You’ve decided to take the plunge and switch careers into UX Design, and now it’s time to apply for a job. But the variety and quantity of UX career paths can be overwhelming and confusing. For instance, what’s the difference between a UX Designer and a Product Designer? If a Content Strategist is expected to understand user flows and interfaces, should you apply to those roles, too? And is a UX Engineer a designer, a developer, or both?

While there’s no definitive taxonomy of UX roles and responsibilities, there are broad categories that will help you figure out where you…

Mental well-being is especially important for folks like UI/UX designers who are constantly engaging with both the analytical and creative sides of their brains.

UI/UX designers are inherently empathetic people, and empaths require special attention to cleanse and reset their busy minds. After the rollercoaster of last year, it’s more important than ever to prioritize our mental health.

Read on to learn more about the Designlab community’s top apps, resources, and coping mechanisms for continued well-being.

6 Mental Health Apps with Excellent UI/UX Design

Spending time on your phone may seem counterintuitive to mental health — but there are some apps that can actually help, instead of hurt…

There are many tools you can use as a UX designer, but not all of them are directly design related. Communication software like Slack, product/project management programs like Asana, and email providers like Gmail, are all part of a designer’s day to day world.

But the other tool that must be conquered before one can land a job as a UX designer — and is one many people (not just designers) have a love/hate relationship with — is LinkedIn. …

Many UXers have been utilizing online collaboration tools for years now, as the nature of UX is digital and thus easier to collaborate remotely across online platforms, rather than in-person. As such the number of online collaboration tools has grown rapidly and the options are now vast. These tools have the look and feel of pen to paper, with UIs often appearing as sticky notes, whiteboards, or notebooks; with the added benefit of real-time collaboration across time zones and superior digital organization.

To help us narrow down the top online collaboration tools for those working in the UX design industry…

If you’ve ever tried being a freelance designer, you probably know how hard it can be to keep your projects organized in one place, especially when working in sprints. The company I previously worked for, Dartmouth’s DALI Lab, routinely used Notion to achieve such organizations and I decided to adopt the platform for my own freelance work.

It wasn’t until I started using Notion for my independent projects that I had finally centralized all of my deadlines, clients, invoices, templates, and design briefs. …

You wouldn’t start building a house without a plan, so why would you start pushing your designs into the implementation stage without prototyping first? Prototyping is just like a blueprint because it lets you and your developers see a complete overview of your website or app before you start production.

Prototyping is a must-have in the design process because it helps you collaborate with your team and explore options without having to commit to a final version. This can help you make sure the UX/UI design is perfect before executing on a final product.

If you’ve avoided prototyping in the…

Radical Candor, a concept coined by Kim Scott, can help you love your work and the people you work with. Radical candor is the act of giving direct feedback to someone in a way that pushes them to grow and improve. It requires two things:

1. Being specific and sincere when giving praise
2. Being clear and kind when giving criticism

Importantly, it means actually giving both praise and criticism, because, in combination, these things have the power to strengthen relationships while driving better results.

What are the key features of radical candor?

In order to achieve radical candor, you need to include two key ingredients in your feedback: caring…

As a species, we are addicted to storytelling. More specifically, we are addicted to oxytocin — the hormone released in our brain when we hear a story that resonates with us.

Oxytocin, also referred to as the “love hormone,” promotes trust, empathy, and openness. This is the same hormone released when we hug someone or bond socially. Because of this, storytelling (much like love) has great power.

Design executive Jim Antonopoulos said, “Great design is storytelling at its finest”. Whether or not you’ve realized it before, all designers are storytellers. …