Paula Darias received her Bachelor of Arts in Fine Arts and her Master’s in Secondary Education and Teaching from the University of La Laguna in Tenerife—the largest of Spain’s Canary Islands. Upon graduating and moving to London, she made the decision to become an art teacher, a journey which lasted eight years. Then, she decided to try something new in order to further challenge herself and feel more creative.
“I never thought I would have been able to change my career in my mid-30s, and tech has always been something that I admired but never considered doing,” says Paula.
UX Academy Capstone: Post-COVID-19 vaccine symptoms feature for the period tracker app Flo, to better understand the menstrual experiences of people after they have been vaccinated for COVID-19.
After talking to her friends about it, she found inspiration in their journeys and made the decision to join a software development bootcamp, Makers Academy.
“I proudly finished the bootcamp, and although I was proud of myself for what I learned, I didn’t really feel it was for me. After a couple of internships, I realized I was jealous of what the product design team was creating. I didn’t want to code their designs, I wanted to develop my own skills as a UX designer and work on my own projects. I found true love when I met UI and UX design,” Paula says.
Paula’s UX Academy Journey
Paula considers reviews to be the first port of call when assessing a company or education provider you don’t know much about—and the most valuable way of getting information about the personal experience of other users.
“I spent a few weeks doing my research and Designlab offered the best option. Their up-to-date curriculum and the one-to-one mentoring sessions were the two things that made me go for it. And what a lovely experience it was, I cannot describe how passionate I am about UI and UX design. I enjoyed every little bit of the design process, from the one-to-one interviews to the design step, from the color palettes to the white spaces,” says Paula.
UX Academy Capstone: A fictional social e-commerce app for independent record labels to allow users and artists to make connections. This app will allow the creation of an international network around underground bands that will help artists to become more well known and to help sell their music and merchandise.
“After a few weeks at Designlab, I also realized how important my previous skills were going to be in UX design, from my years at university learning art, to the empathy gained when I was a teacher, to the technical way of thinking from programming.”
“I highly recommend Designlab for anyone who wants to get into UX design. They make sure you first get familiar with the basics in their UX Academy Foundations course—and after completing it I realized that it was essential for what came next. I thought that having my arts and coding background was enough, but I found my knowledge of design increased dramatically and helped prepare me for the work that was to follow after taking Foundations,” Paula says.