A friend of mine recently asked for some UX design resources from myself and a few other great designers. Of course, I have some go-to podcasts that I listen to, some thought leaders that I follow, and my go to websites and books that I can reference. They are all great and can be very valuable, I advise to utilize all of those things as one tries to improve their design skills, be it UX, UI, Industrial, Product, etc.

On top of those UX design resources, I too have learned a lot in my many years in the field and multiple disciplines within design. I shared these ideas with her, and wanted to share them to anyone who is looking to further and better their design skill set.

1) UX (or “Experience”) is everywhere in life – beyond the screen and typical IoT devices.
It really is about the “experience” which encompasses so many things. And everything practically has an experience associated with it. Make sure to occasionally observe, learn, and evaluate those facets that are always all around you.

2) Be exposed to and participate in a lot of things – definitely go outside of tech.
So many things in life have more relevance and crossover than perceived superficially. Participate in various activities and try experiences that may not be relevant to you, like apps, websites, entertainment, music, art, etc.

3) Awareness to capture serendipitous moments
Some of the most brilliant ideas and concepts reveal themselves by chance and when you’re not looking for it. Be aware enough to acknowledge those instances when they show themselves.

4) Great different people (all types, disciplines, skills, educations, etc.), make great teams, which in turn, make great solutions.
Try to get different minds together to focus on a single goal. People with different ears, eyes and brains may surprise you with a new lens on the problem. And of course the users themselves.

5) Get out of YOUR box and explore, and do it in a way that may be considered ridiculous or even stupid to you.
I have learned that some of the more brilliant and elegant solutions are done in ways that break the rules or conventional guidelines; especially if you have an analytical mind. Somethings that are not supposed to make sense in theory, are actually perfect in practice and execution. Kind of a pragmatic approach, but it might be impractical to you.

6) If you didn’t experience failure with your approach, then you probably didn’t explore all of the options available.
I’m not encouraging “failure,” I am encouraging exploration. There is usually more than one way to skin a cat. If you devised a solution and the first approach is successful, that is awesome! But, there might be a better or more elegant way to do it that you have not yet explored. It may be completely different or it may just be refining the initial idea, but either way, finding the failures is a way to validate your solution and then improve upon it. If you do not learn or improve from your failures, that is actual failure.