#51 Navigating the Challenges for UX in 2024
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Hello friends and welcome back to the future of your ex podcast. Your number one resource for everything around the future, new technologies and of course design.

My name is Patricia Reiners. I'm an innovation designer based in Zurich, Switzerland. I am focusing on new technologies, immersive technologies, and work with companies from all around the world, basically on innovation projects and how to integrate new technologies into our products, but still make it user-centered.

Before we are diving into the topic, I have a little announcement because next Wednesday I'm going to host a free live training about how to leverage generative AI as a designer in 2024. So if this is something that's interesting for you, if you want to learn how to use generative AI, what will become important this year,

Feel free to sign up. I added the registration link here in the show notes so you can sign up. It doesn't cost you any money on your email address, so I can send you all the details just right to your inbox. And then, yeah, join us Wednesday. It's 6 p.m. Central Europe time.

Yeah, plan around one and a half, two hours will be super interesting because I'm going to share my top five strategies. So will be super interesting. And at the end, I'm also going to give you a little sneak peek of my newest training program, the AI for a designer course that is launching next week. So you also get a little sneak peek into that as well.

Okay, I would say it's don't lose more time and focus on today's episode. Because today I want to focus on the biggest challenges that are coming our way or that we as X-Designers are facing this year in 2024.

I think it's super important to be aware of what is happening at the moment and then also see what you as a person, as a designer can really do to deal with these challenges. And this is what we will focus on. So I have three big challenges for you. So let's get started with the first big challenge. So the first big challenge is the tech recession and its impact on the UX job market.

It's not new. We know that the tech industry has been hit hard by recession, leading to a widespread of layoffs and increasingly competitive job market. You know, let's have a look at the numbers. In 2023, over 240,000 tech jobs were lost. And of course, a lot of these tech jobs were also UX designers.

Yeah, which really led your ex-designers at finding themselves as a little bit of a tough spot because the competition was much higher, right? And currently we are in a very competitive landscape. So, of course, it's crucial to differentiate yourself.

And what is really helpful in times like these is to build a very unique portfolio that showcases diverse skills and projects. So I think the diversity here is really key. The second thing that is super important in very competitive job market times is networking.

Networking plays a super important role and networking can be very easy by just starting with meaningful conversations, with connecting with people on LinkedIn, with writing comments on LinkedIn posts from people that you would like to connect with, that you really engage with.

And of course, coffee chat is probably the first thing you think about when it comes to networking. But a lot of people are also really busy. They don't have time for a coffee chat or something like that. So what's the much easier thing is LinkedIn networking.

So I think LinkedIn is an amazing place to network, to find new people all from different companies, to see them maybe posting about job offerings. I have seen that or I'm seeing that currently on my LinkedIn a lot that companies or people, employees are posting about job offerings in their teams.

And of course, the people who are connected or who are following them will see them first. So I think the online networking possibilities are super important and a little bit underrated. They can open doors to new, exciting opportunities. And networking is especially important when it comes to jobs and jobs opening.

A talent acquisition report highlighted that while employee referral constitutes only are about like 7% or something like that, but they account for a 44% success rate in hiring. And this really underscores the power of networking in securing job opportunities. So please don't only think about networking, you know, going to a conference and then talking to strangers.

Networking starts very small with very small steps. I can recommend to start on social media. LinkedIn, for example, I think is an amazing place to network. Follow the right people, see what they post and then also engage with this content. Very important. Give first before you ask for something in return.

And if you started to build some kind of like a relationship with people, maybe know you, you can still ask for a coffee chat. This is an amazing opportunity. And when it comes to networking, a little tip. Many people are not so interested in like a coffee chat, but they are more likely saying yes to like a lunch date or something like that. So if there's something you would really like to connect with,

See where they work and then offer them to buy them lunch and have a little chat somewhere near their workplace. This is, I would say, much, much better than just like a coffee chat because it's a little bit more difficult combining that with work. So...

My tip for times like these when the competition is high, really build your portfolio and build your portfolio with very diverse projects. Show your expertise and spend some time on like working on new projects and really like updating your portfolio basically. A second recommendation for the tech recession market at the moment is networking. And they're not just going to conferences, but starting really small.

So super important. And now let's come to challenge number two. And this is the rise of AI in UX design. I mean, AI definitely has a big influence in tech at the moment and also sparked some concerns about its impact on UX jobs. And while tools like ChatGPT are very impressive,

Of course, they are not here to replace the human centric aspects of your X design because this is not possible. What we can say for sure is that AI tools really excel in generating outputs, but lack some time, nuanced understanding of user needs and experiences. Of course they do because they're not human and they can't really replicate the empathy and creative problem solving that human designers bring to the table.

The last week I had an interesting discussion with a former colleague. We worked together on a project and we talked about the influence of AI on the UX job market, on the UX designer role. And he said, yeah, he's not worried anymore because he went to config and there he saw that there is only like tiny integrations of AI, only

Like tiny parts and anyone of you who watched the config keynotes or went to config like the Figma conference last year knows that they presented some new AI features, some new AI integration features where you could basically replace tiny parts of the UX workflow. And yes, this was nice and impressive. Nothing that would scare us.

But one thing is so important and I can't highlight that enough. This was just a tiny, tiny bit of what will become possible very soon. The conference was like seven months ago, right? So a long time ago. Since then, a lot of things have changed. And with generative AI, lots of more things will become possible. New models will be trained and

We can't judge the future on something that happened a year ago and say that this will be the future. This is not going to happen. So we need to look a little bit into the future to see what's ahead of us. Right. That makes sense. So we can really look into the past and see.

Looking into the future, we will see that huge part of the current UX design workflows will be automated. We will have AI models that will be trained on our design systems, on our branding, that we train and train and train. And then it spits out several parts of

the output basically, right? Of the output. We just need to interact with these AI models, probably with prompts and then get certain results as an outcome, right? And this is what we are going to see. So my key tip here is to embrace AI as a complementary tool, like co-pilot, collaborate with AI.

It can enhance your efficiency and handle a lot of the predictable tasks, allowing you to focus on more creative and strategic aspects of your exercise, which will be the future, which will be much more important to focus on these topics.

By the way, I already mentioned that if you're interested in generative AI, how to use them as a designer, please sign up for the free live training for zero euros. So it doesn't cost you any money. You can find it in the description box. Please sign up if that's interesting to you. And I would say let's move to the topic number three, which is specialization and generalization.

So there always has been a debate between specializing and generalizing in your actual what is more important, what is more relevant. And what we are seeing currently on the market dynamics that the demand has shifted towards a more versatile skill set. So

While specialization or specialized job allows you to excel in a specific niche, generalization can offer broader opportunities and especially in a fluctuating job market, this is the way to go. So cultivating a diverse skill set can make you more adaptable and resilient to industry changes.

Generalist roles are seeing an uptick in demand due to their adaptability in uncertain times. Of course, the core design skills remain indispensable in any UX role. So if you are in a specialized position and you still have your job, I would recommend to look a little bit to the left and right and add more skills to your skill set.

try to like

Become a little bit more, I would say, or present yourself a little bit more like a generalist. You can still have your expertise and your specialization, but look a little bit left and right. Because usually in times like this, and we're already seeing that on the job market, the positions that were cut off first are the specialized ones. You can look in your own company if there were any layoffs. Probably the specialized roles were the first one.

So my tip there is to present yourself a little bit more like a generalist. Try to look a little bit left and right, do different maybe online courses, different trainings to add certain skill sets that are in high demand, like business knowledge, generative AI, for example, use a research strategy to your skill set that you can use for applications that you can use for your LinkedIn page.

Also that you actually have the skills when you work on projects and you can really excel. So this would be my tip. Okay, a little summary. So the first big challenge for us as designers in 2024 is the tech recession and its impact on the job market. And there are the two things that will help us to craft a unique portfolio with very diverse skills and projects. This is the key. And also network. And there, as I mentioned, start small.

Challenge number two is the rise of AI in UX design. So the role of UX design and the task, the workflows will change drastically in the next years.

It will be the case. So we need to be able to adapt and we need to stay on track with everything that's going on. So my tip is embrace AI, understand AI. This can really enhance your efficiency and handle, you know, predictable tasks so you can focus more on the things that are important. And the challenge number three is the specialization versus generalization topic.

So I would recommend you to focus a little bit more on the generalization part. Look left and right and try to craft yourself a unique skill set with very diverse skills, basically. Okay, I hope this was helpful.

yeah thank you so much for listening don't forget to sign up for my zero euro live training next Wednesday 6 p.m. so we have a date looking forward to see you there and yeah thank you so much for listening and hear you in the future