After a couple of months starting my first job as a UX designer, I got bored of my poorly arranged spare time after work.
I live and work in the south bay, where the typical lifestyle is to drive home after work and have dinner with the family. Since I don’t have kids, my lifestyle turned into a linear flow. I take off, head back, get food and then spent hours on YouTube/Netflix/HBO and shopping websites. Don’t judge me. The first couple of months when I had money dancing in my pocket compared to counting on every dollar when I was a poor grad student, spending money cost a lot of bandwidth in my spare time.
I realized I got stuck in a wired loop. My life became self-centered and disconnected from others. I missed the days when I hung out with my designer friends at school. We spoke ourselves out loud in bars and boba stores while munching on fries and onion rings. Bouncing off ideas on design trends with someone who speaks the same language as you do? That is the best time!
I shared my concern with another designer on my team who’s also my best friend in the company, and he was feeling the same way. So we started looking up for some UX meetups we could go together after work. We also had a checklist for the meetups we picked:
- Free or cheap(<$20). Yeah, money is always a blocker.
- Free office tour. We get to spy on people’s work environments and snack options.
- Guest speakers from famous tech companies. We are curious about the superpowers from those behind-the-scene designers who crafted products we love.
- Basics to learn product management. We want to understand the language of business like product KPIs so we can communicate our design ideas better.
We attended about 40 UX meetups in the past year(2017). I found out there are some event organizers that host amazing meetups for junior UX designers in the bay area.
1. AIGA San Francisco
AIGA is such a professional design association that roots deeply in cultivating design culture and design community for so many years. Their meetups provide a very design-driven view of the on-going innovations and disruptions in tech companies. I found myself mesmerized by how design thinking can influence both product and business strategies. Also, I can meet and connect with so many talented designers from fields like graphic design, interaction design, motion design, etc. It’s a design flea market that everyone I chat with may become a design superstar in next five years. Their shared thoughts inspired me to continue to develop on myself and my career.
2. Cascade SF
Cascade SF hosts meetups that catch buzz words in technology. If you are interested in learning AI, VR, Blockchain or chatbots, don’t miss out on their meetups. Also, they host design mentor nights where you can schedule to chat with your design mentor for 15–20 mins and get their advice on pursuing a design career after graduation. I found it quite helpful for soon-to-graduate students and junior UX designers.
3. Rethink
Rethink advocates a knowledge-sharing design community, and their meetups focus on product design, design collaboration, and design leadership. Their meetups are well curated, and the host will engage a panel discussion with every design lead on the stage. I love, love this mediation because I get to see many different perspectives derived from one single question. Their meetups also take places at startups like Mixpanel, Yelp and Zendesk with food served so you can have an office tour during the break.
4. Product school
Product school specializes in providing product management training for cross-disciplinary talents from engineering, design and data analysis. They host meetups every week in multiple locations like San Francisco, Santa Clara, Santa Monica (LA) or New York. I’m interested in learning product management and business strategies in the context of tech companies around the bay area, so I check their event schedule every week. To scale up our design impact from a company level, sometimes we need to step out of our design zone and learn the operations of things. How does a design team fit into its organization? How do company goals and product roadmaps drive our week-to-week design assignments? A unique part of Product School’s meetups is that they covered a broad spectrum of guest speakers, from big tech companies like Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, as well as rising startups like Reddit, 23andMe, and Rokid.
Before signing up UX meetups
- Quality is more important than quantity. Don’t force yourself to attend as many meetups as you can. Attending meetups is time-consuming and costly on commutes. Check the speaker list first and get the ones you are specifically interested. Even it’s a free meetup.
- Don’t rush to add each other on LinkedIn until you meet a designer you admire and you want to stay connected with continuously. LinkedIn connections can be useless if you can’t recall your last conversation with this person.
- Be open to sharing your work and projects. Not everyone understands the product you are working on, so reframe it and make it easy to grasp. Ask for some thoughts. You will be surprised to find your bottleneck can resolve unconsciously in those casual chats.
Closing thoughts
I sincerely appreciate the event organizers who took initiatives on hosting UX meetups to support the UX design community in the bay area. These UX meetups opened up a new window for me and enhanced my understanding of this field. Countless design ideas and resources get shared every week. It’s as insightful as Medium, Dribbble or Behance. I met people who encouraged me to keep writing on Medium. I also reconnected with college friends that I haven’t met for years. If you are reading this article, a meetup will take you to discover something new!
