A Designer's Guide to Networking

plus some UX gems I recently discovered

Nov 28, 2023

Hi, I’m Maureen and I work as a product designer and design content creator. The Cursor Magazine is my online publication on design, workshop facilitation and career.

In this edition:

A Designer’s Guide to Networking

Where do you start when you want to build a network but you’re introverted or don’t feel comfortable chatting up strangers at design events?

I used to be in the same position as you. I don’t consider myself the most extraverted person and attending events and conferences always takes a lot of my energy. Over the past years, I’ve developed some strategies to build a network and not drain my social batteries completely.

Find your tribe.

The most obvious but most important one: find the people who share your values and interests. There are a ton of different design events and networks and not all of them are a perfect fit for you.

Take some time to reflect on what your interests are, what kind of connections you’re looking for and figure out where you can find these communities. Ask your colleagues and design peers for recommendations to events.

→ Neon Moire offers an overview of upcoming design events.

→ Designer Slack has a bunch of different Slack communities for designers with different kinds of backgrounds and interests.

→ Friends of Figma is the unofficial Figma network with chapters all over the world. They’re usually really active and a great way to get to know other designers.

→ My favorite conference is Hatch Conference, an intimate yet super professional design conference that takes place yearly in Berlin.

Small talk is a gateway to meaningful conversation.

This was an important mindset shift for me. Instead of regarding small talk as something superficial and a waste of time, I started to see small talk as a valuable gateway to meaningful conversation.

Over the years, I’ve mastered the art of small talk. Not sure how to start a conversation? Here are some things that helped me:

Ask others about their experience of the event / conference you’re at. Any talks or workshops they enjoyed? Special speakers they want to see?
Comment on industry developments and news. A new tool that has everyone in a chokehold? AI rants?
Do a little “LinkedIn stalking round” on the attendees of the event to see if you already know someone or reach out to the organizers of the events to ask of they facilitate some kind of icebreaker. Oftentimes big conferences have some mingling event before the main event that are made for people to get to know each other.

Though it might be tempting, avoid gossiping about your previous or current employer. You never know who will spill the tea!

Focus on giving instead of receiving.

Events are a great opportunity to find out about job opportunities and build valuable connections yet this should not be your main intention. Feeling like you have to sell yourself, impress other or somehow “get something” from others might be in the way of building authentic connections.

I attend design events with the intention of meeting new friends and this has helped me a lot - and did indeed lead to new friendships (and new career opportunities along the way.)

A mix between online presence and offline connection.

The number #1 strategy that helped me grow my design network from a handful of peers to literally thousands of people across the world? Building an online presence.

See, if you’re too shy to reach out to new people - have them reach out to you instead.

I started sharing design knowledge in the midst of 2020 lockdown, which in this case worked in my favor since everyone was chronically online. But even today building an online presence is a great way to build a network, because you can tap into online communities, find people who have the same niche interests as you and learn with and from each other.

To deepen those connections I made online, I find it very valuable to meet at design events or grab a coffee with your new connections. For me this is the perfect balance of meeting a ton of new people but also managing my social batteries.

💎 Little UX Gems

I’m always on the hunt for little UX gems in new products and tools I use.

It can be a delightful onboarding experience, smart wording or a sweet little micro-interaction that gets me by surprise. My phone is full of screenshots and screen recordings of these gems, building my own UX library as I go.

Here are some things I recently enjoyed

The onboarding experience of Womp is intuitive, fun and not intimidating at all. Which are usually not terms I would use to describe 3D modelling tools.

I recently discovered that whenever you make a screenshot of Google Map directions, it automatically triggers this notification asking you if you want to share these directions. A great way of anticipating user needs!
It took a while to get used to it but I’ve become a big Arc fan. Especially their Split Screen and Mini Player have become essential for me, because as a true millennial who spends too much time online I can not finish a task without the constant dopamine hit of new videos.

The Cursor | Design and Career

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