How do I move from graphic design to UX?

I started in graphic design. I made YouTube videos about Rubik's cubes and Minecraft, needed thumbnails, and making them pulled me into design. In my first year of university I joined ACM as a graphic designer and made posters. My first salaried job was a basic graphic design role.

A year later I was doing UX for a software company in Germany, reworking the core flows of their product. The jump felt huge from the inside. Looking back, most of what I needed I already had. What I lacked was a different way of thinking about the work, and a portfolio that showed it.

More than you think. Nielsen Norman Group, the best-known UX research firm, makes the same point: moving from graphic design to UX does not mean starting from scratch.

• Visual hierarchy. Deciding what the eye sees first is half of interface design.
• Typography and layout. Interfaces are mostly text in a grid.
• Colour and contrast. You already think about it; UX adds accessibility rules on top.
• Working to a brief and taking feedback. Clients trained you for stakeholders.

Your visual skill is an advantage: a flow that looks trustworthy is easier to test, present, and ship.

The shift is from "does this look right" to "does this work for the person using it, and how do I know."

1. User research. Talking to users, watching them struggle, and turning that into decisions. Five honest interviews beat any assumption.
2. Information architecture and flows. How screens connect, what happens on every click, and every edge case: empty states, errors, slow connections.
3. Interaction and prototyping. Figma prototypes first. If you can, learn enough front-end to prototype in code; it makes handoff to engineers far smoother.
4. Working with engineers. Handoff is a product, not an afterthought. Ship everything a developer needs: every state, every asset, every edge case.
5. Measuring outcomes. Graphic work is judged by eye. Product work is judged by numbers: did signups go up, did support tickets go down.

This is where most switches stall. A graphic portfolio shows finished visuals. A UX portfolio has to show how you think.

• Lead every project with the problem, not the final screen.
• Show the messy middle: sketches, flows, options you rejected and why.
• End with what changed for users or the business, even if the numbers are small.
• Redesign something real. A local app you use daily, your university portal, a shop's checkout. Talk to three people who use it first.

My guide on writing a UX case study breaks the format down step by step.

1. Pick one real product with a real problem and interview three people who use it this week.
2. Map its flow on paper before opening Figma: every screen, every error, every empty state.
3. Write it up as a case study, problem first, and post it where designers will critique it.
4. Keep your graphic work, but move it below your UX projects. It proves craft; the case study proves thinking.