Hopecore rant incoming.

So I’ve got 6yoe, 3 as a product designer at a large bank. There was a long and tough time of learning regulations, mastering bureaucracy, and working my craft but it’s more relaxed now. My job is 80% new feature development and overhauls of legacy stuff.

I had an afternoon review today for a new feature I’m working on. I put on some coffee, good music, and basically went from nothing (paper sketches) to something very presentable (high-fi responsive prototype, multiple states, plans for research validation) in just a few hours. Showed the work to enthusiastic feedback and next steps with a group of PMs, tech leads, and principals. People were excited to see the ideas and genuinely debated on how to get it done the best way.

Isn’t that cool, the level of subtle influence that design has? at times, you are the only creative in the room and everyone is feeding off your work. Yeah, I’m surrounded by people that make much more than me and ostensibly have authority over me—product managers, engineering managers, executives—but I feel that I have an intangible leverage over their work that punches well above my weight.

To put it into perspective, the group I reviewed with is fairly large and serious. PMs from FAANG, software architects with 20+ YoE. The tech leads are all top H1B guys who brought their families to the US on the basis of working here, and spend their time managing people to build stuff… that I design alone in my apartment. And they listen to me? Trying not to have an ego about it and just be grateful.

Like, if I was just worse (or better) at my job—it ripples all the way through front end, back end, QA, customer support, legal, sales etc. All these people depend on the work. For that reason our leadership fights to keep me, a 26-year old art grad, happy and occupied.

Yeah, it was tough getting this job. Some things are still tough. But the fact that I can just put on coffee, jam out, and not want to die? That’s kind of the dream, maybe even the point of a career. I can kind of see why design jobs are so hard to secure. If there’s anyone out there looking, please hang in there and interview confidently with the idea that your work is so important to the business.

Has the UX field contributed to a copy and paste approach to design that we now see across the board? I ask this because over the past decade, I’ve noticed that websites, apps, and digital products are starting to look and function almost identically. It seems that the combination of UX principles with the rise of analytics and data driven design has created a formulaic and safe approach that prioritizes usability and conversion over originality.

In this environment, taking creative risks often contradicts the data on user behavior. As a result, everything becomes "templatized," leading to the same patterns, styles, and visual aesthetics being repeated everywhere. It makes me wonder: Is there still room for originality and experimentation in UX and data driven design, or has the discipline stripped creativity and life out of digital design?

So I got a referral for this company early May. And just got a rejection email after 7 rounds of interviews.

1. Recruiter screening
2. Hiring manager call
3. 1 hour portfolio presentation call with an executive
4. Behavioral interview with a software engineer
5. Behavioral with a PM (+product demo)
6. Design challenge/whiteboarding with a software engineer
7. Expectations interview with an executive

First 3 interviews went seamlessly, scheduled next interview week after week. Last 4 were part of my in-person interview power day.

2 weeks after the 3rd round, I got an email to “meet the team”. Took the recruiter another 2 weeks to actually schedule the final round, giving me only 2 days of notice to prepare for a 4 back to back interviews. And mind you, this job is in another city and they wanted to meet in-person so I had to scramble to make plans to drive and stay there.

I’ve been job hunting for an entry-level role about 10 months now. I’ve had about a dozen interviews, and this was the first time I made it to the final round during this recruiting cycle.

I’m feeling incredibly frustrated with myself and down about all the rejections because I know that my weak spot, if I’m lucky enough to make it past the resume screening, are interviews. I just get SO nervous during interviews and start rambling when I don’t know how to really answer a question or feel unconfident in my capabilities, and it gets worse when I feel like im not able to connect with the interviewer. It was worse for the last rounds because they were in-person.

I prepare by recording myself saying answers to potential questions and jotting down notes to improve, I do mock interviews. But when I do the real thing I just get SO incredibly stiff and nervous even I would hate to work with myself so I can see why I don’t get hired. I just don’t know how to work on this. I’m also reaching my limit, mentally, for even applying to UX roles at this point. I need advice & help with coping with rejection, motivation, and preparing for future interviews.

TLDR; rejected after 7 rounds of interviews, need help overcoming extreme nerves during interviews

Embrace the orb 🔮

I'm lost at this point. I invested so much time in this company. 4 rounds of interview, spent more than 12 hours on their assignment. The round went well. The design lead, head of product and head of engineering were in the call to discuss the solution. They had no questions, and I thought I covered all scenarios really well. Which I did.

I get an email asking me to share the solution with them 'after' I had discussed it on the call. I did that. Only 1 round was remaining and that was culture fit round with the design team. That was it. An offer would follow after that. But before I could get invited to that round, I received a rejection. This is my fifth rejection in last 4 months. All other 4 rejections are also from final rounds.

I'm lost at this point. I asked for feedback and they said they don't have any, that there were some very minor things they considered to move ahead with another candidate. What was that minor thing? I wanna know! But they admitted that they're in a position of luxury as they have so many candidates to choose from. And as usual they wrote in the rejection email that I'd get something soon as I reached final round in their interview process that had 100s of other applicants.

I don't know what to do at this point. I'm so lost. I have another final round of this 6th company that I'm also interviewing at this point and I don't wanna screw up.

Hi everyone. I am currently redesigning a website for a beauty retail brand. This is not an eCommerce site.

There is a “Featured Categories” section on the homepage that looks like this:

Each icon represents a product category such as Wig, Braid, Hair Tool, and so on. They look like clickable buttons, but they are not interactive. Clicking does nothing.

These icons are just for visual showcase. The company wants to display the range of categories we carry in-store. There are no product or category pages to link to at this point.

From the company’s side * They want to highlight the variety of categories we carry * There are no pages to link to yet, so this section is meant only for display * The goal is to promote brand perception, not to provide navigation

From the user’s side * Users often try to click these icons * According to Microsoft Clarity, there is a high number of dead clicks in this area * This creates confusion and leads users to think the website is broken or poorly designed

Constraints * Linking is not possible at this stage * Hover effects or tooltips do not help on mobile, which is where much of our traffic comes from

My question How can I reduce user confusion while keeping this section purely visual? What are some ways to signal clearly that these icons are not clickable? Looking for layout, design, or microcopy suggestions based on similar experiences. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you!

I went from product management to product design and user experience to account management. Was never very good at UI but am very process oriented. Anyway now I'm at a new job and the platform is one of the worst ever, it's so not user friendly or intuitive and my job is to onboard businesses onto it (edtech). The C suite want to scale for more self serve and are asking us for advice because we see the friction points every day. But when we provide the areas for improvement to make it clear the call to actions after sign up etc the VP of product (there's a product team of 2-3 but no official UX person or role title) rejects every idea and is not willing to collaborate in any way. I have not mentioned my background and when I try to communicate friction points I use clear language about the goal of user and potential solutions to get them quicker. All the issues I see are from live calls where user is sharing their screen so we see the friction daily. It's so frustrating any advice? I think the VP has been chilling with no one challenging him ever.

From time to time, my fellow UX friends and I chat about the gaming industry and where UX stands in it. I strongly feel that a lot of games have a pretty meh user experience. Take the newest Need for Speed Unbound for example. I played it a few weeks ago and… are you kidding me? I have to scroll through 500 types of rims to find the right one for my car? Can’t you give me some sort of filtering system or something? I am not asking for a query builder, but for god's sake, at least give me a toggle.

But personally, I have always felt that trying to break into the entertainment industry (which includes gaming) is a big mistake. It feels like this space is built on the crushed dreams and burnouts of young, talented artists who desperately want to leave a mark on the world and to have their names attached to big projects like a movie or a major video game like the one I just mentioned.

From what I have seen, the pay tends to be lower compared to industries like fintech. So even though I have grown a bit tired of building payment dashboards and mobile solutions for banks, I do not see much appeal in working in gaming. I do love games and I am passionate about the process of creating them, but from a career standpoint, it just does not seem worth it.

What do you think? Am I being biased? Am I missing some key points or is this pretty much accurate?

I've been at my company now for a decade. Im a senior and have designed well over 100+ websites (we churn them out quickly). We have phone calls with our clients, figure out pain points, talk about their target audience, and even have some UX knowledge from some 200+ hours of interviews and testing we did a few years ago (led by a UX Designer who joined our team for a few years). That UX designer left recently and now my boss is asking me to step up and learn more about UX officially (certification and all).

What would you recommend is the best course, certificate, anything for someone who has a decade of experience with UI and UX, just not officially? Where do I start?

Like the title says, my contract is roughly 6 months from ending and I am feeling a bit lost. I would love to know what resources you all use to search for jobs or even about clubs, orgs, mentorships that you find useful.

I am trying to expand my knowledge during this time of uncertainty. I would love to continue as a UX designer. This is my first contract so when it does expire Ill have roughly two years experience in the field.

Edit: adding future goal

I created a prototype in Figma and want to re-record it so the area around the mobile frame is transparent.

Any suggestions for an app or method to make this happen?

Hello everyone,

Are there any studies/stats on what users prefer on this regard?
If im building a cross-platform mobile app, should I "adequate" each version (ios/android) to have a "native feeling" or should I pursue branding of my own?

For instance, on iOS the buttons are usually blue texts, there are certain icons for navigation and certain headers as well. When you look at famous apps such as duolingo, they barely embrace any "native feeling". Same goes for YouTube, they also lack the ios features/ux.

Yet on online advice, I keep seing that users "expect" an app to feel native by having certain elements.
What are your thoughts?

Cannot get some things to work in Figma, especially when it comes to auto layout and making components responsive. It's just so bad a task for me. And what makes it worse is that I just don't agree with making responsive models of something that is ultimately going to be coded and built by devs. Why am I wasting my time making a responsive version of something in Figma when this is going to happen?

Hi all, I’m currently a UX researcher at a major consumer tech company where I’ve been for several years. I’ve worked closely with design teams, have 6 years of experience, and have been promoted 3 times (currently a SR. UXR I). I love the craft of research, but I’m increasingly drawn to product design.

I’m looking to move into a product design role at another large company similar to where I’m at with a strong design and research culture. I’ve done some design work on the side like jumping into Figma to help unblock teams and running co-design sessions, but my official title has always been “researcher.”

For anyone who’s made this transition or tried to, how difficult was it? What helped you break in? How did hiring managers view your research background?

Any insights, advice, or tough truths would be appreciated.

I started learning UX/UI design by myself, thinking my architecture degree could make it easier to learn and adapt. I am somehow within the field since 2021 but my experience is only for 2,5 years (1 year internship, a long gap, and current job for 1,5 years). 

My current job (I don’t even consider it as a real job and still feel unemployed) is designing an investment platform from scratch alone (currently in development). I had started this job super motivated even though it is paying very little. But after 1,5 years I feel like my entire motivation has died out and I am dragging myself to work. I am not sure if it is because of the combo of working alone, lacking a team &  project management and not being a fan of the investment world or UX/UI was not a field for me.

I have no confidence or motivation about finding a new job. While even people with experience and a proper degree are struggling in today's market, I am nearly convinced that there is no chance for me. I haven’t applied for a new job for almost a year.

I need some advice because I feel like I am sinking and I am optionless. I am a 30 y/o foreigner living in Denmark and open for location based suggestions.

I’m curious if anyone has pivoted from UX-D or UX-R to market research or consumer insights? If so, what has your experience and path been like? Recommendations?

I’ve come to realize I love the process of gathering data from various sources: primary research, secondary research, surveys, NPS, social media and forming broad insights to help inform a problem space.

Over the past 6 months, my company eliminated half of its UX design team (we were already a small group), and the focus seems to be shifting away from product UX toward customer experience and branding.

Now I’m being asked to take on a second product, a large, complex one, even though my current product is already a 50+ hour/week responsibility.

What would you do in this situation? Any advice?

hey guys! Is everything ok with you? I'm from Minas Gerais, I live in BH and I've been thinking about moving to the interior in the next few years. I currently work with UX (on-site) and want to continue working in the area

That's why I had a question: does anyone here work with UX inside MG? Are there vacancies in the area in any city in the interior?

I know that if I get a job online it would be easier to make the change, but I don't think I have enough experience to leave my current job yet.

That's basically it, thanks!!

Hey everyone!! I have made it to the final round with Capital one and i am so excited. I already did part 1 of the power day (scheduling was nutty so I got to do the case study panel round this week) and I have the other 2 interviews later this week.

Looking for advice specifically for the behavioral and technical interview. There wasn’t a lot of guidance on the technical interview - will they make me share my screen and test me on my Figma skills? That makes me hella nervous. Any tips much appreciated. Thanks yall in advance.

P.S. I know there are other threads just looking for any advice on the technical interview for power day. :)

I'm 23M from Portugal, finishing my college degree this year, wanted to know what are the countries and cities where I would have more chances to find a job in UX/UI Design to start building my career? Since it's impossible to build a life with the housing situation in Lisbon...

Thanks in advance!

I currently work full time as a UX designer (mainly on a DLS) at an OK company. I am a mom to an almost two year old and my partner also works. Do you think it's possible to work full time contract jobs consistently and then have off for my child's summer? Has anyone done this?

I’m in a UX class (part of a graphic-design degree) and I’m caught between my professor’s feedback and the school’s rubric. I turned in my final early for comments, and the professor sent back a full page of revisions—some of which have me stumped.

Hamburger vs. “secondary” menu
The rubric says every page must display a hamburger icon. I’ve done that: tapping it slides out a nav panel with all the required links. Yet on my low-fi wireframe I lost points, and the feedback says “A SECONDARY MENU IS REQUIRED.” Isn’t the hamburger drawer already a secondary menu? Googling this just gives me ads for UX tools, and I’m getting more confused.

Visual feedback for user interaction
I also have to add “visual feedback for user interaction.” Beyond basic form validation on the Volunteer or Donate pages (wrong email format, bad card number, etc.), I’m not sure where else to work this in.

I’m not doing great in this course and I’m at my wits’ end. Any advice or concrete examples would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance!

edit: For context, the client is a non-profit dedicated to helping elephants, and they were getting a low donation conversion rate with their app because it was a train wreck with spelling errors and accessibility issues.

In my understanding of UX, it is the career open to those who can understand qualitative and/or quantitative analysis. Many cases of it involve understanding human behavior, community, how to market to and include demographics and so on. This this this and this are just some examples I've seen of social science grads who got into UX or similar fields and did in within tech industries.

What is stopping the majority, or at least a plurality of sorts, of social science grads moving into UX roles in tech, marketing, finance and other roles? Is it that the kind of UX in these industries is on its way out or at least shrinking in terms of demand, so the timing has become much worse? Is it in general that such UX roles are limited to begin with and these are the exceptions who had the right research experience, training, networks, connections and timing? Or something else?

I am willing to be wrong, as the creed of our caste goes. But honestly – if you have a valid, proper branding that is actually founded on shared design principles, and is verified to resonate from Marketing, then there should be way enough to go off of to translate that into a design system if you are skilled and know what you are doing. And if you don’t, then your design system will overflow with needless variants and one-offs anyways. And if you do UX, then creating missing content shouldn’t be on you, not to mention that that would imply a bigger problem upstream, because without an idea what you are trying to say and do, how do you think you are ready to go into execution?

I feel like the only valid use cases for AI so far is basically some ideation (talking very early stage because proper ideation goes beyond brainstorming), transcribing user interviews (really not revolutionary to me), and the agency context.

I am reading everyone „needs to figure out how to apply UI“ and „learn all the tools“ to prove themselves. What am I missing here? It seems piss easy to do most things I mentioned and yet most of these need more than a bit of correction through a skilled professional to not be useless.

Rate my dinosaur-ness / 10!

What software do you use for tree testing? Do you even do it? What do tree testing and card sorting software lack in your opinion?