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Coach
Freelance Motion Designer here with 10+ years of experience. Explainer videos are my specialty, but I also do digital marketing content like social ads, animated logos, etc. I want to take my freelance work to a full-time motion designer position.
My portfolio: https://www.abrahamriveraproductions.com/
Any other motion designers out there that have had success taking their career to the next level? What did it take? Should I learn more skills? Perhaps market myself more?
Mentor
I'll give you the real world advice. Your job will lean more design (UI) or maybe a bit of UX. But most of the time you never get to start a job from the drawings on a paper napkin to completion, your experience will most likely be walking into a movie theater as the film is playing. You're in the dark and trying to find a seat, then you start whispering to anyone sitting next to you "what's going on?" So in short you'll need to play catch up.
Typically all personas, user flows, heuristic evaluation, competitive analysis, won't be needed and frankly nobody cares about them. If you think about it, personas don't really do squat, and all the rest of the thinking has already been done long before you got there. It's good to know about them but they are kinda bunk. But rarely do you start a project from scratch, and they will want you to focus on things that make money and not what I call paperwork.
Ask if UI component libraries exist, which they usually do. They may roll their eyes and say "we're working on standards, but haven't finished and we'd love your help on them.
Ask what's their process, it should be agile, or a mix of waterfall and agile. This will tell you the fidelity of how you should deliver things, agile you can do mid-fidelity at a minimum but waterfall, IMO you better deliver in high fidelity because you have no time to go back and revisit. One you design and it's approved, just had it over. Done. But waterfall is a pain. They usually are working in a wagile, which is a mix of waterfall and agile, that is that standard.
If you have design background, I can bet they want you for UI. You may do some light UX, maybe some wires to check on something or micro flows to goof-proof something—but I can almost guarantee you you'll be working on part of a big project already in play.
Ask how they want things delivered first off and you'll soon be in the flow. They may need your help building their libraries, and sometimes coming up with alternative designs.
Also ask for help prioritizing, and they'll know you think like them.
There is so much more I could expound on but you haven't given enough data. Things could be way different if you work for a bank vs an agency vs a start-up. But just ask questions, learn the programs they use like the back of your hand. You'll be plenty prepared. Hope that helps, you'll do great!!
Mentor
Here are the most common UX deliverables. Journey maps and usability reports will probably be new to you, look those up.
https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/7-ux-deliverables-what-will-i-be-making-as-a-ux-designer
- Listen to all the feedback, not just from users but from BAs, QA, devs.
- It’s ok to ask, “What do you think?”
- Ask for help.
- Find a UX/UI designer you like and use them as a sounding board.
- Learn to say “I can buy that” when someone makes a good point that goes against your design. Especially stakeholders.
- Stay on your product manager’s good side.
- Learn to be a good user testing moderator...best advice for this...never answer a question about the UI, always just ask “What do you think it does?”
- Learn Agile. This means accepting that requirements will change frequently.
- Be strong. If you’re getting contrary user feedback than the requirements, raise your hand and get the requirements changed.
- Done beats perfect.
- Learn to weight the usability versus cost. If something takes 3 extra months to develop just because it uses click-drag, it might not be worth it.
- Understand where you’re at in the process and what is really needed to move a project forward...user research, an application flow, feature setup diagram, content audit, rough wires, etc. Understanding this is a huge part of your job.
- Be actively involved in all steps of a project. You’re no longer just a designer, you’re an advocate for the user.
Congrats on getting out of agency world!