Here are some things I (and I know others) have struggled with. I think the web is exploding with resources and information, so I don’t necessarily think we need to explain what a prototype is. There’s better places elsewhere to learn things about UX, but I think we could provide some good resources for not just people new to UX but everyone else too. I’m coming at this from what I wished I would have access to when I was trying to get into the field. I know that /u/uirockstar has some good walls of text that probably should be included as well. Feel free to suggest any changes to what I have here.

I really want to begin a career in UX/UI. What do I do?

Well, first it’s important to know that UX and UI are not synonymous. While many job postings combine them, UI is a subset of UX, just as research and information architecture are. UI is still important and if you can do both, you do increase your value. While many see UX as a research field at its core, the UX/UI title implies that it’s only about creating pretty things.

The first step is learning more about the field, which brings us to…

What kind of education do I need?

If you are still in school, there are more places recently that are offering courses in human-computer interaction. You can even try to create your own internships. There are very few UX specific schools, though they are starting to pop up, like Center Centre and General Assembly.

Yeah, yeah, that’s great. But I already graduated, so where do I start?

Any focus on people or technology can act as a solid foundation for learning UX. Because there has never been a set entrance path into the field, UX roles are filled with people from many different backgrounds. The most common degrees for those in the field though are design, psychology, communications, English, and computer science. link

There are a number of people in the field who are self-taught. There are tons of books, blogs, and designers (here are some helpful resources) which provide enough UX stuff to keep us all busy. When I first started reading about it, I quickly got overwhelmed because there was so much information available and most of it was intended for those who already had a pretty good grasp on things. The Hipper Element’s crash courses in UX and user psychology are great places to get a fairly quick overview.

There are books like The Design of Everyday Things by Donald Norman, 100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People by Susan Weinschenk and Don’t Make Me Think by Steve Krug that make for great first books.

UX Mastery has a great eBook for getting started, appropriately titled Getting Started in UX. Kevin Nichols’ UX for Dummies is both very readable, yet detailed. You can even buy the eBook if you don’t want people on the bus to think you’re a “dummy.”

Lastly, Fred Beecher has a very extensive Amazon list of recommended UX books, depending on what area you are looking to learn more about.

Great. I’ve read a whole bunch of stuff and have a pretty good idea how UX works. Now how do I get someone to hire me so I can gain experience?

Hey, easy there. While, yes, there are lots of UX jobs out there, very few are entry level and not many employers will hire someone who has only read about it and not actually done it. You can’t get a job without experience and you can’t get experience without a job. I know. Frustrating, right?

You have to prove that you can do it. One way to do this is site redesigns.

Go find a website that lacks in it’s user experience and figure out how to fix it. Maybe it’s a small business down the street from you or maybe it’s a feature on eBay you think could be better. Redesigning sites is a good way to practice a process and make mistakes on your own time. If you can involve the owner from that small business down the street, that’s even better because then you can get a sense of the customers (users) that you will be designing for.

Once you have done this, you have (some) experience! Start a portfolio and add to it!

But I have a resume. Why do I need a portfolio?

Resumes are great. But resumes won’t get you a job starting out. It’s a million times more effective to show potential employers what you have done, rather than showing them a resume showcasing that you are a team player and proficient in Microsoft Office. But you should still have a resume that outlines your UX skills.

But I’ve never worked in UX! What should I put on my resume?

You don’t need to put all of your old jobs on your resume if they are unrelated to the field. Most places still want to see some work history so they know you haven’t been living in a cave for the last four years, but they don’t care about how you sold vacuum cleaners or trained circus horses. Maybe you can relate some crossover UX skills to your previous work.

Back to portfolios. They are a lot like elementary math class in that you want to show your work. Potential employers are much more interested in how you made a design decision rather than the final result. If your portfolio just has a bunch of fancy wireframes, that doesn’t tell them how you took specific personas into account and you are simply showing them something that looks pretty. And just because it looks pretty doesn’t always mean it makes sense.

Okay. I have a portfolio with a few unsolicited site redesigns in it.

Congratulations! But I have some bad news. Are you sitting down?

No one wants to hire you yet. You haven’t worked on any “actual” projects that showed how your UX skillz helped a business. I know I suggested you do site redesigns to get practice and you should because that is work you can take to a nonprofit or another small business and say, “here are some trial runs that I’ve done that prove I know what I’m doing and now I can help you for free in exchange for adding it to my portfolio.”

They’ll probably be skeptical and say, “hmmm… I don’t think my website needs this newfangled user experience you speak of and—wait did you say free?”

You both get something out of it and you’re doing it pro bono, which relieves you the pressure of making one tiny mistake. (There is a great site called Catchafire that matches non-profits all over the country with people looking to donate their time and skills.)

Once you have a portfolio displaying your work and some experience, start applying! But there is one more aspect that goes into getting hired and that is the people who will hire you.

Ugh, but isn’t networking just using people for my own professional gain?

I had this same mindset and it probably delayed my entrance into the field. I wanted to rely only on the quality of my work and trusted the rest would follow. I avoided networking and meeting people in the field because I didn’t want it to seem like I was only mooching for a job.

But the fact is people are altruistic in nature and like helping others. Many people also enjoy talking about themselves, and those are the two main principles of an informational interview. You’ll also find that people are excited to help others get started since they remember how difficult it was (see: this blog post).

It wasn’t until I started getting those informational interviews and talking with people at UXPA and MeetUp groups that I learned another side of UX, but also got more familiar with more hiring managers or those that knew them. Whenever possible, people will hire those they know and like. Until you get out and start shaking hands and kissing babies, you will be just another faceless name in a stack of resumes.

Meeting with recruiters/staffing agencies is also a good route as they make money by finding you a job, so they have a vested interest in giving you constructive criticism.

I've heard that you have to live in a big city to get a job in UX.

Move. Just kidding. But while it’s true that larger cities like New York, San Francisco, and Seattle are full of opportunities, there are plenty of other places around the country that have jobs. Here are the top 20. If you live in a tiny city, expect a tougher time finding a position.

Okay, I got an interview. How do I not mess this up?

Some great advice is to go all UX on your preparation and treat the interviewer like a user.

.......to be continued.



Blogs:

• Boxes and Arrows
  
• The Hipper Element
  
• UX for the Masses
  
• UX Mag
  
• UX Mastery
  
• UX Matters
  
• UX Movement
  
  
  Other:
  
  
• uxdesign.cc: Methods and Deliverables
  
• CogLode.com: behavioral and consumer psychology
  
• Good UI: Best practices shown in a “don’t do this, do that” way
  
• UX Mastery’s HUGE list of resources
  
• UXarchive: iOS user flows
  
• iOS Human Interface Guidelines

I'm sorry if the reply turned out a bit too general, but the individual steps depend a lot on the specifics :)

As I said before, it's crucial that you understand the problem domain as good, or better than your customers. I like to think of it as the Fog of War in strategy game maps. I can only effectively perform once I have explored enough territory to see the big picture. Here's roughly how I would try to wrap my head around such a challenge, if the company hired me to help:

Customer

Who are the customers? It's actually possible to think of the customers just in terms of their needs and desires. But it's useful to know their demographic attributes, so you can choose whether your solution is going to be a lateral or a niche one. For instance.. Trello is a lateral solution, because the kan-ban methodology can be applied to many different types of problems. On the other hand, It could be argued that 500px is a niche solution, because it caters to photographers more than meme authors. It's very easy for 500px to figure out where photographers hang out online and in the real world, should they choose to reach out to them in any way.

The job (Problems / Desires)

The customers usually have some sort of job to be done. That job is driven by their desire for a benefit, or a lingering problem that needs solving. Those benefits can range from monetary to peace of mind or social status. And problems can range in severity. Furthermore, different customer segments can rate some problems and benefits as more important than others. This is the combinatorial explosion of stakeholders and their points of view, that informs a strategy of a good product designer, and causes an uninformed designer to arrive at an optimal solution only through brute force or sheer luck.

Solution

Sometimes the solution has to be drawn up from scratch, optimized or entirely re-imagined. So what is the existing solution? What would an utopian solution look like? A complex problem might require a solution in the form of a toolkit of multiple core activities (Like Google, HubSpot or Moz). A focused solution though, can be embodied in a single product (Caffeine.app keeps your mac from going to sleep). If a solution is complex behind the curtains, but you make it simple and gratifying from the user's point of view, it may seem like magic to them.

Business

The things that you do behind the curtains are some core activities, that might require some key resources. That's how the business makes sure it spends less than it earns on a customer (unit economics). It's easy to paint a picture where the world is split between sociopathic capitalists with a greedy agenda & empathic designers, who champion the user's priorities. But a similar solution with a sound business foundation will always be better for the customer, because it stands a better chance of outperforming the economically inferiour solution in the long run. It's the job of a designer to balance between the two aspects. So much so, that the Elements of User Experience places big emphasis on both Business Objectives & User Needs.

Communication

Once you love your people, and you have a way to show it to them, you'll have to start and maintain some sort of relationship. You can identify Touch Points or Channels. If, for instance, your customers are tourists looking for a place to grab a meal before boarding the next train, you can administer your solution right then and there, at the train station. But most of the time you'll be reaching out to your potential users somewhere between you and them, probably through a third party (online publication, app or ad network). It may take multiple exposures in different contexts, before somebody decides to give your solution a try. So a customer might bump into your message at certain touch points, open a communication channel like a newsletter or notification subscription, and only then decide to commit. There's often talk about a multiple stage funnel, through which we try to shove as much of our target market. But you can also look at customer lifetime stages as vertebrae in the cohort spine. For instance.. Slicing out customer segments by lifetime lets SoundCloud identify differences between a newcoming podcaster & a long-time podcaster, and communicate with each of them appropriately, even though most of the people that care about SoundCloud are producers and record labels. Staying on top of communication also helps you avoid conversion attribution mistakes, so you can communicate more effectively.

Here are some resources related to those subjects:

• Value Proposition Design, Alexander Osterwalder: How to map the Customer, their Problems and Desires to a Solution.
  
• The Innovator's Dillema, Clayton Christensen: Describes how disruptive innovators solve existing problems in novel ways.
  
• Minto Pyramid Principle, Barbara Minto: How to communicate the value propositions to a rationally minded customer.
  
  A bit more business related:
  
  
• Four Steps To The Epiphany, Steve Blank: A user-focused methodology for efficiently finding a viable business model, called Customer Development.
  
• Business Model Generation, Alexander Osterwalder: His first book takes a broader look, dealing with booth the business and customer side of things.
  
• Lean Startup, Eric Ries: What Steve Blank said.
  
  Once I have a good understanding, I would focus on Information Architecture, Experience Design, Production & Iteration. I can't spare the time to write about those now, but here are some related resources:
  
  
• Elements of User Experience, Jesse James Garret: What a typical experience design process is made up of.
  
• About Face, Alan Cooper: Another take on the whole process, dives a bit deeper into every stage than Garret's book.
  
• Don't Make Me Think, Steve Krug: One of the first books to gave the issues of IA and UX design a human, customer point of view.
  
  I might write more about the specific subjects of IA and UX later, when I find the time. In the meanwhile, check any of the three books with italicized titles, if you haven't already.
  
  Peace o/

You're facing an uphill battle.

I realize that you're aiming for an internship, but imagine if I as -- a person with years of UX training, but only has meaningful familiarity with writing HTML and CSS, and maybe some semi-intelligent copy-pasting of javesccript -- just suddenly decided that I wanted to get a CS internship. Impossible? No, but I'd have to be very smart about how I convince people to take me. I'd need to bust my ass not only to expand my CS skills as much as possible, but would also need to have some projects to show those skills. And even then, there's just no way that I'd be able to outclass any half-decent CS student! Being charming would help, but they can be charming too. Same goes for any advantages from networking.

In short, you'll need to figure out a way to talk comfortably about how you're less than an undergrad freshman. So here are the hardball questions that I would have for you if you came to me for an internship. They might be "extra hardball," but frankly you're playing extra hardball anyway.

1. If you have as much respect for design as you do for your previous field, then why should I hire you for the internship instead of the applicants who have been studying it for years? If it took them that long to get to a point where they are qualified and ready for this internship, then how are you possibly ready? How are you possibly the right choice in any way? Would you choose yourself if you were me? Basically, please convince me that I wouldn't be belittling the expertise of my field by choosing you.
   
2. Tell me your idea of the design process. Then, tell me your idea of the engineering process. I want to make sure that you know how to approach design problems as a designer, and that you're aware enough of your training as a computer scientist to not impede that. After you've given me that assurance, you can tell me all about how you think your training might give you insight as a designer.
   
3. What do you expect from the internship in terms of skills? And are you hoping for a job afterward, or do you plan to get more schooling or training in design?
   
   You don't really need to answer the questions if you reply at all, but if you do take a shot at answering them, then I'll give you my impression. As you can see from the questions though, I'm not hiding my skepticism. You might speak with somebody who is more sympathetic to what you're trying to do, but if you want to practice talking to a designer who is willing to consider your case but is starting off biased against letting you in, then I'm your guy. (God help you if you don't practice convincing somebody who is openly doubtful.)
   
   And since you still have to actually get some practice in and have some work to show, I'll at least point you in what I think is a decent direction: the design classes on Skillshare. Your competition will likely have lots of school projects to show in their portfolio, and they got to sharpen their skills under the guidance of instructors while doing it. You can get some of the benefit of that. Unlike them, you can move at your own pace (which needs to be fast). Here are the courses I'd recommend for you, in the order that I think sounds smartest:
   
   
4. Intro to UX
   
5. Rapid Wireframing
   
6. Discovering What's Possible
   
7. Design Thinking
   
8. One Design for Every Device
   
9. Typography That Works (This one is bonus, but seriously, do it if you can. Typography matters, and furthermore, your competition will probably be drawing from training in areas of design that fall outside of what might strictly be defined as UX.)
   
   Don't be intimidated, but be sure to look at the projects other people made while doing those lessons.
   
   Next, these are the things that you need to start reading immediately. Again, I'll put them in the order that I think would be smartest. The first two are books. Suck it up and power through them like you did with the Harry Potter books. The rest are shorter. The last two are probably the most dense, but... well, rise to the challenge if you really want this to happen. If other design st
   
   
10. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum
    
11. The Design of Everyday Things
    
12. How Apple is Giving Design a Bad Name (Editorial that applies this stuff toward criticizing Apple from a UX perspective.)
    
13. Universal Methods of Design (Reference book that you may just find invaluable, but definitely not the sort that you'd read cover-to-cover)
    
14. Ethics by Design, or the Ethos of Things (Scholarly article. The first time you read it, feel free to skip down to the section titled "Rude Things.")
    
15. Wicked Problems in Design Thinking (Another scholarly article. Suffer through it as the rest of us have. This is important stuff. Seriously. If design is a freezing ocean and UX is one of its icebergs, then this is a big part of the iceberg that's hidden underneath the water. It's just plain irresponsible to only learn about design techniques. If you don't care about this aspect of design enough to read at least a couple articles, then learn how to make yourself care or gtfo.)
    
    And one last thing that is valuable for all designers to see, but will also give you a chance to put your feet up and watch an awesome video:
    
    

• Saul Bass Pitch Video for Bell System Logo Redesign (While you watch, consider the UX implications of what Saul Bass is saying. He's one of the most famous designers ever, and for good reason! He also considered the UX of the presentation itself when we designed the pitch, but don't worry, it's not normal or expected for your portfolio presentation to be like that. On the other hand, it would be smart to observe how he explains his work and communicates with clients. Above all though, enjoy. Design is fun.)
  
  Sorry for the lengthy post, but... well, I decided to take you seriously. Hope to hear back from you. Good luck.

hmm. Where to get started. Learn the gestalt principles of visual design. If you're designing interfaces - these little tips will help you associate, and differentiate well enough to be able to direct attention like a conductor.

Learn to do everything deliberately. If you don't have a reason for something, you're not designing, you're arting. Know the difference and when each is appropriate. For example - want a big splash screen with a fancy colorful image? Is it so you can attract the user to a particular part of the screen? Or is it because you have some extra space and feel like filling it with something. If it's the former, go for it. If it's the latter - you're just making an art project.

Learn about design methodologies, from a university if possible. Industrial design technique is very good for digital problem solving as well. Defining a problem, exploring solutions, and determining a valuable path are things that will help you in every project.

Understand why you are doing what you are doing. And who are you doing it for. Never go past page one without establishing those facts.

Stats will help you in that do everything intentionally part. If you can say 80 of people do this, 20 percent of people do that, you can from this say, that this gets center position, bright colors, dark shadow and lots of negative space. That thing that 20 percent of people do, gets bottom right, lowER contrast, and is there for people that expect it.

Good luck, conferences will help. Podcasts will help. Reading interviews from design teams at larger companies will help.

Asking reddit will help. What you should ask for is paid time off to study lol. Good luck.


edit:
Also get this book universal principles of design I think there's a pocket version. This teaches you what works and why and when to use it.


Get the design of every day things. This book teaches you what good design is. It asks the questions - what is design. When is design good. What is an affordance? How do we signal what things do what? How does all that work? Is a coffee cup good design? What about a scissors? How about google.com vs yahoo.com...

Check out don't make me think... or just think about the title for an hour and pretend you read the book.

a popular one now is hooked. Pavlov's dog experiments except with people, basically operant conditioning for designers.

And learn about grid systems and bootstrap for prototyping. Get a prototyping account. For something, proto.io, invision, framerjs.... Invest in omingraffle and sketch, get a creative cloud license if need be. You will need to show people things a lot. You will need to convince people of your ideas and your paths. You will need to constantly throw together quick and dirty visualizations of what you want to say. Invest in tools that make it simple.

Learn how to sell your ideas. You will be asked a ton of questions as people poke holes in your design. You need to figure out how to soothe their worries. They will your decisions, and you will have to show them that you have the answer. Learn how to present. Learn public speaking. Learn how to communicate with superiors. Learn how to talk with programmers. Learn how to give the programmers what they want from you. Learn how to negotiate, learn how to deliver on time. Learn how to handle stress.

Good luck.

Oh man I have a few favorites. Here's a list of several that I can remember. These may or may not be papers but they are all academic in nature. I could go into more detail if you'd like.

• Becoming a Bartender by King Beach ('93)
  
  Applied Sciences at its best. Before I read this article the idea of research still seemed sterile to me. Reading this was fun because the whole idea is kind of goofy but the paper demonstrates phenomenal methodology in observation and analysis of human behavior.
  
  
• On the Origin of Objects by BC Smith (Not sure about date, it's probably a full on book by now)
  
  Really truly fantastic read about metaphysics, computers, AI, and cog sci. Basically an edict proclaiming the superiority of the underlying principles in UX today before they were established. Can't recommend this enough.
  
  
• Designing for People by Henry Dreyfuss
  
  Okay so I only read Chapters 2 and 4 in this book and it's a lot like The Design of Everyday Things but with a more human narrative. Very well written. Another book I think is an essential read and I'm glad you asked about this because it reminded me that I need to get my hands on a copy and finish reading the whole thing.
  
  
• A Moving Target: The Evolution of HCI by Jonathan Grudin (I read a version in 2011 but I think it's updated and revised yearly. Not sure when it was originally published)
  
  A comprehensive look at why fields like HCI, UX, Human Factors, Human-Centered Computing, etc all exist. (Actually, I don't think he specifically talks about UX here, but I've always seen UX as applied HCI). He talks about where they came from, what prompted their existence, and what they hope to accomplish. I didn't read this until the second year in my Master's and I was blown away at how, until I read this, I didn't really have a good overall look at this field.
  
  I was busy studying all the trees and the leaves and had never seen what the whole forest looked like. This article is great for that.

This probably isn't the most helpful answer, but any resources I might have used to learn the fundamentals myself are probably pretty outdated now. Honestly I'd just try to find highly rated books on Amazon that are reasonably priced. I haven't read this one for psych research methods, but looking through the table of contents, it covers a lot of what I'd expect (ethics, validity and reliability, study design and common methods) and according to the reviews it's clear, concise, and has good stats info in the appendix. I had a similar "handbook" style textbook in undergrad that I liked. For practicing stats, I'm personally more of a learn-by-doing kind of person, and there are some free courses out there like this one from Khan Academy that covers the basics fairly well.

But if you can, take courses in college as electives! Chances are you'll have a few to fill (or maybe audit some if you can't get credit), so go outside of HCDE's offerings to get some complementary skills in research or design. I usually find classrooms to be more engaging than trying to get through a textbook at home on my own, and especially for psych research methods, you'll probably have a project that gives you hands-on experience doing research with human subjects (most likely your peers). There are lots of free online courses out there as well if you aren't able to take them for credit.

You guys are making me miss school.

Getting specifically into UX self-study, in addition to a UX-specific research methods book (this is a newer version of one I read in school) I'd also go through the UX classics like Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things and Emotional Design, Krug's Don't Make Me Think, and Casey's Set Phasers on Stun (this last one being more of a fun read than a practical one).

Hey there! Sorry for the delay. Lots has been going on. Axure is more than enough, but it comes with a cost. You can get a free trial and take it for a spin to see what all the hype is about.

So, four things you need to know:

• Know UI patterns, and know when to use them. IMO, this is the best book because it will show you the pattern, and then shows examples of how the pattern has been used. Very easy to learn these as you can always google or look them up on the fly.
  
  
• Know how to ask users the right questions. You want untainted data. Using questions to uncover insights is 80% of the battle. This book has a lovely section on the art of asking non-leading questions. I re-read it every few months. It even tells you the questions to never ask, like "If you could change anything about our app/interface, what would you change?" and why you never ask something like that. This is more of a medium difficulty to learn.
  
  
• Know all the basic, baseline usability laws & guidelines. This will get your foundation going. Read NNG's posts, they are very insightful. These are the easy to learn.
  
  
• Lastly, get acquainted with facilitation. If you can proctor a research session, guide a meeting, ask the right questions, etc., you can be a UXer. UXers are vital in being the glue that ties engineers, business, and aesthetics together in a way that is meaningful to users. Soft skills are hardest to learn and it will take you a long time, but you will get there if you practice as much as you can. If you don't practice, you will never get there as you can't learn it from a book or look it up on the fly.
  
  Now, your portfolio should have as many full projects as possible. From the very beginning, all the way through the end, and list the outcomes of the project. You need to outline the specific roles you played, how your skills impacted the project, show what your deliverables were, talk about challenges, etc. Hands down that is the most powerful format of showing your work. It requires more effort than just lazily posting pretty images, but it will get you cold callbacks 90% of the time. The other 10% is just who you know.
  
  Hope that is helpful! Always happy to answer questions.

A great portfolio and github profile can be worth more than a degree in many cases. The degree can help get you in the door for your first few jobs, but definitely is not required. Show off your side projects. Show off your code. All your web projects should have readable HTML, CSS, and Javascript (I should be able to right click, view source, and see what you wrote).

You're pretty much guaranteed a front-end web job if you have great skills with one of the big front-end js frameworks right now: angular, react, etc...

Some jobs to look out for: Front-end developer, UX Developer, UX Prototyper. Front-End dev is such a valuable position, some companies don't know how much they're needed. UX Developer -- who knows what they mean by this... UX Prototyper -- usually someone who focuses on front-end interactions, generally hands off to a core development team.

Lastly, it'd be great to have some core "UX" skills. Steve Krug's Don't Make Me Think is a great intro. Pick up a wireframing tool like Balsamiq or Axure and learn to wireframe before you implement. (As a UX dev though, hopefully the design team hands off wireframes to you, or involves you in the design process)

Do you have an experienced designer/prototyper/PdM on hand? At this stage, you really shouldn't be putting anything down into code. Validation through testing and quick iterations are key. This parable, if it applies to you, may be a good read. Here's his book on running lean that should be invaluable if you don't have an experienced designer on hand. Much of your business model can be recreated manually (cheaply) for validation purposes. I wouldn't write a line of code until the business plan has been validated via the lean canvas approach.

I would nail down your target consumer a bit more than just 18-50yo women. Start thinking about the women who need and will pay a premium for on-demand personal care products. What do their day jobs look like? Salary? Viewpoints? At what point or scenario would they use this product? What is the user persona? My guess, based on past work experience, only, is that your target market is probably something like 25-35yo professional women who make $90k/yr-$250k in major cities like NYC. They likely already have such services as Amazon Prime, Caviar, Uber Eats, and shop at places like Sephora and Bloomingdales.

Instacart is probably a close competitor since they allow users to buy personal care products through CVS and Costco same day. But you'd have to examine your business model of working with contractors to do the shopping or shipping directly from the source.

Best of luck!

Edit: "IT man" lol are you a pill woman?

I am self taught and design applications for human and system workflows at a Internet security company. I am biased but I don't think a degree will necessarily give you more hands on skills than just finding projects and building a portfolio to show your skills. There are many many different niche categories, every UX professional I have met have different skill sets. For example I tend in a version of lean UX which includes need finding, requirements validation, user testing, workflow analysis, system design, prototyping, analytics, and accessibility design (not in that order). I am interlocked with the engineering team so my job is FAR different than many UX professionals I know who work with marketing teams. They tend to specialize very deeply in research, prototyping, user testing, and analytics. Some UX types code and some use prototyping tools like Balsamiq, UXpin, Adobe etc. There is heavy debate on which path is more useful/safe/ relevant. Where I work I do not get time to code because my team and I feel I provide the best value to our engineering team and internal/external customers by doing the items listed above. The other UX person I will work with me on similar activities but then may be given projects to look at the best options for reusable components and code them up for testing.

TLDR:

• Depending on the industry the skill need will be different.
  
• Depending of the team the skill need will be different.
  
• There isn't one way to do user experience.
  
  
  Here are some of my resources I found helpful.
  
  (confessions: I've posted these before in other comments but I hope you find it helpful)
  
  Sub-reddits:
  
  
• /r/userexperience
  
• /r/hci
  
  Sites:
  
  
• http://ux.stackexchange.com/ <- Community to find and ask UX questions
  
• http://www.nngroup.com/ <- Read all the articles
  
• http://www.uie.com/ <-Video Training (More advanced)
  
• http://www.lynda.com/ <-Over 30 video training courses (Intro - may be more videos now... thats my last count)
  
• http://uxchecklist.github.io/ <-Intro to techniques
  
  Books:
  
  
• Don't Make me Think
  
• Designing with the Mind in Mind
  
• Lean UX
  
• The UX Book
  
• The Persona Lifecycle
  
• Sketching User experiences
  
• 100 things every designer should know about people
  
• Prototyping
  
• The User experience Team of One
  
• Interviewing users
  
• A Web for everyone
  
• See What I mean
  
• More here http://rosenfeldmedia.com/books/
  
  Tools (other than typical Adobe design tools):
  
  
• www.usabilityhub.com <- great for cheap/free prototype validation.
  
• http://www.invisionapp.com/
  
• http://www.axure.com/
  
• https://balsamiq.com/
  
• http://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
  
  
  MISC:
  
  
• Types of UX Job Titles
  
  

> As the title states, you focus on the Strategy, not the implementation.

From your description it seems that you're working at a more tactical level and not a strategic level. For me, a strategist should be working with the client across their entire brand and not hyper focused on individual projects.

> The difference with UX Designers is that I don't design anything

But in the sentence prior you state:


propose a solution considering all the variables.

Design isn't using a specific tool, like photoshop. Design is a process that has deliverables like blueprints, specifications, roadmaps, parameters, blah blah blah.

> Most of the time my deliverables are low fidelity wireframes and presentations with my findings and recommendations.

So, this is design.

> I like this role because I'm a Computer Systems Bachelor, not a graphic designer

What the fuck? How much of a firm understanding do you have in the field of Interaction Design, Human Practices, and Situated Action?

You should read some of the classical books in your industry because I think you've read too many poorly informed blogs.

Plans and Situated Actions by Lucy Suchman. Lucy is pretty much the Grand Mother of modern User Experience. She changed the entire industry from being Engineering focus to User Research oriented.

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design.

AND

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

Alan Cooper is a Software Developer. He basically created Visual Basic (which in the day was a significant starting point in bringing programming to the masses (not to mention that the UI builder probably defined modern .NET to incredible levels)). Alan transitioned to Interaction Design and User Experience in the early 90s. He has great insight on what Interaction Design and User Experience Design actually is.

> The downside is that, for small teams and startups, my role is too specific.

It has nothing to do with the size of the team. It has everything to do with the type, and size, of your clients. If your agency only gets small application specific jobs then you probably don't need a strategist. However, if your agency gets clients that want support across their entire brand then you probably do.

Yeah man. It sounds like you're well on your way to getting to learn the ropes.

A great book is http://www.amazon.com/Smashing-Design-Foundations-Designing-Experiences/dp/0470666854 (found on google play for less than half the price).

It's from the makers of http://uxdesign.smashingmagazine.com/ which is also a great site to keep up to date with things.

This is less of a UX market issue than it is about understanding how to negotiate salary. This may be a little late for this offer, but this book is amazing: "Never Split the Difference: Negotiating As If Your Life Depended On It" https://www.amazon.com/Never-Split-Difference-Negotiating-Depended-ebook/dp/B014DUR7L2 (edit to add link)

There are absolutely UX designers who work with physical products - you'll find a lot of Internet of Things and Home Automation companies employing them. UX designers are also involved with stuff like gaming consoles, smart appliances etc.

This book is explicitly for UX Designers doing Industrial/Hardware work which I found really useful. The scope of UX has always extended outside of laptops/desktops/tablets, but people who enter this field without understanding it or its roots mistakenly think that their work starts and stops at the 2D interface

You'll also find that most HCI/Interaction Design university courses talk at least a little bit about integrating digital technology into physical products - a project of mine in design school had me hook up an Arduino to a clock and a proximity sensor and some LEDs near the entrance to my university and had the entire thing show different pictures to people coming in based on if they were late or not, and logged the date and time at which the proximity sensor was triggered. I then visualised that data, extracted insights from it and made an infographic on punctuality and attendance habits and it was a lot of fun.

Sacha Grief has a good $6 ebook

I also recommend reading the classics

The Design of Everyday Things

and

The Inmates are Running the Asylum

We are all Beagles. We train our animals, they train us back. Same as we are trained on a daily basis to use those products/apps/services that work for our needs. If you make a product for a solution to a user problem, users will train themselves to use it.

This is a fantastic book. I have no connection with author or get paid for the link.

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591847788/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_-5AQDbRDQKEBE

I recommend reading this book like it's the Bible. It has everything you need, and it's very up to date. It's not the usual fluff/philosophy, but real, step by step practical advice and real world examples. I found it invaluable.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Smashing-Design-Foundations-Designing-Experiences/dp/0470666854

Set phasers on stun is the staple human factors book and exemplifies why proper ux is so important to product design.

https://www.amazon.com/Set-Phasers-Stun-Design-Technology/dp/0963617885