Get honest feedback

Don’t be afraid to put your work in front of people and get honest feedback—even if it’s painful. It can sting at first, but ultimately it’s humbling and enlightening, and it’ll transform your work from decorative to purposeful.

One more thing: if you don’t have any great student or professional projects in your portfolio, don’t worry. Look at the apps and sites you use frequently, identify the ones you think can be improved, and do your own redesign project. Document everything you do, and share it with others.
Michael McWatters, Vice President, Product Design for Max

Publish your work. Tell the story of your work. Whether it be throwing it up on Dribbble, publishing a blog post, writing a Smashing Magazine article, or giving a talk about it, telling the story of your work makes you realize what’s important about it and lets others know how you think as a designer. For designers, the work is not about you but the people you’re designing for and the problem you’re designing around- you’re just bringing this information and creativity together.
Joshua Porter, Director of UX at Hubspot

This is something that I really struggled with in design school, but it’s important to have a lot of patience as a designer – especially as a junior designer. There are going to be a lot of people who tell you that they don’t like what you’ve done – that it’s bad, or that you should redo it. That can be really frustrating and demoralising. It’s important to remember that feedback is a chance to grow stronger as a designer: everyone has off-days. Really good designers don’t give up: they keep practicing and keep building up that design muscle. If you’re not willing to get a little frustrated, you’re not challenging yourself enough.
Laura Lozano

Understand the problem you are solving intimately

First step: make sure you understand the problem facing the user you’re building for. If you don’t really understand the user or the problem, you’re probably going to go down the wrong path and build something that just doesn’t make sense for them. So, we tend to spend a lot of time just really figuring out what are the pain points the user has with our current service, how can we make it better, and feel like if you skip those steps you’re just going to be in a bad spot.
Kim Ruelo, product designer at Trunk Club

The key to conscious design is to know your product, know the consumer, and know your goal. If you know what people want out of your product, it makes everything after it so much easier. It blazes the path for accomplishing the other steps of the project.
David Anderson, UX Designer at Houzz

Experiment and try new things

Never think of your work as precious. And be willing to experiment and try new things. This industry will always need people who are brave enough to question what’s expected.
Jason Dziak, design director at Happy Cog

A diversity of experiences strengthens design thinking. The best way to get inspired is to do an activity you’ve never done before. The best way to get inspired is to do an activity you’ve never done before.
Gerren Lamson, Creative Market

Always have a side project or two. The beautiful thing about being a designer is that you get to do your hobby for a living. So the work you do in your free time benefits your skills and your career. At best, your side projects can become portfolio pieces, and at worst, you can say you learned something. Collaborators and employers want to see that you’re excited by what you do and that you’re constantly practicing and producing with design thinking.
Justin Barr Young, Media Temple

Great designers are always trying new things; finding new ways to push themselves. Design is about practice. I think the earlier you can start practicing design, the better you’ll be at it.
Matthew Spiel, Treehouse

Ask for help

Ask for help. Don’t hide in a hole. Don’t put your headphones on and block out everybody else. It can be gratifying to think that you’re some lone genius in your own little tower, but you’re probably not, and even if you are, it’s no fun up there alone. Engage in the conversation, and engage in the community.
Jonathan Berger, Pivotal Labs

If you find somebody already within the industry who is willing to help you, you will learn incredibly fast. I’m trying to create an intern program at the office at the moment, which is really exciting me. For young designers, having somebody around who can guide you – and more importantly inspire you – is so valuable.
Dan Leon Krause, Razorfish

Keep Learning

Keep learning. Don’t get set in your ways too quickly. Keep an eye out for what makes a good designer and what you admire about the people you work with, and learn from them. All designers start with an unquenchable thirst to get better: Great designers keep that feeling alive.
Adam Shutsa, 500px

I would say that you should make sure you’re learning at any given moment, because UX and design are changing so rapidly. In this field, if you’re not learning, you’re moving backward, and you’re hurting your career.
Juan Rafael Lopez, TheLadders