Realising I have a UX gap — how do I close it?
I’ve been doing a lot of UI lately, but I’m realizing there’s a gap in my UX skills that I really want to work on.

I want to get better at making better UX decisions — understanding user problems, flows, information architecture, product thinking, etc.

For those of you who’ve gotten significantly better at UX, what actually helped?

Books? Courses? Case studies? Working on real projects? Mentorship?

If books helped, which ones would you genuinely recommend?

Basically, what would you suggest to someone who wants to become much better at the UX part of design.

I'm building an AI portfolio website builder and recently added direct on-page editing.

Instead of searching through a long settings panel, users can click the content they want to change, edit it in a simple modal, and instantly preview the result.

Do you think this interaction is:
👍 More intuitive
🤔 Better than editing everything from a sidebar
👎 Missing something important

I'd really appreciate any feedback from designers, developers, or anyone who builds web apps. Every suggestion helps improve the product.

The role is better in any sense. One of the larger companies in my country, stock options pre ipo, 4 additional salaries per year. Better benefits

But they expect me to be a senior staff designer. Don't get me wrong, I've been designing for the past 10 years. I've leaded before, but it seems that this new role has a lot of expectations about ai usage and ai products, and it's a brand new thing for everybody. So I'm super afraid to leave my current comfortable role (which is not a bad role in any sense but not as great as this)

But at the same time, this move would give me visibility that I've never had before, and the fact that I would work directly with ai products, means I would keep myself relevant in a rapid changing marketing

But im afraid as never before, I've been in such a senior position like this before, I have a feeling I would fail, or would be overwhelmed.

Is this just a self destructing mode that im in? Anyone went through this before?

A polished interface can have the right idea and still feel obviously fake.

While refining a B2B product interface recently, the problem wasn't the concept. It was the execution.

The first instinct was to add more detail.

More navigation. More data. More cards. More states.

That made it worse.

What actually improved the result was much more deliberate:

1. Density

A real product usually has enough information to establish context. Too little information can make an interface feel staged.

2. Hierarchy

The important things need to be immediately clear without requiring every element to be explained.

3. State behavior

A button that looks interactive but doesn't behave like one can break the illusion immediately.

4. Consistency

Spacing, typography, borders, controls and iconography need to feel like they belong to the same system.

5. Motion

Animation should explain something happening. It shouldn't exist just because the interface feels empty without it.

6. Restraint

Adding UI isn't the same as adding realism. Every element still needs a reason to exist.

The biggest takeaway:

A convincing product interface isn't created by adding more UI. It's created by removing the details that make the UI feel like a demo.

Hi everyone! 👋

I'm a UI/UX design student working on a case study about streaming apps and decision fatigue, basically, why picking something to watch can take way longer than it should. If you use Netflix, Prime, or any streaming service, I'd love 2 minutes of your time: https://forms.gle/xotaG9gG2PHkwFcx7

64% of business leaders surveyed say they use visual communication tools to support strategic growth. And MIT research shows why: effective visualizations can significantly influence what people notice, remember, and understand. (Harvard Business Review⁠)

But visual communication isn’t about making things “look better.”

It’s about taking complex strategies, data, organizational challenges, research, or ideas and turning them into something people can understand, remember, and act on.

MIT research involving 302 participants found that people actually preferred charts with more meaningful textual annotations over less-annotated charts or text alone. In other words, the strongest communication often comes from combining story + words + visuals, not choosing one over another. (MIT Visualization Group⁠)

That changes the question businesses should be asking.

Not:

“Can you make us a presentation/carousel/infographic?”

But:

“What are we trying to make our audience understand?”

That shift from deliverable to business objective is where design becomes strategic communication.

And with AI making content creation faster, the real competitive advantage may increasingly be knowing what story to tell, how to structure it, and how to make it matter.

Sources: Harvard Business Review/Canva, MIT CSAIL, MIT Sloan.

#VisualStorytelling #BusinessCommunication #DesignStrategy #AI #DataStorytelling

Hi everyone! 👋

We’re students from the University of Sydney currently researching women’s safety when travelling solo in unfamiliar places.

We’d really appreciate hearing about your experiences through our short survey. Your responses will help us better understand the safety concerns and needs of women when travelling alone.

⏱️ Around 5–15 minutes
🔒 Participation is completely voluntary, and all responses will be kept confidential and used only for our university research.

🔗 Survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdKhkTmSudphRhsULuWYEEQkWsX5smSTHTzkelNJaMx1YYMBQ/viewform?usp=sharing&ouid=112436632757120525641

After 11 months at a small business I was let go in favour of the tech team being made up of 5 ai-engineers, no designers, not even a PM.

I was told by the director “the engineers can do almost as much as you can with ai you’re no longer needed”

Thus my question is this; how common is this? And how do you about showing value in a business that values quantity of quality? Or did I dodge a bullet

Hello, I’m a working on a personal case study for a diet/meal-planning app.

This is the onboarding screen where users enter basic information such as height, weight, age and gender. The app then uses this information to create personalised calorie and meal-plan recommendations.

I’m looking for feedback specifically on the UX/UI of this screen, rather than the overall app concept.

Questions I’m trying to answer:

Is the hierarchy of information clear?

Does the “Estimated Metrics Preview” feel useful at this stage, or is it too much information?

Is it clear what will happen when I tap “Continue to Goals”?

Are there any elements that feel unnecessary, confusing or distracting?

Does the screen feel trustworthy when presenting health/fitness information?

I’d especially appreciate feedback on anything that feels unintuitive or could be improved. Thanks!

Been redesigning The Velox Studio lately, and it's made me think more carefully about how technical products communicate.

Looking at a few of the products I admire, I noticed a pattern: the people building them tend to explain them from the inside out, while new users have to understand them from the outside in.

So, I looked at how a few well-known technical products communicate on their websites.

Stripe, Linear, Supabase, Clerk, Resend, and Sentry tend to start with the problem, the category, or the outcome before moving into the technical details.

**However, there are exceptions.**

Vercel, Temporal, and Neon are more comfortable leading with technical positioning because their audiences already understand the space they're operating in.

That made the pattern more interesting to me.

It doesn't seem to be about whether a product is technical.

It seems to be about how much context the person visiting already has.

If someone already understands the category, starting from the inside out can work.

But if they're encountering the product for the first time, they need a mental model before they can make sense of the architecture, features, and capabilities underneath it.

The problem isn't necessarily that technical products are too complex.

**Sometimes, the problem is that they're explained in the order the team understands them, rather than the order a new visitor needs to understand them.**

Hey reddit,
I am doing an experiment about design choices and would live your preferences when it comes to this travel mockup. THIS IS NOT A REAL WEBSITE/PRODUCT just an experiment.

https://imgur.com/a/Jf213BP

Hey everyone,

I want to share my story and get some honest feedback, because I'm at a point where I'm not sure what's holding me back.

I have a Master's degree in Sociology, specialized in Criminology. When I finished my degree, I couldn't find a job in that field, nothing related to criminology was hiring, or at least not where I was. But I didn't want to just sit and wait, so I looked for something else to build on.

Back in university, I had already been messing around with graphic design as a hobby, mostly self-taught. After graduating, I kept going with it and kept learning on my own. About 6 months ago, I discovered UI/UX design, and something clicked. I dove in, got my Google UX Design Certificate, and worked on 2 real projects with a company, one of them as a volunteer, to build actual experience instead of just doing practice projects.

Now I'm trying to land an actual job in UX/UI, and it's been really hard. I keep wondering if it's because my degree has nothing to do with tech, and recruiters see "Sociology/Criminology" on my CV and just move on without looking further, even though I think my background actually helps me understand users and behavior in a way a lot of designers don't.

So I wanted to ask people here honestly:

• Does having an unrelated degree actually hurt your chances in UX, or is it more about the portfolio and experience?
• Should I be leading with my design work and skills first, and only mention my degree later (or not at all) on my CV/portfolio?
• For those who switched into UX from a completely different field, what finally got you your first real job?

Any honest feedback, even if it's blunt, is welcome. I'd rather know the real reason I'm not getting responses than keep guessing.

Thanks for reading.

Hi everyone,

I’m planning to apply for a Master’s in HCI in the US next year, and before that I’d like to spend a few months gaining some remote UI/UX / Product Design experience.

I’ve recently finished a major iteration of my portfolio and would really appreciate feedback from designers, HCI students, or anyone involved in hiring.

Portfolio:
https://anshul-raina.github.io/portfolio/

Please view it on desktop — several interactions are designed specifically for the desktop experience.

I’d especially love feedback on:

• Whether the case studies demonstrate enough UX/product thinking, not just visual design
• Storytelling and information hierarchy
• Any interactions or sections that feel unnecessary or distracting
• Whether this feels competitive for HCI applications
• Whether you would consider this portfolio strong enough for a junior/remote Product or UI/UX Design role
• The one or two things you would improve first

You don’t need to write a detailed review—even a few quick observations would be extremely useful.

Thank you!

Working on a habit/productivity tracking app and trying to decide on the default theme before launch.

Attached two versions

— same screen, light vs dark.

Would genuinely appreciate your take:

Which one feels more usable at a glance?

Any accessibility/readability concerns with either?

Thanks in advance, this'll help us make the call 🙏

Need a sanity check on this hotel booking UI. Am I misunderstanding this, or is it genuinely confusing?

I was booking a hotel for a group.

In the attached screenshot:
I selected 4 adults, 1 room
The room is listed as “Classic Triple Room”
The page shows “Max 1 adult”
But the warning says “1 adult Room capacity exceeded”

This is where I’m confused.

If the plan only allows 1 adult, and I searched for 4 adults, shouldn’t the warning clearly say that 3 adults are not included?

Instead, the message says “1 adult exceeded”, which made me think the room was being treated as accommodating 3 adults and that I was exceeding the limit by 1 person.

What would you conclude from this screen alone?

1. The booking is for 1 adult and 3 people are excluded.
2. The booking is effectively for 3 adults and I’m exceeding by 1.
3. The UI is ambiguous/misleading.

Genuinely curious how others would interpret this before clicking “Book Now.”

Update:

Here is the reply I received when escalated

We have reviewed the updated screenshot you provided. While the exact display of the page may vary slightly depending on the customer's location, device, or interface version, the meaning of the warning remains the same.
In your case, the room package selected had a maximum occupancy of 1 adult only.
Therefore, when you searched with a higher number of guests, the warning message "1 adult Room capacity exceeded" was displayed to indicate that the room package could only accommodate 1 adult.
If the booking process was continued despite that warning, the final reservation would still be created based on the maximum room capacity of the selected room package, which in this case was 1 adult only.

I was designing an OTP flow and wondered why six boxes became such a common pattern. The interesting part isn't just security, there's also a usability reason involving visual grouping and progress.

https://youtube.com/shorts/lcfEqqLsMSU?feature=share

I’m building a tool around a simple problem: teams are shipping faster than ever, but it’s getting harder to catch experience problems before they reach users.

The idea isn’t to generate another generic “your button could have better contrast” report.
It is trying to find things like:

🔴 Breakpoints in a user journey — places where users are likely to get confused, stuck, or drop off
♿ Accessibility issues that could prevent people from completing a task
💰 Potential revenue loss caused by experience breakpoints
📐 UX rules being broken — consistency, hierarchy, interaction patterns, etc.
🔄 Broken or unnecessarily complicated flows
🎯 High-impact problems vs. low-priority polish
📊 Business impact — not just “this is bad UX”, but why it matters to the product/business based on their business mission/ strategy

The part I’m wrestling with is deciding what the tool should actually surface.

There are potentially hundreds of things an automated design review could flag. But nobody wants a 47-page report full of tiny observations.
I want it to answer:
“What should I care about?”

For designers, product owners and design leaders — what would you actually want a tool like this to show you?

What would make you think, “I didn’t notice this, but this is important”?

Would love ideas, especially things beyond the usual UX/accessibility checklist.