Junior vs Senior Level
"I just want to design"....
How do I become a Senior Designer? The majority of the people who ask believe they perform at a Senior level with 3 years of experience.
Process
Divergent Ideation
Sentiment of Project
The more Senior the designer, the more ambiguous, the level of difficulty, and scope of the problem they will solve.
- How high level is your problem?
- Are you actively identifying opportunities and gaps and proposing solutions to rally others behind these solutions?
- Who is unblocking your problems? You or someone else?
- How have you built influence to drive creative strategy and vision?
- How have you built trust?
Example of the scope of difficulty
- Level 1: Design a set of Fav icons to distinguish between various products. (Details of a particular task are defined with a reason)
- Level 2: Design a UI that allows users to register a new page and check compliance. (Requires figuring out the requirements and what goes on the page)
- Level 3 (Broad): Implement the "right" design system across multiple products and choose among 6 different options. (Requires alignment from multiple teams)
- Level 3 (Deep): Define table component that fits multiple use cases across multiple organizations, and define UI, interaction pattern, and standards.
- Level 4: Design a solution to increase search relevancy for their needs before spending more time and effort.
- Level 5: Identify the user's most desired outcomes from our products and services, suggesting a framework to prioritize and enhance future product vision.
The higher you go, the more ambiguous problems are.
