Finding Your Niche in UX Design

Whether you’re just starting out in UX design, or well into your career — it’s important to find your niche. Finding your niche means identifying what industry, segment, platform, etc. you’d like to work in.

While it may be challenging to immediately get a job in the area you want to end up in, identifying your niche early on can help you set your portfolio up to align with your ideal career.

So, how might we find our niche in UX design?

What are your values?

Your values are the things that are most important to you. The things that you believe deep down are important in the way you live and work. Your values may be anything from adventure to peace. They can also be things like mental health or environmentalism.

Whatever your values may be, write them down and identify any common themes. Chances are, there is a company out there that truly aligns with your core values.

What excites you?

Who wants to work on projects that don’t excite them? Hopefully no one. The things that excite us are fascinating, captivating, don’t feel like “work” per se, and make us want to jump out of bed to start working on them.

In order to identify what excites you, you’re going to have to try as many things as possible. Maybe that’s redesigning an existing website, or coming up with a random app idea you’ve had for a while. Whatever that may be, try to identify when you’re working on it if it’s something you’re truly enjoying.

What industries do you want to work in?

There are countless industries to work in. Finding your ideal industry is much easier once you have identified what your values are and what excites you. Being able to identify an industry will make your job search simple by allowing you to narrow your search.

What devices do you want to design for?

Desktop? Mobile? Wearable technology? Oh my! People often confuse UX design with web design, but there are so many other devices to design for. Combine the information from your values and passions to really find out what devices you can design for.

Wrapping up

Defining your niche is a simple exercise that will allow you to see where you want to evolve in your career. Doing so will allow you to create a portfolio that matches all of your ideal career, and ultimately get you to your dream job faster.

Originally published at https://laurenahilton.com on March 10, 2021.