A guide to

careers in UX Design
Table of contents
1. Understanding UX Design
a. What is UX Design?
b. What does a UX Designer really do?
c. Who can become a UX Designer?

2. Benefits of HFI Usability Training

a. HFI Usability Training
b. Course Format
c. Instructors
d. Individual and Organization Level Training

3. UX Career Potential
a. What is the career development trajectory of
UX professionals in the future?
b. How much does a UX Designer make
in different parts of the world?

4. Success Stories

The UX Handbook is a quick guide to help you gain awareness about

UX Design as a profession, to help you prepare for a career in this field,
and to know more about the role of UX designers and their work.

1
Understanding UX Design
What is UX Design? What does a UX Designer
Very simply put, User Experience (UX) Design aims at
really do?
creating products/services that are easy to use,
intuitive and driven by the needs and requirements of That’s a tough question! Practicing UX Design
the end users. If users are able to interact with your professionals also find themselves at a loss when
product effortlessly and meaningfully, they are more asked to explain their daily work, because their role is
likely to find value in your offering, adopt it, and so complex and multifaceted.
recommend it.
Primarily, UX Designers concern themselves with
UX Design, however, is not merely about design. It making products and technology usable and
draws inputs from diverse fields such as cognitive enjoyable, and for this, their focal point is the end user.
psychology, research, business, and, of course, While designing a new product, making changes to an
technology. These inputs converge into creating existing one, or even adding a new feature, UX
designs – and consequently experiences – that users Designers must prioritize users and their interaction.
find easy, valuable, and pleasant to interact with.
Having said that, UX Designers also need to take into
cognizance business goals and objectives. It will be
fair to say that they work at the intersection of
business and user requirements and successfully
address both if they want the product to succeed.

The field of UX Design is interesting and challenging because of the wide variety of activities UX professionals do. Here
is a short list of common activities regardless of the product or domain. These include:

UX Strategy Structural and Detailed Design

User Research Wireframing & Prototyping

Ecosystem Research Usability Testing and Validation

Persona Creation Emotional Design

Information Architecture Design Documentation

Who can become a UX Designer and
what skills/knowledge does one need?
If you’re looking to do work that requires you to be humans behave. An industry-recognized certification
creative, solve complex problems and be empathetic, can help you acquire baseline capabilities as well as
then UX Design could be perfect for you. Your core knowledge of advanced UX topics. It helps you build
work will be to build systems and equipment that are credibility because you understand the language and
easy for people to use in terms of speed and accuracy, the concepts. It also fortifies you with the expertise to
minimal training requirements, and satisfaction and provide the rationale behind your design choices to the
safety. client and management.

While this multi-disciplinary field draws people from Empathy, logical reasoning, an analytical bent of mind,
computer science, visual design, product design, awareness about technology (both current and future
marketing, psychology, sociology, research, and even trends), good communication and presentation skills
architecture, a foundational knowledge to do core along with foundational UX Design knowledge are the
usability work is essential. Over and above this arsenal you will need to succeed in this field.
skill-based knowledge, a good UX Designer must be
able to empathize with users and understand how
Benefits of HFI Usability Training
Usability Training Instructors
Considered the gold standard in UX training, our Instructors are experienced and passionate about UX.
unique and relevant training provides practitioners with They are active professionals who have extensive
tools and techniques they need to know now in order real-world experience across diverse industries.
to be successful. The training includes a variety of Their ability to connect course content with real-life
proven approaches to help ensure that interfaces are examples makes the materials even more relevant.
effective, easy to learn, efficient, memorable, and
satisfying.
Individual and Organization
Course Format Level Training
Producing user-centered designs is important to
We offer a four course format that covers allaspects of
everyone working on an interface, regardless of
UX - User Experience Foundation, User-Centered
whether it’s just one person or a few individuals
Analysis and Conceptual Design, The Science and Art
handling usability tasks, or whether you have several
of Effective Web and Application Design and Practical
large teams with specialized user experience (UX)
Usability Testing. The courses can be taken one at a
functions. Following a user-centered design approach
time to fit your schedule or one per week in one month.
for products and services helps to increase an
individual’s or an organization’s competitiveness in
the marketplace.
UX Career Potential
What is the career development How much does a UX Designer
trajectory of UX professionals in make – in different parts of the
the future? world?
The UX field is a great place to be working and As with any other industry, compensation packages
promises tremendous growth opportunities. There is a vary according to your exact job title (UX Designer or
huge demand for people who do this kind of work. UX Researcher or Information Architect or UX Writer,
With the right set of capabilities, this is one field that is etc.), years of experience, UX skills and/or certification,
really not threatened by automation trends like location, etc.
robotics.

Here’s a quick look at what Coursera has summarized in its 2022 salary guide for various UX-related roles
in the United States.

Job Title Glassdoor Robert Half

UX Designer $115,743 $102,000

UI Designer $98,583 $85,000

UX Researcher $128,682 $92,250

Product Designer $105,448 $85,000

Information Architect $113,758 $101,000

UX Writer $103,053 Not listed

UX Engineer $110,607 Not listed

Average or median salary inthe US in January 2022 by UX job title

Being User, an independent recruitment and staffing agency created a Salary report - India, with the data gathered from
conversations with candidates, partner organizations and market insights.

Job Title Experience Minium Average Maximum

Entry Level UX designers 0-1 year Rs 7,20,000 Rs 9,80,000 Rs 14,00,000

UX designer level 1 2 years Rs 11,00,000 Rs 15,50,000 Rs 22,50,000

UX designer level 2 2-4 years Rs 16,00,000 Rs 21,70,000 Rs 31,50,000

Senior UX designers 4-6 years Rs 19,50,000 Rs 28,20,000 Rs 38,00,000

Lead UX designers 6-8 years Rs 26,00,000 Rs 36,50,000 Rs 46,50,000

Principal UX manager 8+ years Rs 38,00,000 Rs 45,00,000 Rs 52,00,000

Also check out the figures as stated by Career Foundry as salaries for UX Designers according to their location.

United States US$69,600 - US$114,300

Canada CA$50,000 - CA$101,800

Australia AU$59,500 - AU$115,600

Germany €34,500 - €70,000

China ¥126,000 - ¥297,000

United Kingdom £30,600 - £65,700

Success Stories

Sandesh Subedi
Co-founder, ProCreator Design Studio, Mumbai

CUA™ helped me achieve my boyhood ambition of making a better world through

design. I was always a design geek, but I felt that I lacked the tools to understand
and articulate why certain things happen the way they do. Then I went on to do
the CUA™ course from HFI. And my life changed. I believe that CUA™ has
helped me become more empathetic and has made me an articulate designer,
with a better structured and conscious awareness of the world around me.

Sujeesh Sukumaran

CUA™ helped me on my Robin Hood mission to build a healthier world. I was

introduced to HFI by chance and now I use design science on a daily basis to help
people collaborate and share ideas on healthy living. The CUA™ course helped
me understand the psychology and science behind design, and gave me a set of
UX and UI tools that I could use in a more systematic and less instinctive way.
Through constant testing, experimentation and user validation, I feel that I am a
more effective, persuasive and confident designer.

Evan Sunwall

It’s interesting how some of the topics from my CXA™ have become very relevant
now that I’m tasked with staffing and managing a design team. You begin to
appreciate the importance of maintaining design standards, organizing an
effective team structure, and having an executive champion with budgeting power.
No matter the location or the exact job title, UX Design is by far one of the
fastest growing professions, offering advantages in terms of career growth,
compensation, and sheer work excitement and satisfaction. The role was
also included in Glassdoor’s list of 25 Highest Paying Entry Level Jobs,
coming in at number six. LinkedIn also listed UX design as one of 15 jobs
on the rise in 2021.

With UX Designers so much in demand, what are you waiting for?

Get the skills you need to succeed in the UX field with HFI training and
certification programs.

Questions? Write to programadvisor@humanfactors.com.

For more information on our certification and training tracks,

please visit our website www.humanfactors.com/training.aspx