Confession: I Learned My Most Powerful UX and Design Skills by Waiting Tables, Teaching Kids, and Selling Vacations

How the top 5 soft skills for UX designers can be obtained while working in the service industry

Like many of you, I’ve spent my entire career making my story fit into the mold of what is deemed acceptable, valuable, and desirable in the professional design world. I claim to have started work appropriately after college, obtaining only a few select positions directly related to design for well-known companies, consistently holding at least 2yr tenures, and working only on high-stakes initiatives.

But the truth is, there is so much more to my story that happened before that…

I also did things like serve steaks and martinis at a jazz lounge, work the early morning shift at a 24hr diner, coach an after-school sports camp for 5–6yr olds, and sell customized vacation packages to Costa Rica.

These are a few of the many jobs that didn’t make it onto my resume. Ironically, it was at these places where I learned my most foundational UX skills and lessons about people, business, and design.

Successful UX design requires wisdom just as much as it requires technical expertise

Today because of the demand in the UX field, many designers are able to learn the technical skills (aka hard skills) at a university or Boot Camp and then immediately land a UX role at an influential company.

For new designers, it’s important to recognize that creating valuable UX solutions requires more than talent, trend-setting, and design system expertise. While these hard skills are definitely essential, there are other soft ones of equal importance that cannot be learned through school — like the ability to constantly empathize with who we are designing for, being fluent in the complex language of business, and knowing how to discover the right problems to solve BEFORE solving the problems. In order to ensure our designs are making a positive impact on society, these soft skills must be acquired slowly by hard work, determination, and life experience. Wisdom cannot be rushed. The best way to approach UX as a new designer who is anxious to become an oh-so-wise one is to get a job-–any job. Jobs in the service industry are a great place to start.

The top 5 soft skills for User Experience Designers and how they are learned by working in the service industry

1. Communication & Teamwork

At companies within this sector of the workforce, there is typically a very rigorous and refined process in place to ensure things run smoothly and according to brand standards. This means that, just like in UX, each team member plays an important part in creating an extraordinary experience for their customers. They must learn to clearly communicate, trust, and collaborate with each other to achieve success. Time is almost always a crucial factor as well, so being clear, concise, and intentional is a must. One minute can often mean the difference between success and failure. This communication style is used in the UX world to do things on and off the screen like guiding users down a frictionless path-to-purchase, providing helpful feedback to others, and walking clients through complex design solutions.

2. Customer Service

Many people within the service industry rely on tips as their main source of income. Working for tips ultimately means they learn how a good customer experience is directly tied to the bottom line. Happy customers = more money. Having this monetary driver underlying every interaction teaches them subconsciously over time to understand what customers really want in addition to hearing only what they tell them they need. They learn to read people, situations, and relationships like a pro in order to anticipate desires and exceed expectations in a surprisingly delightful way. These relationship skills + the ability to attach value to each design solution are at the core of every successful UX career. It is essential for not only designing outstanding solutions for users, but also for gaining the buy-in needed from business stakeholders to make sure those solutions make it out into the world.

3. Adaptability & Critical Thinking

By definition, working in the service industry means working for people. Team members are constantly put into unique situations with new people to solve a diverse set of problems. Each person they “serve” brings their own set of biases, needs, wants, goals, challenges, etc. This continual change requires quick adaptation by observing the situation, asking the right questions, adjusting their position appropriately, and customizing their service approach on the spot. No two tasks are ever exactly the same when humans are involved. This rapid-fire assessing, planning, and problem-solving builds critical thinking and strategic skills. These help future UX designers identify the root of a problem, think about it from different angles, conceptualize various potential solutions, and confidently choose the best one to test.

4. Active Learning

Many service industry professionals are the people that UX designers are tasked with designing products, software, and experiences for. This means that those who once worked in the service industry have clear insight into some very niche groups of users. For example, I spent eight years working in restaurants, struggling with the hard-to-use table management software. So almost 2 decades later at Gallardo Labs, when we designed a new suite of hospitality tools for an innovative travel brand, our learning curve to understand the unique user types associated with the tools was much less than usual. We were able to bring an intimate knowledge of what the restaurant staff’s every day goals and challenges were because I was once in their shoes.

Another example of active learning can be seen by observing the shift happening within the EdTech industry. Many teachers have pivoted into UX (or LX — Learning Experience) careers in order to fix issues they closely dealt with for so many years in the classroom.

When someone is customer-facing or on the ground working, they’re actively learning how to create better experiences for themselves and those around them. And when they become professional UX designers, they continuously keep learning this way. This skill is crucial for staying relevant and aware of the fast-changing trends within the industry. Active learning skills are what keep the passion and creativity alive for the long run.

5. Stress-management

Anyone who spends 6+hrs a day in front of a classroom full of students, driving late-goers around in traffic, or serving over-priced food to tables of hangry guests knows how to work well under pressure. They know how to stay cool, calm, and collected even in the most stressful of situations. They learn to thrive on being busy and are continuously developing ways to increase their own efficiency. As a UX designer, these skills help to expertly manage deliverables, client expectations, and teams while being in the right headspace to produce the best creative work.

As they always say, it’s about the journey, not the destination.

If you are in design school or a UX boot camp while also holding down a job in the service industry, congrats — you’re on the right path. The hard skills you’re learning in class are equipping you with the tools needed to be the best designer you can be, and the soft skills you’re gaining through your job cannot be taught. Enjoy your well-rounded career journey, stay focused on your big goals, and soak up every experience like a sponge. You are becoming a better UX designer with every day that passes.

If you’re on the hiring end, next time you’re interviewing potential UX candidates, try asking them what soft skills they’re proud of and where they picked them up. You might be pleasantly surprised.

And if you are a professional UX designer who has been in the industry for a while like me, I’d love to hear about some of the jobs that didn’t make it on your own resume and what skills you learned from them that helped you in your career. Email me at nicole@gallardolabs.com and we can set up a time to chat.

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All illustrations by Evgenia Makarova.