UX Gaps

 You're excited to join a fast-paced design sprint as a junior designer and have just been tasked with creating a new page. Most of the components you need are already in the design system, but this project calls for a new custom feature. Since your page is the first place this feature will appear, it’s also your responsibility to build it so it can be added to the shared component library for the team. Eager to show your creativity, you dive in—dragging, duplicating, and adjusting elements until the feature looks just right. Visually, everything works, but behind the scenes, your file is chaotic. Layers are unnamed, groups are scattered, and nothing is easy to find. In the rush, labeling layers feels like a small detail you can skip. Soon, the impact becomes clear. A coworker needs the new feature for their own page and searches for it in the shared library, but it isn’t there. Confused, they dig into your page, only to get lost in a maze of Frame 23 , Rectangle Copy , and Image...

You’re working solo with a new client, referred to you by a friend. It’s your first contract project, and the client has already hinted that if this goes well, there will be more work ahead. The design has moved into high-fidelity user testing, and everything appears to meet professional standards for color/contrast, typography, and layout. On the surface, it looks polished and ready to go—proof that you can deliver as a designer. But as testing begins, problems emerge. One participant using a screen reader finds several key images skipped because they have no alt text or captions. Buttons are vague—the screen reader simply announces “button,” leaving the participant unsure which action to take. Navigation feels confusing, and moving through the workflow is slow and frustrating. Another participant, who has dyslexia, struggles with dense paragraphs. They repeatedly re-read sentences to understand the content, and centered text makes it even harder to follow. Tasks that should be simp...

You’ve just finished your UX boot camp. For months, you’ve had structure—assignments to keep you on track, mentors giving detailed feedback, and career services guiding you through resumes and portfolios. By graduation, you had multiple projects and a portfolio you were proud to show. But then graduation hits. Career services wrap up. And suddenly, you’re navigating the transition stage where support ends, new challenges surface, and doubts begin to creep in. At first, things feel fine. But as you start applying for jobs, deeper questions arise: Does my case study highlight meaningful design decisions or trade-offs, or is it just a checklist of steps? Can I confidently explain my projects in an interview without sounding scripted or unsure? Have I practiced enough design exercises to think on my feet during challenges? Am I keeping up with the research and design methods I learned, or are those skills starting to fade? The foundation is solid, but without feedback and ...

A new designer has just been tasked with handling the typography portion of a project. Excited to contribute, they think, “This should be simple — I just learned this in my Bootcamp!” But it’s not a single screen. The design is responsive, which means typography needs to scale across desktop, tablet, and mobile devices. They know they want consistency — common font sizes, a clear hierarchy, and cohesive styling — but as they begin, challenges pile up. They start by setting up headings for the desktop view, feeling confident. Then they move on to the body text, only to discover the gap between the heading and body text is massive. They try to tweak font sizes and styling, but quickly realize that adjusting one screen throws off another. In their eagerness, they pick too many fonts: a serif for headings, a sans-serif for body text, and a quirky display font for accents, thinking it will make the design more interesting. Instead, the result is chaos — nothing feels consistent. Then come a...

After months of hard work, a new UX designer finally completed their portfolio. As a recent bootcamp graduate, they took the process seriously, attending one-on-one mentoring sessions, joining peer review groups, and soaking up every bit of advice they could from more experienced designers. They even revisited resources like the post " Is Your Case Study A Barrier Or A Breakthrough? " to make sure their case studies went deeper than surface-level deliverables.  By the time they hit publish, they felt confident. Their case studies were solid. They had taken feedback, refined their work, and produced something they thought would set them apart. Excited, they shared their portfolio on LinkedIn and with their network. The comments poured in—friends and colleagues praised the work and congratulated them on the milestone. But when they started applying for jobs, the responses weren’t the same. Despite the hard work and thoughtful case studies, interviews just weren’t coming. Frustr...