Getting a new job is quite common these days, but what if you're changing your field completely? It's hard to let go of the familiar and embrace a new domain in the pursuit of more job satisfaction, but many UX professionals have gone through this process. To explore this topic, we speak with guests Neila Romdane and Kate Benson; two people at opposite ends of the career transition spectrum. Neila is a former marketing director just starting her UX career, while Kate is a Lead UX Designer who successfully made the switch years ago.
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Kate: [00:00:00] I would say that the first CV that I designed, I did focus on the skills that I had from my previous career. But, then little by little, I spoke less and less and less. (laughs) Now it's been about eight years that I've been in the field, so I have consequential experience in different agencies and different projects and so I just speak about that.
Neila: [00:00:21] I will do that one day, too. (laughter)
Evan: [00:00:42] Howdy friends! This is the Ascend UX podcast, a show about the experience of User Experience design. I'm Evan Sunwall.
Ayan: [00:00:49] And I'm Ayan Bihi.
Evan: [00:00:51] Here's a tip for folks who are new to the profession or are going to a conference someday: it is an incredible icebreaker to ask someone, "How did you get into UX?" Yeah, the profession's maturing, there's degree paths, it is getting a little more solidified every year that goes by — but even to this day, it is still a fascinating discussion to listen to someone's journey into user experience.
Ayan: [00:01:15] Yeah, I love that question actually, because it's often never the same from each person you ask.
For example, our interview with Crystal, she spoke to us about somebody who was a former member of the Navy who found their way into design, or you can have other classical paths, but it's always an interesting story just to connect with somebody to understand how they came into UX.
Evan: [00:01:36] Yeah, I've heard stories of photography, people who've gotten two degrees in Psychology. Just seeing the richness of what they brought with them, what skills they had, it's exciting. It speaks to the skills that UX requires, that it draws from a lot of different disciplines — and that enables that kind of transition for folks.
Ayan: [00:01:55] And also when you meet people who are like "How do I get into this field?" It's often very uplifting to say there is no classic path. You can just try to connect those dots and that could be a good transition into UX.
Evan: [00:02:07] It really rewards the self-motivated. If you put a plan together, you focus on it, you can bring those skills that you already have over and actually make it happen.
So today we're going to talk about a particular transition from a particular domain — marketing and art — into user experience. We have two guests today! Someone who has accomplished it and has been doing it for many years and someone who's just started this year Kate Benson is an American-French Lead UX and Interaction Designer based in Paris, France. She is currently the Customer Journey Expert for Dare and manages a small team of UI/UX designers. Kate works in an agile environment conducting AB testing, usability testing, and maintaining alignment across all of Dare's teams. Previously, she spent five years working for design agencies, such as OgilvyOne, New Run, and af83, and also spent three years working as a freelancer. She has a wealth of experience working for startups, public institutions, and international companies. Kate, welcome to the show!
Kate: [00:03:04] Thank you!
Evan: [00:03:05] We also have the person who is making their transition into UX this year — Neila Romdane is a UX designer and former marketing strategist. This past May she left her role as a marketing director for a charity to pursue her career change into UX. Since then, Neila has started working part-time as a UX designer for an agency in a charity and is part-time studying human-computer interaction at Georgia Tech. Neila, thanks joining us today!
Neila: [00:03:30] Thank you for having me!
Ayan: [00:03:32] Can you guys tell us a bit more about yourselves?
Neila: [00:03:34] Yeah, so basically, I was a marketing strategist. I've been in marketing for the last... I think eight years, going from events, sales, I've worked for a dating website, I've worked for an online publisher, for an innovation think tank in Paris. I am a generalist I could say, and UX to me was a way to express all of these little things that I've been doing, but on the customer side and not on the business side, if that makes sense. And apart from that, I'm just, transitioning from one career to another.
Ayan: [00:04:12] So what attracted you to marketing? What brought you into that field?
Neila: [00:04:16] When I finished business school, I applied for absolutely everything that I could, and the only job that I found was an assistant of someone doing events for EBG — Electronic Business Group — the big think tank in Paris. This company was doing a book called Internet Marketing, and nobody wanted to do the next edition of it. cause it was a massive work, and I was like, "Okay, I'm just going to do it then."
While working on this book, I met with a lot of agencies in Paris, entrepreneurs, CMOs and CEOs, and learning about innovation, I discovered automation and growth hacking, and it was the beginning of mobile and augmented content. And I was very curious about it — so yeah, that's how I ended up working in marketing. And after that, I just pursued a career in everything that was around marketing — so everything that is linked.
Evan: [00:05:13] So Kate, what about your background?
Kate: [00:05:14] So it's been about eight years now that I've been in UX. Before that, I was working in a gallery and at Pompidou. My studies were in art history. I did do some fine arts — painting and drawing.
I did my studies at Columbia University, Masters of Critical Studies of Contemporary Art and Architecture. I was passionate learning about art and finding inspiration for my own painting and drawing. What I really wanted to be was a curator. Because I didn't have the French nationality. I couldn't go to the Institut National du Patrimoine school, which is where you have to go to get certification as a conservateur, which is French for curator.
And so I started working in a gallery — Gallery of Contemporary and Modern Art — I wasn't interested in the commercial aspect of selling art, so I felt stuck in the position.
Career Motives [00:06:08]
Evan: [00:06:08] So, yeah, let's dig into that a little bit, was there a particular moment that you remember in your past that was that catalyst of moving it more towards User Experience?
Kate: [00:06:16] Actually for me, it was something that's funded by the French government. If you work here, then part of your salary goes to ongoing education and so I had someone accompany me with the change. There was a lot of personality tests and meeting people in fields that interest me. And at the time I met a friend of a friend who happened to be a UX designer and who is now the head of Laptop in Paris.
At that time in Paris UX wasn't very well known. There were just a few people that were into UX — you could count them on your hands — it was very, very new, whereas in the US it had already been around for about 10 years. So I learned about it from her, and now she does trainings at Laptop in Paris.
But I was lucky to meet her and she advised me, what I had to do to become a UX designer, what school I should go to...
Evan: [00:07:05] Oh, so you kind of fell into a mentor to kind of help you talk a little bit about the basics.
Kate: [00:07:09] Exactly!
Evan: [00:07:10] Neila, what about you? What was that catalyst moment in your past?
Neila: [00:07:14] I don't think it's one moment; I think it's a growing frustration. As a marketing person, you have to sell and make people buy product or services. And the best marketing is definitely a really great product that actually makes people talk about it. I was frustrated by seeing how customer would not be attracted to a service or product — and I wanted to change that. So I think in all of my jobs, I've always tried to change things, but because everything is so segmented, it's hard to be the marketing person who is trying to influence the project or service.
It's seeing products and service where they're inclusive or just not well-made that inspired me to try to find a solution in my place of work, and then later on think about UX because it's actually really later on that I started to understand that it is what UX action does.
Evan: [00:08:09] There's a sense of growing frustration about not being able to change it, you wanted to actually start affecting it and making it better.
Neila: [00:08:16] Yeah.
Ayan: [00:08:16] Neila, how did you discover the field of UX?
Neila: [00:08:20] I was working on a project — a new curriculum for entrepreneurs, for female founders — and someone mentioned that it was kind of UX that I was doing because I was organizing the design thinking workshop.
That's how I first encountered the real meaning of what UX is and what seduced me was the fact that it's not only for product, but it's also for services or everything actually is UX.
Ayan: [00:08:45] And when you were discovering the term of User Experience, did you find it easy to find resources, or even people as Kate had a mentor? Was it easy for you to kind of reach out and get into the field and learn more about it?
Neila: [00:08:57] It's been maybe three years that I wanted to go "back to school", in a way. So the first thing that I did was looking out for courses, and because I was working for a charity, I knew Acumen Academy. They were doing a human-centered design introduction — which I took — and in order to do that, I went on Reddit and I built a team of want-to-be UX designer or people that were UX designers or researchers.
Some people in the course with me are way more advanced There's a UX Researcher of 15 years working in AI and machine learning. I ask her a lot of questions. I also went on Ada's List or places where I could ask questions on my portfolio. I found some people, and I think one or two emerge as mentors, but I asked a lot of questions before saying, "You're my mentor now."
Ayan: [00:09:48] Great! I love your proactivity and that you created something in saying, "Let's see what will come back."
How about you, Kate? What I think is really interesting that you were in a time where UX was just starting up in Paris. How was it for you to find resources, to kind of guide you on this journey you were trying to transition into?
Kate: [00:10:05] I self-learn a lot I read lots of books and at the time there were, of course the foundational works of Jesse James Garrett's The Elements of User Experience, Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, Steve Krug, Allen Cooper. So even before I went to Les Gobelins to go back to school, I did my portfolio all on my own by learning code, learning graphic design, just reading, as much as I could. And then I took the Concours — the test to get in — and was accepted. I received money from the French government to go back to school. They paid for the entirety of the program — which was six months and intensive — and also a stipend per month, which was, you know, it was very lucky to be here in France! (laughs) But, yeah, I think it would be easier changing careers now because there's so much available online, so many UX courses — IDEO U, Skillshare is good. But yeah, I had to learn on my own and I was, kind of struggling to learn as much as I could. It was kind of exciting though, because it was like everything could be invented too.
Neila: [00:11:10] So you've mentioned that it was hard to get into UX at the time, so how did you manage to get your first job, then? Because it was such a new field. Now there's lots of resources online, but the market is so crowded because there's so many new bootcamps and you really have to be standing out of the crowd. So how did you do it?
Kate: [00:11:30] It happened to be that at the time, the only UX courses you could take where at Les Gobelins with David Raichman. Because I didn't have coding experience, I couldn't get into that class, but he ended up being my mentor because I did my internship with him at OgilvyOne. And at the time, OgilvyOne and — I can't remember the other agency — they're the only ones that had big UX departments, and then they kept me on after that.
Evan: [00:11:56] So it sounds like that early mentor, and also some of your professional networking, the people you kind of got to know were big helpers in that career change for you, Kate, is that right?
Kate: [00:12:05] Yeah, exactly. It helped knowing the right people, I think.
Ayan: [00:12:08] Also, it seems like right timing. It was for you to kind of create.
Kate: [00:12:12] Yeah, definitely.
Ayan: [00:12:14] And so, Kate, as you were doing the transition and you landed that first job, how did you learn all these new skills that you felt that weren't there at the beginning?
Kate: [00:12:23] We're constantly learning in this field, even now. Best practices change, methodologies change, there's design sprints now. I continually read, I look online, read articles on Medium. It's a constant learning process. And even for each project, because you're also learning about a different field, which I think is challenging, but never boring. I've worked in projects for renewable energy, for cinema, for banking. You're constantly learning all the time, and I think that's what makes it interesting, actually.
Evan: [00:12:57] Was there a skill when you started on this journey that you had to really work on, that you had to really focus on and improve with this new job in mind, Kate?
Kate: [00:13:08] Because I was in art history, I did a lot of research. Also studying and doing art gave me an aesthetic background. So, I think it was just, learning about the right method to use on a project, actually.
UX design is a field that takes several years to master, and because there are so many methodologies and skill sets to learn, it takes quite a bit of time to get that experience in a project — you need to do several projects because each project doesn't use all the methodologies. You have to kind of realize that it takes time.
Neila: [00:13:42] So, because you're all very experienced — When did you start feeling confident about choosing the right methods to do something?
Ayan: [00:13:49] I think it's a very good question. And that's kind of like going back to art — when is the painting ever done? And I think that's kind of the process of being designers. We'll never be full masters because perhaps there's a new method coming out or a new technology, but I think there's also a fine line with that is not feeling like an imposter. So you have to feel confident. It's also hard because as designers, sometimes you're not really told to trust our intuition in a sense, because we need to validate that with the user, but there's moments where I see something, and I say it would be this way just from my observations. Also, we interact with so many tools in our everyday life as non-designers. So you pick up these kinds of cues. I hope I never say that I know everything because that kind of defeats the purpose of our job. One of the things I love is putting a tool or a service or a product in the user's hands and they show you that you were wrong. You're like "Oh, I didn't see that. Oh, that's a great point."
Kate: [00:14:44] But there's also a kind of like fake-it-'til-you-make-it aspect. (laughter) You know, you just have to be confident that, you can do it and that on the job, you will, you will learn what you have to do to get the job done. Even if you don't have all the skills at the start of the project, you just have to be confident. It is a process of iteration, so if you don't get it right the first time, then it can always be iterated upon.
Evan: [00:15:11] I put like about, let's say five years. Five years of kind of lived experience using those basic techniques and skills. You will get a degree of confidence that is going to be constant evolution, new techniques are going to come into the field. "What is this? How do I use this?" That is going to be endless. But I think on a foundational level, you would have had at least a couple of encounters in different situations, different problems, to be like, "I can do a usability test."
Neila: [00:15:37] Yeah, because at the beginning, everything seems like the right thing to do. You know, you're learning a technique, it's like, "that's the technique!" (laughs) But yeah, so choosing the right one — it's like practice.
Evan: [00:15:48] You can't rush developing good judgment. You have to have experienced bad judgment and learn from that. And you will get there.
Ayan: [00:15:55] I have a question then — like Neila, from what you were saying, is there a right way? Imagine that we all got the same brief, would we all take the same path to do that?
Kate: [00:16:05] It's the user that has the final say. We will all try maybe different ways and then the user will validate that or not. So then we'll iterate in a different way, I think. Yeah, it's all subjective.
Ayan: [00:16:15] I agree and it, so is it more so than trying to find your way then the right way? And then from there you kind of can iterate going back to that, to figure out what is the best design process?
Neila: [00:16:28] Yes, for every, everything that you learn anyways, in order to really feel confident, you need to first copy and then innovate. So I'm not sure that I'm going to be like an innovator in UX.
(laughs)
But I think — yeah, at the beginning is how to copy and not choose something that is absolutely not relevant. So having good judgement around what the outcome of the research and is it really what you want to learn? So it's defining your goals well. That is something that I'm thinking about with all the projects that I'm on at the moment. Every time that you start something you don't want to make people lose their time. When you're a newbie, it's always like this, I guess.
Ayan: [00:17:07] Neila, I think you do have the tool to be disrupting or innovating because you have fresh eyes to what we do. Could be a positive, so don't play yourself down.
Kate: [00:17:17] Yeah, I agree with you. And I also think that there are the basic best practices and also design principles that everyone has to learn to make interfaces.
Evan: [00:17:27] So Neila, what are some areas that, as you're learning more about UX, you're like, "I got that! I've done that before, easy!" And some areas that are like, "Woah, okay. I didn't know this was a thing. Alright, I need to focus on a little more on this."
Neila: [00:17:40] I feel what Kate is saying, that it's a never-ending learning experience. I think that is very attractive to me to be able to be in a field where people that hire you assume that you will learn along the way.
There's a big part that is research, I used to do research in marketing because you have to research customers. So, I did some interviews, I did some market research, I did research to understand how to talk to customer — being immersed in the culture of the customer to really talk like them.
So yes, the research is something that I did before. I knew a little bit of HTML and CSS, so I was looking into websites quite a lot. I was able to do mock-ups before. One of the skill gaps that I have is where to go from low fidelity to high fidelity, and you actually have something that is closer to a prototype that is not on paper.
All this like technical stuff, but my idea of this kind of transition was that for the first year or year-and-a-half, I would just like get really the basis of understanding the foundation of UX design, and then really try to understand the tools, and to understand the tool and apply everything I would search for internship or someplace.
Ayan: [00:18:53] On that note, as you're going through this transition, did you keep certain elements from your marketing past in your resume?
Neila: [00:19:01] I kept stuff because in marketing, everything is very much around data and results. But I changed the way I was talking about the project. So I was talking about the behind the scene more than the results.
I started to look into the keywords that UX designers use I would apply that, to each project.
I did a mock portfolio and posted on Ada's list and asked people to tell me what they thought about it. I had great feedback around people telling me that I want to know more about what happened in your head, why were you doing what you were doing? Because it was really instinctive, I wasn't following any type of method. So I just repurposed that and sometimes I tweaked it because not everything is a double diamond, it's not linear. You go back to stuff. And sometimes it's very hard to present a project because, for me — as it was not my job — I used to do stuff across three years for one little project. But it made sense with the business, so I tried to implement that into my portfolio, and I did keep a lot of things around marketing because in UX there's a movement of UX, that is around CX now. So Customer Experience is way more related to marketing in the minds to this. It was an advantage for me to come from a marketing background, the job that I actually got now, they hired me because I have a marketing background.
Evan: [00:20:23] So it's an advantage! Having that marketing background is actually advantageous. It actually gives you some of those skills in that area. I see.
Ayan: [00:20:30] How about you, Kate? Do you still put forward your background in the way that you market yourself?
Kate: [00:20:36] I would say that the first CV that I designed, I did focus on the skills that I had from my previous career. But, then little by little, I spoke less and less and less. (laughs) Now it's been about eight years that I've been in the field, so I have consequential experience in different agencies and different projects and so I just speak about that.
Neila: [00:20:57] I will do that one day, too. (laughter)
Evan: [00:21:00] That's the spirit!
Ayan: [00:21:01] Yeah, that's the goal!
Tips to Your Past Self [00:21:02]
Evan: [00:21:02] You can send a message to back to yourself when you first embarked on this journey, you could send yourself some tips. What tip would you give yourself? And it can't be lottery numbers or stock tips.
Neila: [00:21:16] Well, my tip is to basically start as early as possible when you want to create a career shift, because I think lots of people struggle to do a career change. I think I was a bit privileged because I have a financial education and I put money aside and stuff like this, which really helped me survive during the career transition, but people, hire attitude and not skills. And they understand that it's a growing field and that you grow into the profession and that you will always be in the, in the search of new knowledge.
Kate: [00:21:45] Yeah, I would say, be kind to yourself and realize that the change is a process that you have to accept and that it takes time to bloom and that you'll have to persevere through all the challenges, but that one day you'll be pretty confident, and you'll be on top of things and you'll know how to advise and mentor others. So you just have to keep at it and you'll get there.
Evan: [00:22:18] That's great, that persistence — and I think compassion for yourself not just for users ...
Kate: [00:22:22] Yeah. I think you have to be kind to yourself, really. It's a hard change to make. It takes time to be a good UX designer.
Neila: [00:22:29] One of the reasons why I was attracted to UX is it's really hard to be vulnerable in some jobs. And I think UX is a place where you can be vulnerable because you're learning all the time, so you have to be humble.
Evan: [00:22:43] I think it's a great point, that vulnerability of... when you're talking about developer, or you're talking about an app experience you're building. Having that vulnerable outlook is so important to facilitating trust and getting honest and earnest feedback about how you're approaching a problem.
Kate: [00:22:58] Yeah. You have empathy for yourself. (laughs) It takes experience to be an experience designer.
Evan: [00:23:05] Learn by doing. Well, Neila, Kate, thanks so much for this conversation. This was fantastic. Really appreciate taking some time out of your day and sharing and discussing your ongoing journeys into UX.
Ayan: [00:23:18] Would you guys like to talk a bit about yourselves in the sense of where people can find you from this podcast or any projects that you're working on? This would be this moment to link marketing with UX.
Neila: [00:23:28] Brilliant. Yeah. People can find me on LinkedIn, I'm really interested in learning more around, ethical UX and accessibility. If anyone has a great resource or wants to have a chat around that, LinkedIn is the best place to find me.
Kate: [00:23:44] Yeah. So I would say the same through LinkedIn. Yeah. I am a freelance UX Lead. I am interested in circular design and, any design where I can help people's lives.
Ayan: [00:24:16] We just had a really insightful exchange with two people who are on different steps of their journey into the field or in the field of UX. What are some key highlights for you, Evan, from our discussion today with Neila and Kate?
Evan: [00:24:28] Well for Neila, what I thought was particularly interesting was the customer experience domain as an area that if someone's trying to make a transition from marketing to UX, look into that area. There could be some themes and ideas, that even if it isn't pure UX design, that could be a transition you could plan and make to get you on that journey.
It may be more job transferable skills and looking at service design, looking at the total parts of the customer experience — not necessarily like product-design oriented stuff — that would help you in that journey. And also, I think she made a key comment about vulnerability. That in UX, you are working with business types, engineering types, they're masters of their domain, and maybe you're less so on that in terms of what they do. You need to learn from them. You need to bring in their insights and their perspectives in order to design something.
For Kate, I thought it was interesting that she had a mentor very early in her career. And I think a lot our junior designers would really do well to find a skilled or professional mentor to help them in that journey. It's really helpful to have that someone to support you or to nurture and give you some, guidance and help as you're making this transition into your new career.
What about you, Ayan?
Ayan: [00:25:45] Yeah. I agree with what you're saying about the mentor. I think there's definitely an added value of tapping into your community and taking insights from somebody who might have already gone through what you're going through. I think it's something that, it's useful throughout your career. It's not just at the beginning. It could be when you're an intermediate in your career or even further down, because we're always trying to grow. And why not have that exchange with somebody who has gone through that process?
I think it's fascinating there's steps between Neila and Kate that are similar and it's the aspect of being frustrated but choosing not to just stay in that frustration. I really liked their aspect of just being go-getters.
They said, "I'm limited where I am today, and I want to learn, and I want to grow." So they took that step and both were somewhat self-driven. You know, learning and just deep diving. And then Kate took a different path a bit — which Neila's actually doing right now too — getting that knowledge to be complimented by an academic path.
So those were two things that I really liked. And again, if you are driven to learn more, that's also going to help you later on in your career, because as we said, you're never going to be a master in UX. There's always new things to learn always new techniques, always new technologies and always feedback that you'll get from your customers that you didn't expect.
Evan: [00:27:02] Yeah, don't hold back. Don't be afraid. Just understand that it's going to be a learning experience for the entirety of your career.
Evan: [00:27:09] Well, that's going to do it for this episode of the Ascend UX podcast! We'd love your feedback and questions. Please send it to ascendux@pros.com. Also rate, follow, subscribe, or leave comments on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or whichever service you're using listened to us. We definitely appreciate it.
Ayan: [00:27:27] Take care guys until next time.