State of UX 2022
Everyone is a subscription:
How content creation is becoming a full-time job for designers
In 2021 many social media platforms shifted to offer subscription tools for their creators. Confronted with low minimum wages, decreased job security, and 9 to 5 jobs that offer little in the way of flexibility, many people have turned to social media platforms for a new source of income.
The design industry is no exception. Many of us are searching for other means to fulfill our purpose, our career ambitions, and our pockets: more and more designers are launching online courses and paid UX communities, as well as selling UI kits or NFTs. And we’re using our skills to our advantage; after all, building brands and converting prospects into paying customers is what we do best.
This growth in paid subscriptions can be positive for our industry. As more UX-related content is produced, it’s easier than ever to learn and hone your design skills. Plus, the fact that professionals are paid to create means that the quality of content tends to be high.
It’s a numbers game.
We complain that our stakeholders are focused on short-term metrics, but we do the same with our online presence, flooding people’s feeds simply to keep engagement metrics high. By focusing on numbers (and our efforts to increase them), we are teaching newcomers that having a large following is equivalent to a successful career.
Choose wisely.
Your time, attention, and money are limited, so you should choose how you spend them carefully. To avoid (or recover from) the burnout that so many people have been experiencing this year, we should stop worrying so much about catching up with the industry and simply learn how to do nothing from time to time.
A new type of community.
As paid subscriptions become more common in the upcoming year, content creators have the responsibility to build positive communities around them. It’s time we shifted from reach to depth, and from putting ourselves in the spotlight to acknowledging and sharing other people’s work.
Like if you agree, share if you don’t.
While some argue that design polls on social media don’t work because they’re shallow and lack context, they definitely fulfill their purpose: get the author tons of likes and claps. You didn’t think this was about getting real design feedback, did you?
Building our own walled gardens.
As a professional design influencer, you can access a full catalog of platforms and tools that can help you earn money — through shared ad revenue, tip jars, paywalls, exclusive access, patronage, and whatnot.
Remember Clubhouse?
For some time, we all had the collective delusion that joining audio rooms on Clubhouse was the way we were going to hang out with our designer friends — after spending hours on Zoom calls every day.
Are you ready to rebuild? Read the full 2022 Design Trends report or listen on Spotify.
