We’re living in some weird-ass times. One of the unfortunate results of a global pandemic is loss of jobs and financial security. While people continue to deal with this, the prospect of entering a new field — especially one that’s slightly better equipped to handle these circumstances — may be interesting.

我们生活在一个奇怪的时代。 全球大流行的不幸结果之一是失业和财务安全。 当人们继续处理这个问题时，进入一个新领域的前景可能会很有趣，尤其是能够更好地应对这些情况的领域。

Below, you’ll find a handful of valuable tips for folks looking to enter the fields of Product/User Experience Design. These tips are based on my own experience of transitioning into the field as well as years of mentoring, managing, and hiring designers at companies like Airbnb, Khan Academy, and Big Cartel.

下面，您将找到一些有用的提示，供那些希望进入产品/用户体验设计领域的人们使用。 这些技巧是基于我自己过渡到该领域的经验以及在Airbnb，Khan Academy和Big Cartel等公司指导，管理和聘用设计师多年的经验。

1.了解不同的角色 (1. Understand the Different Roles)

Technology companies can have Brand Designers, User Experience/Product Designers, Motion Designers, Production Designers, User Researchers, and more! Besides design, there’s also Product Management, Software Engineering, Customer Support, and Data Science.

科技公司可以拥有品牌设计师，用户体验/产品设计师，动作设计师，产品设计师，用户研究员等！ 除了设计，还有产品管理，软件工程，客户支持和数据科学。

All of these won’t exist at every company, but it’s worth understanding these roles and how they may or may not align with your interests.

所有这些都不是每个公司都存在的，但是值得了解这些角色以及它们如何与您的利益保持一致。

Practical Tip:

实用提示：

Visit the careers page of any medium or large technology company and see the roles they have available.

访问任何中型或大型技术公司的职业页面，并查看他们的职位。

Read the job descriptions to get a sense of what each role is about. This will help you understand which roles best align with your interest. Knowing this helps you better focus your efforts. For example, if your passion is User Research, you probably don’t need to perfect your visual design skills!

阅读工作说明，以了解每个角色的含义。 这将帮助您了解哪些角色最符合您的兴趣。 知道这一点有助于您更好地集中精力。 例如，如果您对User Research感兴趣，那么您可能不需要完善视觉设计技能！

To go one step further, reach out to people on LinkedIn who are in the positions you’re interested in to learn more. This won’t have a great success rate, but it’s low risk/high reward.

要更进一步，请与您感兴趣的职位的LinkedIn上的人员联系以了解更多信息。 这不会有很大的成功率，但是风险低/回报高。

2.尽早专注于手Craft.io (2. Focus On Your Craft Early)

Fight the urge to perfect your resume, portfolio, or interviewing skills if you haven’t yet devoted enough time to improving your design skills. Your design skill is usually apparent right away and that’s what hiring managers will care most about!

如果您还没有足够的时间来改善自己的设计技能，则可以消除完善自己的简历，作品集或面试技巧的冲动。 您的设计技巧通常会立即显现出来，而这正是招聘经理最关心的！

This industry is competitive — take the time needed to get better first. This of course assumes you’ve got the luxury of some other way to earn income as you develop, which isn’t a luxury we’re all afforded.

这个行业具有竞争优势-花费时间先取得好。 当然，这是假设您在开发过程中拥有其他赚钱方式的奢侈，而这并不是我们所有人都能负担的。

Practical Tip:

实用提示：

Screenshot any app or website that’s well-designed (start with Apple Design Award winners). Bring it into your design software of choice and drop the opacity down to ~30%. Recreate the app as precisely as you can atop the original —like digital tracing paper.

截屏设计良好的任何应用程序或网站(从Apple Design Award获奖者入手)。 将其放入您选择的设计软件中，并将不透明度降低到约30％。 在原始数字(如数字描图纸)上尽可能精确地重新创建应用程序。

Over time, this will help you understand appropriate type choices, color choices, button sizing, layouts, etc. The more you do this, the better you’ll understand “the rules”. After you know the rules, you can learn which ones to break.

随着时间的流逝，这将帮助您了解适当的类型选择，颜色选择，按钮大小，布局等。您做得越多，您就会越了解“规则”。 知道了规则之后，您就可以了解要打破哪些规则。

Apply this same methodology to interaction design by studying popular patterns and recreating them in prototyping apps like InVision, Marvel, or Principle.

通过研究流行的模式并在InVision，Marvel或Principle等原型应用中重新创建模式，将相同的方法应用于交互设计。

3.作为非设计师拥有自己的过去 (3. Own Your Past as a Non-Designer)

Design experience is important for a design job, but there’s great value in the experience you’ve gained in your prior career!

设计经验对于设计工作很重要，但是您在以前的职业中获得的经验具有巨大的价值！

Good design teams know that building a diverse team is critical to building successful products. In addition to ethnic and gender diversity — which are most critical — diversity of education, career path, and location is also valued.

优秀的设计团队知道，建立一支多元化的团队对于打造成功的产品至关重要。 除了种族和性别多样性(这是最关键的)之外，教育，职业道路和位置的多样性也受到重视。

Practical Tip:

实用提示：

Research the role(s) you’re interested in and understand what process they follow. Then, find commonalities between your experience and the new role.

研究您感兴趣的角色，并了解他们遵循的流程。 然后，在您的经验和新职位之间找到共同点。

As a chemist, you learned how to test hypotheses and measure results — something designers do. As a PR expert, you learned to master communication and fight fires — something designers do. As a painter, you learned how to iterate and embrace challenges with your medium — something designers do. As a community organizer you learned to use your passion to rally many people together towards a common goal — something designers do. There are many more examples like this.

作为一名化学家，您学会了如何检验假设和衡量结果-设计师可以做到。 作为一名PR专家，您学会了沟通和扑灭火灾-设计师可以做到。 作为画家，您学习了如何遍历和应对媒介所带来的挑战，这正是设计师所做的。 作为社区组织者，您学会了用自己的热情将许多人团结在一起，以实现一个共同的目标-设计师所做的。 还有更多类似的例子。

4.寻找导师 (4. Find a Mentor)

A mentor with professional experience in your desired field can make a huge difference in your career trajectory! Good mentors can provide all sorts of value for new designers. For example, they can provide feedback on your projects, help you refine your resume and portfolio, connect you to others in the industry, share learnings they’ve had throughout their career, and more. Having a resource like this can be a difference maker when it comes to succeeding.

在您期望的领域中具有专业经验的导师可以对您的职业发展道路产生巨大的影响！ 优秀的导师可以为新设计师提供各种价值。 例如，他们可以提供有关您的项目的反馈，帮助您完善简历和投资组合，将您与行业中的其他人联系起来，分享他们在整个职业生涯中获得的经验等等。 在成功方面，拥有这样的资源可能会有所作为。

Practical Tip:

实用提示：

Start by studying people who are in jobs that are especially intriguing to you or who have the job that you want 5–10 years from now.

首先研究那些对您特别有吸引力的工作或从现在起5到10年内拥有您想要的工作的人。

Instead of asking them to be your mentor right away, just ask to have a conversation (kindly and respectfully, of course). From there, you can feel out if the relationship is a good fit.

与其要求他们立即成为您的导师，不如要求他们进行一次交谈(当然，要有礼貌和尊重)。 从那里，您可以确定这种关系是否合适。

Be prepared to ask specific questions and show that you’ve studied them and their path. After the conversation, follow up and keep the door open for continued conversations. More often than not, the responsibility falls on the mentee to create agendas, create discussion prompts, etc. Take it seriously and they will too!

准备提出具体问题，并表明您已经研究了它们及其路径。 对话后，请跟进并打开门，继续进行对话。 通常，责任落在受训者身上，以创建议程，创建讨论提示等。认真对待它，他们也会这样做！

5.加入设计社区。 (5. Join Design Communities.)

Just like having a mentor, it’s useful to have peers you can share with and learn from. Many design communities encourage sharing job postings, giving feedback to one another, and uplifting folks who have been laid off by sharing their portfolios and resumes.

就像有一位导师一样，拥有可以与之分享和学习的同伴也很有用。 许多设计社区都鼓励分享工作岗位，互相反馈，并通过分享自己的作品集和简历来培养被解雇的人。

Having access to these resources and to people tackling similar challenges can be super helpful as a newcomer to the industry.

作为这些行业的新手，拥有这些资源以及应对类似挑战的人员可能会非常有帮助。

Practical Tip:

实用提示：

Slack is one of the most useful ways to engage with others in the design community! There are hundreds of different groups ranging from broad to niche, junior to more experienced, etc. Explore these communities and join the ones that feel most relevant. Here’s a good place to start.

Slack是与设计社区中的其他人互动的最有用的方法之一！ 有数百个不同的群体，范围广泛，从小众到初级，再到经验丰富，等等。探索这些社区并加入最相关的社区。 这是一个不错的起点 。

Also consider exploring Facebook and LinkedIn for additional communities, Eventbrite for local and remote events, Dribbble for posting work and getting inspiration, Figma, Sketch, or Adobe XD communities for having tool-specific discussions, and Twitter for general design and technology discourse.

还可以考虑探索Facebook和LinkedIn，以获得更多社区，Eventbrite了解本地和远程事件，Dribbble发布工作并获得灵感，Figma，Sketch或Adobe XD社区进行特定工具的讨论，Twitter进行常规设计和技术讨论。

闭幕 (Closing)

I hope you find these tips useful as you consider a potential career shift. Here’s some additional thoughts I’ll leave you with:

我希望您在考虑可能的职业转变时发现这些技巧有用。 这是我的一些其他想法：

1. A lot of popular design discourse is dominated by white men. Go out of your way to engage in conversations led by people of color — especially women and non-binary people of color. Their perspectives are invaluable and regularly underrepresented in this field.
   许多流行的设计论述都由白人主导。 尽力参与有色人种尤其是女性和非二元有色人种领导的对话。 他们的观点是无价的，在这一领域经常被忽视。
2. Communication and storytelling are critical parts of a designer’s job. Read books and articles about this topic to develop your skills here and increase your chances of succeeding.
   交流和讲故事是设计师工作的关键部分。 阅读有关该主题的书籍和文章，以在这里发展技能并增加成功的机会。

3. Non-profits and social-good organizations are an incredible place to practice your design skills while also making a positive impact on the world. There are fewer opportunities, but they are well worth searching for. My time at Khan Academy bolstered my personal and professional growth in ways I couldn’t have expected.

   非营利组织和社会公益组织是实践您的设计技能同时又对世界产生积极影响的绝佳场所。 机会较少，但值得寻找。 我在汗学院 ( Khan Academy)的经历以我无法预料的方式促进了我的个人和职业发展。

4. Research, research, research! This is a critical skill for any designer to develop. While many large companies will have dedicated research resources, most smaller companies won’t. Learn the basics of this as early as possible.
   研究，研究，研究！ 对于任何设计师来说，这都是至关重要的技能。 尽管许多大公司将拥有专门的研究资源，但大多数小公司却没有。 尽早学习此基础知识。

5. I’ve had a number of special relationships with other designers, but I am most thankful for my former manager and forever mentor, May-Li Khoe who is most responsible for how I manage and grow designers. Follow her for lots of great design and non-design stuff!

   我与其他设计师有很多特殊的关系，但我要感谢我的前任经理和永远的导师May-Li Khoe ，他对我如何管理和发展设计师负有最大责任。 跟随她进行许多出色的设计和非设计工作！