Reddit mentions of A Project Guide to UX Design: For User Experience Designers in the Field or in the Making

I studied interaction design in Sweden and it is not easy to talk about it in general. I talked students from other universities and every single one had a quite individual approach on it. Mine was rather technical, some are more artsy, some include stuff like service design and so on.

The stuff that is generally true is that it is a lot about understanding your user, collecting requirements, working on ideas in a team, building prototypes as well as testing your prototypes and products with users. This will give you a collection of tools to develop interactive products that will work for users and help them to achieve their goals.

At first it should be noted that this is not so much about art and visual design as you might expect. It is related and it is great if you can acquire skills in this area but it is not a hard requirement. I went in without any art education at all. I am still not great in that area but I learned a lot. Although it was more about what I learned while executing projects than having courses about it. But from what I have seen so far from design studies this one seems very universal: You get what you make of it.

If you want to start a portfolio, it is not about showing some flashy Photoshop mockups but about having a few projects that you can use to show your process. So if you want to prepare really well you could skim a book about user experience like A Project Guide to UX Design and design 2-3 things using the methods in there. So you could e.g. design a simple webshop with checkout or website for your local cinema: write down requirements, user stories, draw wireframes (a few alternatives), make a prototype (paper or click), test it on friends and write about how it performed and what you improved.

Yea, rather complex topic. Not sure if this was what you were looking for. Feel free to ask for more.

Just a little nod of support from the UK, it's a tough nut to crack everywhere. I've gone from nothing to running an agency (with a good technical guy) which employs 7 people. It took over 10 years though.

Firstly, the advice of contacting agencies direct is good. Recruitment firms charge large sums which put off small agencies, the last guy I employed contacted me with his portfolio, it was good enough that in the end I employed him even though we weren't looking.

Secondly, even if you don't learn to 'code' as such, you've got to understand the principles to be able to design with it in mind.

Thirdly, look into UX Design, if you can explain the thought process behind interactive design, you'll impress the boss and clients, cut down on amends / time and get a better result. This was a great entry point for me (there may be better ones out there now) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Project-Guide-Design-Experience-Designers/dp/0321607376 I'm old enough that there were no courses when I started, this may all be standard practice and I may be teaching you how to suck eggs, but that was great for me.

Also, this is good, the reports are brilliant but expensive, the blog and newsletter are free though http://econsultancy.com/

Finally, look to account management with 'skills on the side' it's pretty much what I do now and is far more rewarding than I ever thought. It does depend on you as a person though and age breeds confidence.

Personally I'd say stick with it, but more than that... Enjoy sticking with it, there's a possibility you may not make a shit ton of money in the creative sector (putting it mildly) you have to love doing it or it's not worth it.

And work your tits off.

Best of luck