Hey there!

Today we are talking about the 5 hidden traits of successful freelance designers:

• Persistence

• Curiosity

• Empathy

• Adaptability

• Business acumen

The reason we have to cover this topic is because these traits are often overshadowed by technical skills like coding or graphic design.

But once you understand and embrace these traits, you can significantly enhance your problem-solving skills, client relationships, and ultimately your success in the field.

Let’s dive in!

The Big Idea

In order to excel as a freelance designer, you first need to make sure you don’t make a few of the most common mistakes:

• Focusing only on technical skills: While these are important, they're not the whole picture. Balance them with soft skills for a holistic approach.

• Overlooking the importance of empathy: Understanding the user's perspective is crucial in UX design.

• Not adapting to changes: The design industry evolves quickly; staying flexible is key.

• Neglecting business skills: As a freelancer, you're your own business. Understanding basic business principles can make or break your success.

People tend to make these mistakes because they focus on the tangible skills and neglect the more abstract, yet equally important, traits. As a result, they keep themselves stuck in a cycle of subpar designs and dissatisfied clients.

So, here’s how to fix it:

Persistence

The first step to flourishing as a UX designer is cultivating persistence.

Persistence is not just about not giving up; it's about maintaining a forward momentum, refining your skills, and improving your designs despite setbacks or slow progress.

It's crucial because it allows you to develop resilience and the ability to handle criticism, both of which are essential traits for a successful freelance UX designer.

In the real world of UX design, persistence can mean many things.

For instance, you might be working on a project where the client isn't satisfied with your initial drafts.

Instead of getting disheartened or defensive, a persistent designer would take the feedback onboard, ask clarifying questions, and iterate on the design until it meets the client's expectations.

Remember, UX design is about problem-solving. And problem-solving often involves a lot of trial and error before finding the right solution. That’s where persistence comes in. It’s about making those necessary adjustments, testing, and refining until the design is seamless and user-friendly.

Use this framework to develop persistence

1. Set Clear Goals: Know what you're aiming for. Whether it's mastering a new software, landing a certain client, or creating a design that improves user engagement, having a clear goal will give you a direction and purpose.

2. Embrace Failure as a Learning Opportunity: Whenever you encounter a setback, instead of seeing it as a failure, view it as a learning opportunity. Analyze what went wrong and how you can improve in the future.

3. Cultivate Patience: Good things take time. Don't rush your learning process or the design process. Patience is a key component of persistence.

4. Stay Positive: Maintain a positive attitude, even when things don't go as planned. Your mindset plays a significant role in your ability to persist.

5. Celebrate Small Victories: Every step forward, no matter how small, is progress. Celebrating small victories can boost your motivation and make the journey enjoyable.

The journey to becoming a successful freelance UX designer is a marathon, not a sprint. And just like any long-distance runner will tell you, persistence is what carries you to the finish line.

Curiosity

The second step to enhancing your impact as a UX designer is fostering curiosity.

Curiosity is the driving force behind innovation and growth.

As a UX designer, it fuels your desire to learn more about your users, understand new design trends, and explore different ways to solve design challenges. It helps you avoid complacency and pushes you to continuously improve your skills and your designs.

In the freelance world, curiosity could lead to exploring new design software that's just hit the market.

Instead of sticking to what you already know, you'd be driven to learn this new tool, figuring out its strengths and weaknesses, and how it could help you deliver more effective designs.

For instance, let's say a new prototyping tool gets launched. While it would be easy to ignore it and stick to your familiar tools, curiosity would push you to explore this new software. You could sign up for a trial, take time to play around with its features, and possibly discover new ways to showcase your designs that were not possible with your previous tools.

Here's a framework to cultivate curiosity

1. Ask Questions: Always be ready to ask "why" and "how". This could be about your user's behaviors, new design trends, or a client's feedback.

2. Learn Continuously: Dedicate some time every week to learn something new. This could be a new design technique, a newly released tool, or even something outside of your field that sparks your interest.

3. Experiment Fearlessly: Don't be afraid to try new things in your designs. Experiment with new layouts, colors, or features. Not every experiment will be successful, but each will provide valuable learnings.

4. Stay Open-Minded: Don't dismiss ideas or tools just because they're new or different. Being open to new experiences is a key part of being curious.

5. Reflect on Your Learnings: Make it a habit to reflect on what you've learned from your questions, your learnings, and your experiments. This will help you apply your new knowledge to future projects.

Remember, curiosity might have killed the cat, but it's a lifeline for a UX designer. It keeps you dynamic, innovative, and forever improving, ensuring you remain a valuable asset in the ever-evolving field of UX design.

Empathy

The third step to propelling your success as a UX designer is embracing empathy.

Empathy, the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, is at the heart of UX design.

It helps you connect with your users on a deeper level, allowing you to understand their needs, frustrations, and desires. With empathy, you can design solutions that truly resonate with users and meet their needs effectively.

Consider the scenario where you're tasked with designing a mobile app for first-time parents.

If you approach this task without empathy, you might focus on features that seem useful from a design standpoint but may not resonate with the users.

By empathizing with first-time parents, you would understand the challenges they face, such as sleep deprivation, time constraints, and the need for quick and easy access to information.

This understanding would guide you to design an app that's simple to navigate, features one-hand operation, and provides quick access to key information, making it truly useful for your target users.

Here's a framework for applying empathy

1. User Research: Spend time learning about your users. Use methods like surveys, interviews, and observation to understand who they are, what they need, and what problems they face.

2. Empathy Mapping: Create an empathy map to visualize what users say, think, do, and feel. This helps you gain a deeper understanding of their needs and experiences.

3. User Personas: Develop personas representing your users. These are fictional characters based on your research that embody the characteristics of different user groups.

4. User Journey Mapping: Map out the user's journey to understand their experiences and emotions at different stages of interacting with your product.

5. Iterative Design: Use your empathy-driven insights to inform your design. Then test, gather feedback, and iterate your design to better meet your users' needs.

Empathy is what sets apart good UX designers from great ones. It enables you to create designs that are not just aesthetically pleasing but are rooted in a deep understanding of user needs, leading to more effective and successful designs.

Adaptability

The fourth step to elevate your success as a UX designer is mastering adaptability.

Adaptability is the ability to adjust to new conditions quickly and efficiently.

In the ever-changing landscape of UX design, being adaptable is crucial. Trends change, new tools emerge, and client needs evolve; you must be flexible enough to keep up.

Adaptability also allows you to handle unexpected changes, like last-minute design revisions, with ease and efficiency.

For example, imagine you're halfway through a design project when the client decides to pivot their strategy. This change requires a major redesign. An adaptable UX designer would see this as an opportunity to flex their creative muscles rather than a setback. They would quickly adjust their plans, collaborate with the client to understand the new requirements, and update the design to align with the new strategy.

Here's a framework to become more adaptable

1. Stay Informed: Regularly follow UX design blogs, forums, and influencers to stay on top of new trends, tools, and best practices.

2. Embrace Change: View change as an opportunity for growth rather than a hurdle. This mindset will help you approach unexpected changes positively.

3. Learn New Tools and Techniques: Don't shy away from learning new software or techniques. The more tools you're comfortable with, the more adaptable you'll be.

4. Improve Problem-Solving Skills: Practice solving different types of design problems. This not only improves your design skills but also makes you more comfortable with handling new and unexpected challenges.

5. Seek Feedback and Learn: Regularly seek feedback on your work and use it as a learning opportunity. Being open to feedback and willing to make changes is a key part of being adaptable.

In the dynamic world of UX design, adaptability is your superpower. It keeps you relevant, opens doors to new opportunities, and allows you to navigate the unpredictable waters of freelance work with grace and success.

Business Acumen

The final step to soaring as a UX designer is developing business acumen.

Business acumen is a deep understanding of how a business operates, makes money, and grows.

For a freelance UX designer, business acumen is crucial because it helps you align your designs with your client's business goals. You'll be able to design solutions that not only provide a great user experience but also drive business growth.

Let's say you're working with a client who runs an online clothing store.

They're looking to improve their website's user experience.

With business acumen, you understand that an improved user experience can boost sales, reduce cart abandonment rates, and increase customer loyalty. You design the checkout process to be seamless and intuitive, making it easier for customers to complete their purchase - directly influencing the client's bottom line.

Here's a framework to develop business acumen

1. Understand Your Client's Business: Take time to learn about your client's industry, business model, customers, and competitors. The more you understand, the better you can align your designs with their business goals.

2. Learn Basic Business Principles: Familiarize yourself with basic business concepts like revenue, profit, marketing, and customer retention. There are plenty of online resources and courses available to help you with this.

3. Communicate Value: Learn to articulate the value of your designs in terms of business outcomes. This not only helps you sell your services but also ensures your designs are focused on achieving business results.

4. Collaborate with Other Departments: If possible, collaborate with other departments like marketing, sales, and customer service. This gives you a broader perspective on the business and can provide valuable insights for your designs.

5. Stay Informed: Keep up with business news and trends, especially in the industries you're working with. This helps you stay relevant and provide the best service to your clients.

As a UX designer, your job isn't just to make things look good - it's to create designs that serve a business purpose. Developing business acumen elevates you from a designer to a business partner, making you an even more valuable asset to your clients.

Putting It All Together

So there you have it, five underrated traits that can propel your success as a freelance UX designer. Persistence, curiosity, empathy, adaptability, and business acumen—these traits go beyond the technical skills traditionally associated with UX design, but they're equally, if not more, important.

But knowing them is just the start. The real magic happens when you put these traits into action.

I encourage you to start today. Pick one trait that resonates with you the most or one you feel you need to work on. Use the actionable frameworks provided, and start incorporating them into your daily routine. You might start by asking more questions to foster curiosity, or perhaps you might decide to dive deeper into understanding your client's business to build your business acumen.

Remember, growth is a process—it doesn't happen overnight. But with consistency, these traits will become second nature.

You'll start noticing improvements not just in the quality of your designs, but also in your relationships with clients, your understanding of users, and ultimately, your success as a freelance UX designer.

Don’t forget, you've chosen a career that's dynamic, impactful, and incredibly rewarding. Equip yourself with these traits, and there's no limit to what you can achieve. So take the next step, and let your journey to becoming a better designer begin!

That’s it!

As always, thanks for reading.

Hit reply and let me know what you found most helpful this week—I’d love to hear from you!

Cheers,

John