Designing a New Creative Career: From Marketing to UX

With a background in marketing and graphic design, UX Academy graduate Chaela Watkins found a more multifaceted and purposeful career after making the transition into UX design. After discovering UX, she found it to be the perfect fit for her natural curiosity, love of problem-solving, and passion for making people-centered solutions. We chatted with her about her time in UX Academy, how a rigorous mentor and curriculum helped set her up for success, and how it's been working in the field. 

What were you doing prior to getting involved in UX Design? 

I graduated in 2019 in marketing, and what I liked about marketing was understanding people and figuring out the “why”. I started working at a smaller bank and I became essentially our lead graphic designer, and also ran social media, content strategy, and did website updates and strategy. 

I really got in the weeds of it, but I realized I didn't know why anything I was doing was good. I knew it looked good, but I couldn't explain what was behind it to other people. And that's when I actually found UX, and Designlab. It seemed like a good balance to further what I was doing, and that’s when I started UX Academy Foundations. I absolutely loved it, and I felt I wanted to make it a career.

How was your experience beyond that, once you started the UX Academy program? 

I loved it. When selecting my mentor preferences for UX Academy, I picked one to push me, and I got paired with Hugh Nettar. He’d review my work and sometimes I’d wonder why he was being so critical, but it was the best thing, and really what I needed. I learned that you have to question why you do everything and you have to justify all the choices you make. 

It was super helpful—frustrating, sometimes—but overall a really good experience. I wouldn't have changed anything. It could be overwhelming at the beginning of everything, but now I realize we were really working through understanding each step of the design process.

How else do you feel UX Academy helped prepare you for a real-world role? 

I think that being pushed by my mentor really helped prepare me for critique on things, and always being open to feedback. Once you get into the mindset of ‘this is the right way to do something’, then you're not on the right path. You always need to question what you're doing and make sure you can back it up, and maybe what you're thinking isn't the right way.

The curriculum itself gave me a great foundation to learn the different branches of design and how they relate to one another… It was wild to see how much Designlab prepared me for all the different aspects of actually working in the industry.

The curriculum itself also gave me a really great foundation to learn all the different branches of design and how they relate to one another. And a lot of the things you’re doing, you’re figuring out for yourself. And I think that’s applicable to working in the industry, because you’re not going to know everything. The evaluating and the questioning are important to make sure you understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. I even go back into the curriculum sometimes still, to see if there’s a different tool in my toolbox I can use for a situation.

It’s great you had such an impactful experience with UX Academy, particularly your mentor. How about when it came to finding a role?

The coaching you provide can be really beneficial if you're not really sure what you want to get into specifically, or you don't have as much experience interviewing or applying for jobs. There are a lot of nuances these days with applying for jobs in the current market, so I think it's valuable. 

For me, I didn’t get as involved—I was able to find a job a month and a half later after graduating, and I was pretty shocked because I know it can take a long time! But I found a job as a UX Architect in the agriculture tech industry. It was a very complex position, and I was so nervous going in. But it was wild to see how much Designlab prepared me for all the different aspects of actually working in the industry. I was in that role for two years, and then was affected by layoffs. But I found a job after that in the automotive industry, where I currently work as a UX Designer. 

And what are you doing in that role now? 

The company is Sonic Automotive, and I work with our e-commerce team who have dealerships across the US. They have an online used car site called Echo Park, which is what I primarily work with. It's a larger organization, but our team is small, so it’s kind of a nice mix. My day-to-day really varies, which I love, and there’s a lot of collaboration. 

We have a researcher and a strategist on our team, and we also collaborate with our e-commerce team on design changes. So for example, when it comes to our designs, sometimes I’ll try and move things forward, and other times I’ll recommend we put in more research to create a better solution for what we’re trying to update. 

What’s your favorite thing about working in the industry? 

I really like being able to think strategically and thoughtfully about what I'm doing, our impact as a team, and the impact on the user. In UX, there are also constraints from stakeholders, the technology, or operational goals. And so I like taking the complex and turning it into something helpful for everyone, and creating a solution that is intuitive and feasible. It's kind of like a puzzle—it doesn't feel like work, and that to me is the goal. If you can find something that doesn't feel like working day in and day out, then you're probably doing the right thing. I think that a really important aspect of doing well in UX design is that you have to care about what 

What advice would you have for someone who's maybe considering a UX education or career change?

I think for me the most helpful thing was looking at the things I bring to the table outside of UX design. Whatever you have a background in, you can take that and you can turn it into something that makes you different from other candidates, and it can help you stand out. For me, I had that background of graphic design and marketing, and so I could use that to say I know and care about research and strategy, but I’m also good at design. 

Every career is competitive, but if you’re really passionate about something, you can go do it. Challenge yourself. 

But that can be applied to say, healthcare, which is so complex. If you have an understanding of how that works in any form, you should call that out. Every career is competitive, but if you’re really passionate about something, you can go do it. Challenge yourself. 

Check out some more student stories below:

Erik Peets’ Journey at Apple: From Customer Service to Product Design

Chofi's Journey: Finding New Purpose Within an Existing Design Career

From Medicine to UX at Pinterest: Leveraging Existing Skills in a New Design Career

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