In July 2021 I made the switch to UX writing after 15 years in content marketing. UX writing is the practice of crafting the text that guides users through a product. UX writers (in most organizations) sit on the design team. They collaborate with product designers, product managers, and user researchers.

For me, the road from marketing to design was a winding one. I had been doing UX writing as a marketer for years — but I hadn’t realized that it was an actual design discipline. I knew that one of my favorite parts of my job was helping product designers with writing and content. So I started exploring a possible career change to UX design. Learning about UX design led me to learning about UX writing — and ultimately to my career change.

Here’s what I learned from my experience. If you’re wondering if a switch from marketing to UX is right for you, I hope these tips will help you with your decision!

A career in UX might be for you if…

There are a few reasons why I was so interested in working on a design team. If these descriptors sound like you, a career in UX writing, UX design, or UX research may be a good move for you too.

• You love helping people. UX design is a human-centered discipline. We build solutions with the user’s success in mind. The goal is to help the user reach their goals — which, in turn, helps the business reach its goals.
• You enjoy problem-solving. Each project is a new challenge — a new puzzle to solve. On some days, you might feel like you’ll never figure out the best way forward. But you will. And when you do, you’ll feel amazing!
• You get excited about customer feedback. I’ve always loved usability testing. It’s fun to see users attempt to interact with or understand your work. It’s humbling when they don’t get something you thought was obvious — and a celebration when they do.
• You’re a natural collaborator. UX roles are highly collaborative. You’re likely to work with other designers, product managers, user researchers, data scientists, engineers, and marketers. You’ll be participating in and facilitating brainstorming sessions, sharing and giving feedback in critiques, and spending a lot of time working collaboratively.

Tips for making the switch from marketing to UX

Considering your own switch from marketing to UX writing or UX design? Here are a few tips that helped me on my journey.

Start learning more about UX

One of the best ways to determine if a career change into UX design is right for you is to start learning about it. Pick up a book, take a short online course, or watch a video. If it continues to intrigue you, it’s a good sign! A good place to start is Codecademy’s new Intro to UI and UX Design course. In the course, you’ll learn the key concepts of UI and UX design and the general process of a product development lifecycle, as well as how to create wireframes and prototypes for a mobile and web app in Figma. (Plus, it’s free!)

I started by reading Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug. This book gives a nice overview of web usability. It was also the book that helped me understand why I was drawn to design over marketing. In design, the primary focus is the user experience. In marketing (at most companies), the primary focus is on driving revenue, conversions, and other business outcomes. Neither of these foci is “better” than the other; Krug’s writing just helped me realize that I’m more motivated by the goals of design work.

I went on to learn more about design thinking — the user-centered approach to problem-solving employed by UX designers.

Each new thing I learned and each new book I read sent me further down the UX rabbit hole. I wanted to learn everything. I had never been this excited about anything marketing-related, which is another way I knew it was the right career path for me.

If you’re interested in exploring a career in UX writing, specifically, here are a few books I love that should help you decide if UX writing is right for you:

Find opportunities to work with designers

Once you’ve established that you’re interested in a career in UX, see if you can find ways to get experience working with designers. You don’t need to fully make the transition to start doing the work.

When I decided I was interested in UX design, I had a conversation with my manager. I let him know that I thought I might be interested in a career change. After my conversation with my manager, I worked with the VP of Design to find ways to collaborate with our design team more.

I had already been helping out with writing needs here and there. So I started joining design syncs to do more of that and working more closely with designers on projects that involved more in-product messaging and content. Through this work, I got a better sense of the process and my interest continued to grow.

Before I spoke with my manager, I was nervous at first that it might seem like I wanted to quit. If you have similar concerns, remember that part of a manager’s job is helping you find opportunities for professional growth. Many managers are excited to be able to play a role in helping you achieve your professional goals — even if it means that you may end up leaving their team in the future. (That said, you’ll need to suss out how comfortable you feel broaching this with your manager and if you want to make the career shift at your current company, or if you want to start fresh elsewhere.)

Intrigued but not sure you want to make the switch? I’ll also add that another benefit to learning about UX as a marketer is that taking a more user-centered approach can help with the efficacy of your marketing efforts. So learning more about UX design is a win-win for you and for the marketing team you’re working on.

Frame your marketing work through the lens of design thinking

When you do get to the point where you are applying for design roles, it will be important to be able to talk about your past work in the context of design thinking. When you can, try to start utilizing the framework in your marketing work.

When you’re getting started on a project, you’ll need to know what goal you’re trying to drive for the business, of course. But also make sure you think about what problem you’re solving for the customer as well. Facilitate brainstorming sessions to come up with ideas. And, if you’re able, run A/B tests or usability tests.

When I made the transition from marketing to UX writing, I moved from the marketing team at Codecademy to the design team. While I hadn’t officially had the title of “UX writer” before, I was able to share a portfolio of work that I’d done at my previous company. Some of that work was with designers. Some of it simply showcased a user-centered approach to messaging, incorporating testing and iteration. If you start thinking about your work in this way, you can start building your portfolio as well.

Set a time-based goal for your career change

Last but not least, if you’re serious about a career change, set a time-based goal for yourself. If you’re anything like me, setting a goal (and telling other people about it) will help keep you accountable.

When I decided to change careers, I was 37. Someone suggested that I write up a five-year plan for my transition to design. But five years sounded like a lot, so I set a goal to make the switch by my 40th birthday. In the end, I joined the design team at Codecademy with six months to spare. Mission accomplished!

Deciding to make a career change can definitely be daunting. But it’s also exciting! Finding work that you’re passionate about is the best. Since I’ve joined the Codecademy design team as a UX writer, I am more in love with the work I do than I’ve ever been before. I wish the same for you in your journey!

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Nannearl Brown’s job is kind of meta: As a UX researcher, she’s responsible for understanding people who use Figma, the main tool that folks in UI/UX (“user interface” and “user experience”) use to collaborate and design digital products.

In other words, Nannearl is a UX researcher for a product that UI/UX people primarily use to prototype and finetune the UI/UX for other products. It’s not as confusing as it sounds: “When people first find out about Figma and start to try and explore the tool, I am one of the researchers who’s trying to make sure you can actually figure out how to use it,” she says.

Though Nannearl is in the thick of the UI/UX world these days, she says that her journey has not been at all straightforward. She studied biomedical engineering as an undergrad, then went to work at the Pentagon as a technology analyst in the office of the Chief Information Officer of the U.S. Army. After getting her master’s in systems engineering, Nannearl went into management consulting for government agencies.

“That’s when I learned how to facilitate workshops, talk to people, and interview,” skills that would eventually carry over into a career in UX research, Nannearl says. “I was coming in, assessing what was going on, what the problems and pain points were, and then taking that back to my team, coming up with solutions, and figuring out how to benchmark different things.”

Nannearl picked up UX on the side, taking on projects to start building a portfolio and networking with other people in tech who needed UX help. During the pandemic, she started a YouTube channel about UX called “Unpacked Angles.” And in June 2020, she joined Figma.

Here’s what it’s like to be a UX researcher at Figma who helps other UI/UX designers work efficiently, and what you need to know to get a job like this.

What got me interested in the job

“I didn’t know that UX jobs existed. I had been in all of these technological spaces, and that’s cool, but I didn’t see a lot of Black people, and I didn’t see a lot of women. I had experienced that throughout my education, just being in engineering classes. I didn’t think that I was a rocket scientist or anything, but I just wanted to figure out how to create more opportunities and get more education out there.

I moved across the country to LA to go to school, where I studied nonprofit leadership and management. I was still very much connected to the tech space. I interned with a nonprofit that functioned like a startup, so that’s where I got to learn the different kinds of positions that make up a tech startup.

At the nonprofit, I learned about product management, and I was also learning about UX, too. I thought I was going to be into product management, so I took a product management bootcamp during my last semester of that program. I realized I don’t like product management, but I love the UX part of everything.

I really enjoyed getting to ask people questions, and then seeing how they responded. I figured out that there is an art to asking questions and getting to the right question — that’s a fun challenge for me. I also liked breaking down what people said, because a lot of the time there’s meaning behind the words that people say that they don’t say explicitly.”

How I got in the door

“I used to go to meetups, so people kind of started to know me as a UX person — even though I hadn’t held a UX title.

At the time, I was the Los Angeles city lead for this organization called Black Tech Women. We held a happy hour where I met this woman who was creating her own beauty tech startup, and we ended up talking. I did some work for her as a consultant, just reviewing her screens that had been designed by an agency without any UX applied. I assessed what was there and she liked my work so much that she actually asked me to join as a co-founder and director of user experience for her startup.

That was a learning experience, for sure, because I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I learned on-the-go while I was working. After a little over a year, I took a break to recover from early startup life, and then I started applying again to jobs. The pandemic happened, and that was scary. I was looking for a job, like, I guess I’m never going to get employed.

I was talking to my mentor, and I had been feeling down, and she was like, ‘Why don’t you consider creating short-form Instagram content? I think people will watch it.’ I was like, You know what, I’m going to do YouTube. Let’s just go for it. I was making YouTube videos on the side while I was applying for jobs. I was putting those out there, keeping myself busy, and also having fun with it.

I finally applied to Figma and I went through the interview process, which was great. I actually didn’t get the job that I applied for, because I didn’t have enough experience. But instead of giving me a ‘no,’ my now-manager gave me an opportunity to get experience.”

What I actually do every day

“My typical day depends on what stage I’m at in a research process.

If we’re in the middle of a study, then I might be doing some interviews. If we’re on the tail end of the study, I might be analyzing what we’ve learned and synthesizing the information in order to create a story to tell the rest of my stakeholders. Or, if it’s closer to the beginning, I might be leading a workshop and facilitating the formation of ideas and hypotheses that we want to look further into, and then planning how we’re going to actually get answers to the questions that we came up with.

Sometimes I’m in a bunch of different stages, because there’s more than one project going on. That’s a part of it that makes it really cool; the days don’t really look the same.”

Here’s what you need to get started

UI/UX roles typically don’t involve writing code, but since UX researchers work closely with engineers, it helps to be able to speak their language.

If you want to be a UX researcher, you should be familiar with the fundamentals of UI/UX design. In Codecademy’s course Intro to UI and UX Design, you’ll get an overview of UI/UX theory and common design methodologies, plus hands-on experience using Figma to create your own wireframes and prototypes.

There’s not one specific language that’s best for UI/UX researchers. That said, Nannearl learned JavaScript in college, and says it helps her understand some of the concepts that other stakeholders talk about.

• If you have zero coding experience and want to work in UI/UX, you should start with HTML and CSS. Check out our HTML and CSS courses to start building websites.
• JavaScript is a versatile language that will help you grasp front-end coding. If you’re already versed in JavaScript and want to level-up, our Front-End Engineer Pro Career Path will give you all the technical skills and interview advice you need to start applying for jobs.
• Drawn to UX research, specifically? Our Principles of Data Literacy teaches you how to collect, interpret, and analyze data, which are really valuable skills to have in research. (Nannearl also recommends reading the book Just Enough Research by Erika Hall.)

The tricky thing about breaking into UI/UX is that getting hired relies heavily on your portfolio, Nannearl says. “It’s oftentimes required that you have a portfolio when you submit a job application, so it’s tougher for people who are just starting out,” she says. For example, Nannearl’s portfolio mostly consisted of her work from the beauty startup, plus some school projects.

Take a look at the projects and teams you’ve worked on in the past: “Sometimes we don’t think our previous projects map to UX research, because it’s not called ‘UX research,’” Nannearl says. “But any type of research, if you can figure out how it maps to what one might do as a UX researcher, still applies.” Similarly, you might have experience honing the soft skills that make a successful UX researcher, like compassion, curiosity, flexibility, and listening, she says.

Building a portfolio is just one step — presenting your work in an interview is another. “Knowing how to communicate about it and actually tell the story is something that people are going to be looking for,” she says. “Because that’s literally what you have to do in your job as a researcher.”

Interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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Everyone has interacted with UI/UX before, possibly without knowing (in fact, you’re doing it right now). UI/UX stands for “user interface” and “user experience.” Any time you navigate a website, or check your weather app, for example, you’re technically a “user.” What you might not realize is that it’s someone’s job to consider every button, color, step, and functionality of a product so that using it feels instinctive to you.

UI and UX are often lumped together, but they’re fundamentally different concepts. Someone who works in UX explores why users behave the way they do with a product, identifies pain points, and strategizes solutions. Then, UI comes in to fine-tune the product’s appearance, selecting colors for buttons, choosing text that’s legible, and generally making sure the product makes a good impression.

“UX is this umbrella term and UI kind of falls underneath that,” says Taylor Green, Product Designer at Codecademy. An easy analogy that Taylor says will help you remember the difference: a UX person is like an architect, who comes up with a plan and concept for a structure, then works with builders to bring it to life; a UI person is like an interior decorator, who makes aesthetic decisions about the space, based on what’s elegant and practical.

Intrigued? Our course Intro to UI and UX Design will walk you through key concepts of UI/UX design and the general process of a product development lifecycle. You’ll also have hands-on practice making polished prototypes using the design tool Figma. Here, we’ll go through the various jobs in the field and what it takes to kickstart a career in UI/UX.

The jobs you can get in UI/UX

There are lots of different roles within UI/UX, and they tend to have overlapping responsibilities. Depending on the size or scope of a company, UI/UX roles can be specialized, generalized, or hybrid. For example, a company might have a robust team of multiple researchers, usability testers, and writers that all fall under UX. Or, they could have one UX designer who does it all. Some common UI/UX jobs that you might come across include:

• UX designer (or UI/UX designer): A generalist who oversees the holistic experience of a product, including UI design.
• UI designer: Someone focused on designing user interfaces, or what humans interact with on screen.
• UX (or user) researcher: They interview and survey users to unpack why they behave the way they do. Some companies have teams of user researchers who are focused on a different type of research: qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods
• UX writer: This person writes all of the text that you find on a website or application, like error messages, buttons, and onboarding instructions.

If you want to dive deeper, here’s an in-depth breakdown of the various career paths and roles within UI/UX.

The technical chops you need for UI/UX roles

A common misconception about UI/UX is that you have to be “artsy” or come from a design background to get it. While it is an aesthetic field, and lots of people transition from graphic design to UI/UX, design knowledge is not a prerequisite. “Any background you have, you can find a way that it connects somehow to UX — and it might actually be a positive [that you don’t come from a design background],” Taylor says.

Similarly, you don’t have to be able to write code at an advanced level to make it in UI/UX. Here are the technical skills people should learn if they want to work in the field:

Basic front-end coding

Though you won’t be spending your days writing code in UI/UX roles, you will have to work closely with engineers. “If you can’t understand the languages or understand how to communicate with engineers, it’s definitely going to pose a barrier,” Taylor says.

Having a foundational knowledge of code also helps you understand the time constraints and effort that are required to execute a task. For example, when you’re thinking about a potential solution to a problem within a product, you can set realistic expectations and workloads because you know what has to happen behind the scenes.

At the very least, you should be able to inspect a web browser, read the code, and maybe even make some changes to it. The most important programming languages for UI/UX people to learn are HTML and CSS, so you can build your own prototypes. JavaScript is another practical and versatile programming language. (Of course, the more languages you know, the better equipped you’ll be.) If you want to learn more about what makes websites beautiful and functional, check out our Front-End Engineer Career Path or any of our HTML and CSS courses.

Figma

Figma is the all-encompassing main design tool that you need to know going into UI/UX. “It’s the most advanced tool, and it’s also really great for collaboration,” Taylor says. “People can go in there and look in real-time with you and write comments — it’s very interactive.”

In our course Intro to UI and UX Design, you get free access to Figma, and will learn how to use it to make wireframes and prototypes for a mobile and web app.

3 traits that make successful UI/UX professionals

Regardless of the job title, most people in UI/UX roles have these traits in common:

Empathy and compassion: A huge part of UI/UX is empathy, or being able to put yourself in a user’s shoes and understand their perspective, Taylor says. Not only are you constantly thinking about what a person’s goals and aspirations are while using a product, but you also have to consider obstacles that might be confusing or frustrating along the way. UI/UX work also involves compassion — the desire or motivation to take action to help relieve someone’s suffering — says Nannearl Brown, a UX researcher at Figma.

There will likely be times when you’re working on a product that you’ve never used before — and that’s okay. You can build empathy for the user through research, which involves communicating directly with users in interviews or listening to their stories.

A good listener: You’re often in charge of fielding input from lots of different parties, like users, engineers, and other stakeholders (like product managers and product designers), Taylor says. Before you can start to make changes, you have to listen to and digest information. “Being able to take their feedback and knowing where and what to implement is important,” she says.

An aptitude for learning: Like a lot of roles in the tech world, people in UI/UX have to be nimble. “This is a field similar to engineering where things are changing every day,” Taylor says. For example, you might need to quickly pick up a visual style guide for a sub-brand, or learn a new design tool.

An open mind: As a UX researcher, Nannearl says it’s important to be a “blank slate” so you can absorb information and learn from other people. “You also have to be self-aware and recognize that you have biases that might play into the work that you do, and other people you work with or talk to may have biases as well,” she says.

Flexibility is also crucial, because you’re often thinking on the fly, pivoting, and improvising, Nannearl says. “A lot of the time we make research plans, and they don’t go as planned,” she says. “Figuring out how to roll with whatever wrenches that are thrown into what it is that you have planned out, and then coming up with things that still head toward your goal is a great skill.”

Tips for breaking into the UI/UX industry

Once you have an understanding of the key UI/UX design concepts, “don’t be afraid to jump right in, get your hands dirty and start working,” Taylor suggests. “Ultimately, that is the best way to learn.”

See if you can take on a project doing UX research for an app or website, Nannearl says. You typically need a portfolio when you’re applying for jobs, so it helps to start a collection from your side hustles. “After you do get stuff in your portfolio, knowing how to communicate about it and actually tell the story is something that people are going to be looking for,” she says.

Using social media to network is common in this field, Taylor says. “Follow your favorite people who you find inspirational, whether they’re engineers, product managers, product designers — and don’t be afraid to message them,” she says. Or, look up on people on LinkedIn and see if they’re open to sharing some pointers: “People are really willing to do a 20-minute informational interview if you ask them,” she says. “And each one of them will have unique advice to give you.”

Ready to dive in and learn the foundations of UI/UX? Check out our Intro to UI and UX Design course. Not only will you become well-versed in UI/UX theory and popular design methodologies, but you’ll also get hands-on practice creating wireframes and an interactive prototype.

If you’re interested in honing your research skills, our Principles of Data Literacy course is a great choice: You’ll learn how to collect and interpret data, which is an important part of the UX research process. And for an overview of how to turn your designs into functioning websites, check out Learn HTML and Learn CSS.

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