The Year I Found My UX Shape

I used to think UX meant making screens look good.

When I started freelancing, that was enough. If the client liked the layout, if the colors popped, if the buttons felt nice that was a win.

But around 2020, I took on a project that quietly broke that idea.

It wasn’t some fancy startup or dream client. Just a small product team building a tool for local retailers. They wanted someone to “design the UI,” but halfway through, it became obvious they didn’t know their users and neither did I.

I kept asking things like,

“What do your customers struggle with right now?”

and they’d say,

“Hmm... we think they want this feature, because one guy mentioned it last week.”

I was stuck. My Figma file was clean, but the thinking was missing.

So I started digging.

I didn’t have a formal research process. Just calls, screen recordings, Google Forms, and a lot of awkward questions. But slowly, I started to see a pattern — not in the interface, but in how I needed to grow.

A while later, I found this video by David Travis. He explained UX not as one role, but as eight different competencies. It hit me hard. I could see exactly why that 2020 project felt so foggy.

Here’s the breakdown, in his words:

• User needs research (generative)
• Usability evaluation (evaluative)
• Information architecture
• Technical writing
• Interaction design
• Visual design
• Prototyping
• UX leadership

And suddenly, I could see my shape.

Back then, I was strong in visual design, decent at interaction design, and just getting comfortable with prototyping. But I was blind to research. I didn’t know what questions to ask or how to connect the answers to the product.

That project forced me to try.

David’s framework helped me name what I was missing.

Since then, I’ve been slowly filling the gaps.

Trying to run better user interviews.

Writing clearer interface copy.

Asking for feedback not just on how a screen looks, but how it thinks.

Sometimes, as freelancers, we get boxed in by what clients think we are.

“Just make it look good.”

“Just wireframe it.”

But if you don’t know your own competencies, you end up saying yes to things you’re not ready for — or worse, missing out on what you’re already great at.

The shape of your UX career isn’t a job title.

It’s a mix of muscles. And freelancing tests all of them.

That 2020 project was small. I didn’t even include it in my portfolio.

But looking back, it was the one that shifted something real.