Hear straight from our graduates.
Trust your guts. I think Shillington has a perfect model of education for Design. Less theory, more practice. Lots of support, encouragement and jokes.
UX Designer and Developer, Appliances Online
Anara Davletaliyeva
What were you up to before Shillington?
Before Shillington I was working in Software Development for about 8 years first in Kazakhstan, then in Australia. I have both BSc and MSc in Computer Science, so was going quite deep into that. But didn’t feel like it is fully my type of thing.
But also to be honest I haven’t really been doing anything creative in my life before Shillington except for art school when I was little. I was just a normal person who is curious about trying/learning new things. I was just fascinated every time I saw an amazing design or piece of art.
What is your current job title/company?
I am a UX Designer and Developer at the moment and I am working at Appliances Online in Sydney, same company where I was working as a front-end developer before. I do UX design, also Data Analysis and a bit of web-development (but mostly design). It is good to be involved in all aspects of realisation of the design and seeing it coming to life.
Why did you decide to study design?
Purely out of fascination by beautiful designs and curiosity. I was really really scared that I wouldn’t be able to produce anything decent coming from IT industry where you have to be very logical and calculative. I believe when you are looking for something, life gives you clues. So in short amount of time I heard about Shillington from few different people and after checking the website decided this is right for me.
What’s your typical day like as a UX Designer?
It can really vary, but mostly I have design tasks for our website like designing a new 404 page or redoing the look of certain page for mobile. I always try to do some research before jumping into designing. And try to do few different variations like we were taught at Shillington. But some days I run A/B tests, analyse the results and create diagrams.
What would you say to someone who’s thinking about studying at Shillington?
Don’t think twice, do it. Trust your guts. I think Shillington has a perfect model of education for Design. Less theory, more practice. Lots of support, encouragement and jokes.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I feel more integrity in my life now. And I will forever be grateful to Shillington for amazing experience that prepared me for design career. As a bonus I also made two awesome friends from Shillington.
Read Anara’s article I moved to the dark side. 1 year in UX after 9 years in Software Development.
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Anara Davletaliyeva
UX Designer and Developer, Appliances Online
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Trust your guts. I think Shillington has a perfect model of education for Design. Less theory, more practice. Lots of support, encouragement and jokes.
UX Designer and Developer, Appliances Online
Anara Davletaliyeva
What were you up to before Shillington?
Before Shillington I was working in Software Development for about 8 years first in Kazakhstan, then in Australia. I have both BSc and MSc in Computer Science, so was going quite deep into that. But didn’t feel like it is fully my type of thing.
But also to be honest I haven’t really been doing anything creative in my life before Shillington except for art school when I was little. I was just a normal person who is curious about trying/learning new things. I was just fascinated every time I saw an amazing design or piece of art.
What is your current job title/company?
I am a UX Designer and Developer at the moment and I am working at Appliances Online in Sydney, same company where I was working as a front-end developer before. I do UX design, also Data Analysis and a bit of web-development (but mostly design). It is good to be involved in all aspects of realisation of the design and seeing it coming to life.
Why did you decide to study design?
Purely out of fascination by beautiful designs and curiosity. I was really really scared that I wouldn’t be able to produce anything decent coming from IT industry where you have to be very logical and calculative. I believe when you are looking for something, life gives you clues. So in short amount of time I heard about Shillington from few different people and after checking the website decided this is right for me.
What’s your typical day like as a UX Designer?
It can really vary, but mostly I have design tasks for our website like designing a new 404 page or redoing the look of certain page for mobile. I always try to do some research before jumping into designing. And try to do few different variations like we were taught at Shillington. But some days I run A/B tests, analyse the results and create diagrams.
What would you say to someone who’s thinking about studying at Shillington?
Don’t think twice, do it. Trust your guts. I think Shillington has a perfect model of education for Design. Less theory, more practice. Lots of support, encouragement and jokes.
Anything else you’d like to share?
I feel more integrity in my life now. And I will forever be grateful to Shillington for amazing experience that prepared me for design career. As a bonus I also made two awesome friends from Shillington.
Read Anara’s article I moved to the dark side. 1 year in UX after 9 years in Software Development.
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