What it’s like to be an Engineer + Designer in 2022

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I’ll begin this article by writing something about myself. Please bear with me until we begin with the topic.

In my engineering studies, I always had this personality that wanted to discover and invent something unique in my field. I believe my fellow engineers can understand it very well. But then, doing so is totally another thing. Why, you ask? because I am a computer science major student. A lot of our ideas already exist. Whatever the project you think of, it most definitely does exist on the internet! But then I discovered this field (product designing) and it changed my whole life.

Now I work as a UX and UI designer for a startup company that is Pune-based. Many of you might be wondering why we chose to design after engineering. So this role actually lets me come up with designs and user flows. Yes, this is very well tuned to the client’s needs. But before I get the requirements, I need to choose a starting point, right? Now it is the time where my artistic personality kicks in. I am trying to figure out how to make it more creative while keeping the user flow as simple as possible.

In this process, I also learned how to make things simple with designs. In recent talks with my friends and family, I was able to define what I do and why design is not only about visuals and graphical things.

This is how I define it for my friends and family. “Design has a very important role in communicating between the users and the features of the application or any product.” It always tries to make the process as easy as possible.

Visuals are important as well because they are going to be the face of the product (company) and nobody wants their product to not look appealing, but we’re also not looking towards beauty without brains.

Consider it a healthy balance between usability, usefulness, desirable, findable, valuable, accessible, and credible. You can also simply understand it this way: when we talk about UI design, we create something that is going to be visually remembered by the users, and when we talk about UX design, we create invisible experiences that a user will remember in his/her subconscious mind.. everybody remembers how a good e-commerce website looks, but everyone also has an idea of what comes after when we press the buy button on the e-commerce website.. yes! you are right, it is choosing the delivery address for that particular product. As a result, the UX design has a significant impact on the success rate of any project or product.

As a fellow engineer and a UXer in 2022, I take up the logical aspect while I create the functioning of the application and think about things like how I can make the user flow short and simple with two benefits in mind: the first being to create a logical and short step-by-step process for any particular user flow, and the second being to create a joyful experience. Take the example of ordering a product from an e-commerce website. While ordering a product, we need to follow many steps that might make the user feel exhausted.

Knowing the possibilities and the limits of the designs, we need to come up with something that’s feasible for development as well as business. This is where we (engineers) stand head-up. We engineers are very well aware of the limitations of the current technology, which not only saves us from creating false hopes but also makes it much more compatible from the developer’s side. We have some huge responsibilities and an important role in creating a delightful experience for a user.

It’s one of the careers that is going to shape our digital future lives. When the time comes, we might even experience the future digital products and systems that are shown in sci-fi movies.

If you’re planning to join me on this exciting journey, you can connect with me through my LinkedIn. I look forward to making a new circle with many new friends who can learn so many things from each other.

***PEACE***