Beginner designers who have just joined the Topcoder community may wonder if they can win UI design challenges because they will compete with designers who have years of experience and many challenge wins.
Believe that all designers who have experience in the Topcoder community were also beginners once, just like you are now. They dared to take the risk of releasing other jobs that might give them a fixed salary every month and focus on participating in the UI design challenges in Topcoder.
Topcoder is a community that is inhabited by experienced and friendly people. You can continue to learn new things, even if you cannot win a prize in a UI design challenge. You will learn new things about the real problems facing the business industry today because the majority of the challenges belong to clients who are the world’s most giant companies, such as Google, IBM, Nasa, Wipro, and many others.
A little story about my experience getting to know the Topcoder community, which began when I joined the Medan Creator Meetup community in July 2017. They often held graphic design workshops and began to discuss UI design challenges where the workshops were run by several veteran members of the Topcoder community such as Fajarmln, abedavera and lunarkid.
The veteran members domiciled in Medan city often share knowledge about UI / UX design and the Topcoder community with beginner designers who will finally begin to seriously compete in challenges in Topcoder.
Three months after I got to know the three veteran members from Topcoder, I decided to try competing in the UI design challenges, even though at that time I had little knowledge of UI / UX design. Whenever there is something confusing in the challenge brief, I always ask the copilot about it in the forum and often ask Fajarmln and Abedavera even though they are not in charge or responsible for the challenge. I do that so I can absorb UI / UX design knowledge faster from them. I hope they are not bothered by my questions that keep coming every day.
In January 2018, I got the good news that I managed to get first place in the challenge MyWishCompany Account Management Web Application.
It was unexpected to win the challenge because my target of getting a checkpoint reward was enough for me. Also, in the challenge there were a number of veteran members who participated which made me not have high expectations to win the challenge.
It was my first moment of victory that came six months after I got to know Topcoder from the Medan Creator Meetup event and three months after I decided to seriously compete on UI design challenges. Hopefully, this experience can be taken into consideration for beginners who are still hesitant to take part in the UI design challenges.
Besides reading a lot of articles about UI design and trying to make UI / UX design, I also applied some tips that were able to increase my confidence to compete in the challenge. I will explain some tips in this article.
There is nothing wrong if you like to open a veteran member’s Topcoder profile and see the number of “WINs” that have reached tens or even hundreds and this makes you excited to take part in the UI design challenge. The fact is you have a lot to learn to be able to follow in the footsteps of veteran members.
You must remain yourself and continue to learn new things that can improve your skills and knowledge in the field of UI / UX design. Try looking at the designs of veteran members as inspiration and learn various things contained in the design. The most important thing is to take advantage of all the resources you have at the moment and never compare yourself to veteran members who have more experience.
You need to know that veteran members at Topcoder come from different backgrounds such as computers, architecture, finance and other fields. They were also once beginners in UI / UX design but over time a lot of learning and practice made them the winners they are today. Newbie members are allowed to contact veterans to ask questions about Topcoder or UI / UX design, as the members are very friendly and helpful.
Do you feel sad about the design you made?
Do not stop practicing and follow all the UI design challenges that are available, because if you stop it will cause your creativity to decrease. The more challenges you take on, the faster the first win will come to you. Even if you lose and don’t get money from a challenge, you can still learn from the designs of the winners. You can make learning materials so you can create better designs in the future and become a winner. You must believe that your success is in sight!
Everyone has their own design process. If you ask another designer he might not want to tell you his design process as a whole or if other designers tell you about their design process, you may not be able to do exactly the same as them. It’s better to have your own comfortable design process and believe with all your heart that you can produce the best design this way.
When you decide to seriously pursue a career on Topcoder, you also need to know what your true goals are. It is your goal to join the Topcoder community because you want to increase your knowledge about UI design, increase relations between international designers or help with family finances?
This will help increase your confidence and focus on following the UI design challenges. Do not ever hope that other people can motivate you because you are the most aware of what you need.
You must know and record what your strengths and weaknesses are. After knowing what your advantages are, then you can start to sharpen more skills that will become your strengths. Your strengths aim to make you master and focus on a subject, and people will see you as an expert on it.
Do not forget areas that you do not master but try to make better. You might need these skills in the future, and in the end the deficiency will be an advantage that you can rely on in everyday life.
Those are some tips to increase self-confidence that you can apply when competing in UI design challenges. Now nothing can stop you from making the best designs.