Junior vs Senior Level

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.

1. How high level is your problem?
2. Are you actively identifying opportunities and gaps and proposing solutions to rally others behind these solutions?
3. Who is unblocking your problems? You or someone else?
4. How have you built influence to drive creative strategy and vision?
5. How have you built trust?

Example of the scope of difficulty

1. Level 1: Design a set of Fav icons to distinguish between various products. (Details of a particular task are defined with a reason)
2. 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)
3. Level 3 (Broad): Implement the "right" design system across multiple products and choose among 6 different options. (Requires alignment from multiple teams)
4. Level 3 (Deep): Define table component that fits multiple use cases across multiple organizations, and define UI, interaction pattern, and standards.
5. Level 4: Design a solution to increase search relevancy for their needs before spending more time and effort.
6. 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.