe but is recently gaining more traction in the states as businesses begin using more user-centric practices in other areas of their business. The process is also being used heavily in healthcare and government as a way to create more effective service models. Service Design teams are being created and demand will likely continue to grow.

服务设计在欧洲非常受欢迎，但是随着企业开始在其业务的其他领域中使用更多以用户为中心的实践，服务设计在各州越来越受到关注。 该过程也正在医疗保健和政府中大量使用，以创建更有效的服务模型。 正在创建服务设计团队，需求可能会继续增长。

Check out Service Design Network, Practical Service Design, and the work and writing of Marc Stickdorn.

查阅服务设计网络 ， 实用服务设计以及Marc Stickdorn的工作和写作。

客户体验(CX) (Customer Experience (CX))

Customer Experience is the strategic work that drives service design. It aligns a holistic view of all the ways in which a customer engages with the business with that company’s overall goals. It seeks to increase customer loyalty and satisfaction with the company’s overall brand and is closely related to other customer-centric areas like “customer success” or “customer service.”

客户体验是驱动服务设计的战略工作。 它使客户与该公司的总体目标与业务互动的所有方式的整体视图保持一致。 它旨在提高客户对公司整体品牌的忠诚度和满意度，并与其他以客户为中心的领域(如“客户成功”或“客户服务”)紧密相关。

Some of my recent work experience was as a CX Researcher with a company called Highland Solutions. They’ve recently launched Highland Academy if you’re looking for additional skills in this area.

我最近的一些工作经验是在一家名为Highland Solutions的公司担任CX研究员。 如果您正在寻找该领域的其他技能，他们最近开设了高地学院 。

For more information, CX Accelerator has a Slack channel and a comprehensive primer. Also, check out the work of Jeannie Walters.

有关更多信息，CX Accelerator具有一个Slack通道和一个全面的入门手册 。 另外，请查看Jeannie Walters的工作。

学习经历，教学设计 (Learning Experience, Instructional Design)

Similar to “user” and “customer,” the “learning” in Learning Experience is the overarching strategy term to encompass the content and information architectural work of the Instructional Designer.

与“用户”和“客户”相似，“学习体验”中的“学习”是总体策略术语，涵盖了教学设计师的内容和信息架构工作。

Check out this amazing overview article written by a practicing Learning Experience professional.

请查看由实践经验丰富的学习经验专业人士撰写的这篇令人惊奇的概述文章 。

Instructional Designers are everywhere. As learning increasingly takes on a digital format, these roles are in high demand. However, the field suffers from a bit of the same complexity and role confusion as User Experience. You’ll see eLearning Developer and Curriculum Designer, too, which require slightly different skills. So, read job descriptions carefully and do your homework.

教学设计师无处不在。 随着学习越来越采用数字格式，对这些角色的需求很高。 但是，该领域遇到了与用户体验相同的复杂性和角色混乱。 您还将看到eLearning开发人员和课程设计器，它们需要稍有不同的技能。 因此，请仔细阅读工作说明，然后做作业。

However, many skills of a UX designer are immediately transferrable. In fact, the ADDIE model that instructional designers use is nearly identical to the Design Thinking process.

但是，UX设计人员的许多技能可以立即转让。 实际上，教学设计人员使用的ADDIE模型几乎与“设计思维”过程相同。

Instructional Designers are employed by universities and K-12 schools to help professors and teachers deliver lessons online, but opportunities for higher earning potential exist in the learning & development teams at large companies and corporations. Usually, but not always, these teams are situated within the Human Resources department.

大学和K-12学校聘用教学设计师来帮助教授和老师在线授课，但是大型公司和公司的学习与开发团队中存在更高的赚钱潜力。 通常，但并非总是如此，这些团队位于人力资源部门内。

To learn more, the I’m New Here podcast is a wonderful overview with tips for entering the field. Also, check out the Association for Talent Development, among other professional associations listed in this presentation from UChicago’s graduate program. I also recommend reading the book Design for How People Learn and this series of blog posts. Finally, join the community and find relevant events at LXD.org.

要了解更多信息， “ 我在这里很新”播客是一个很棒的概述，其中包含有关进入该​​领域的提示。 此外，还可以从UChicago的研究生课程中查看本报告中列出的其他专业协会以及人才发展协会 。 我还建议您阅读《 人们如何学习的设计 》一书和该系列博客文章 。 最后，加入社区并在LXD.org上找到相关事件。

组织发展 (Organizational Development)

Related to those human resource departments with robust learning teams, folks in Organizational Development train and evaluate the performance of employees, but they also leverage human-centered design skills to improve processes and systems that help organizations manage change.

与具有强大学习团队的那些人力资源部门相关，组织发展部的人员对员工的绩效进行培训和评估，但他们还利用以人为本的设计技能来改进可帮助组织管理变更的流程和系统。

To apply the transferrable skills of a UX designer to this field, simply think of it as Employee Experience design. You would be designing the experience of an employee, from the time they are a candidate, through onboarding as a new employee, and into professional development. By doing so, you are designing a company’s overall culture.

要将UX设计师的可移植技能应用于该领域，只需将其视为“员工体验”设计即可。 您将设计一名员工的经验，从他们成为候选人开始，到新员工入职，再到职业发展。 这样，您正在设计公司的整体文化。

Check out this article from the HR Trend Institute.

请查看HR趋势研究所的这篇文章 。

Beyond this, you may also be involved in designing the systems and processes that leadership uses to make key decisions about the strategy of the business, influencing long-term planning processes, overseeing the successful implementation of new software tools, and testing service models that impact the efficiency of the company.

除此之外，您可能还会参与设计系统和流程，领导层将使用这些系统和流程来制定有关业务战略的关键决策，影响长期计划流程，监督新软件工具的成功实施，以及测试影响公司的效率。

This Master’s program at Northwestern University with certificate options is appealing to me and just the visuals immediately draw comparisons to my design thinking education. It’s a whiteboard! And post-its! Suddenly, I can see myself doing this.

西北大学的这个具有证书选择的硕士学位课程对我很有吸引力，只是视觉效果立即将其与我的设计思维教育进行了比较。 这是白板！ 然后贴！ 突然之间，我可以看到自己正在执行此操作。

商业咨询 (Business Consulting)

If Organizational Development is interesting to you, you could also make big bucks consulting for businesses. Much of the work is similar to that of in-house organizational developers, but instead of being an employee of a company’s HR department, you get hired by a company to do that work as a consultant.

如果您对组织发展感兴趣，则还可以为企业提供巨额咨询。 许多工作与内部组织开发人员的工作相似，但是您不是公司人力资源部门的雇员，而是被公司雇用来担任顾问的工作。

This work always seemed intimidating to me, and I always assumed I would need an MBA to do it. While this may still be largely the case, some entry-level work exists for design thinkers.

这项工作对我来说似乎总是令人生畏，而且我一直以为我需要获得MBA才能做到。 尽管在很大程度上仍可能是这种情况，但对于设计思想家来说，存在一些入门级的工作。

Don’t be discouraged if you’ve spent time and money on training only to find that your career needs to take a different path. Hang in there and start asking different questions. Figure out how you can leverage those skills in other ways.

如果您花时间和金钱在培训上只是为了发现自己的职业需要走不同的道路，请不要灰心。 挂在那里，开始提出不同的问题。 弄清楚如何以其他方式利用这些技能。

Stay curious. Stay creative. Or, as someone once told me: Don’t be afraid to get weird with it.

保持好奇心。 保持创意。 或者，就像有人曾经告诉我的那样：不要害怕变得奇怪。

You’ve got this!

你有这个！

Chad Wilson is a design thinker interested in helping organizations improve systems, support learning, and facilitate change. If you want someone who can readily assess opportunities for innovation, connect the dots in data, lead strategic change, and support and grow a culture of continued learning and development, connect with me on LinkedIn or check out my website.

查德·威尔逊 ( Chad Wilson) 是一位设计思想家，他对帮助组织改进系统，支持学习和促进变革感兴趣。 如果您希望有人能够随时评估创新机会，连接数据中的点点，领导战略变革，支持并发展持续学习和发展的文化，请 在LinkedIn上与我联系 或访问 我的网站 。