How to become a web design expert

We all want to become experts because we want our opinions to be taken seriously by others. To be respected and make ourselves more valuable, and to satisfy our own self-confidence, of course, the most important thing is that we want ourselves to be the best and have our own unique and powerful way of doing things.

Do you want to talk to the customer about taking your opinion seriously, because you seem to be an expert? If your answer is yes, congratulations, there are many people like you. If you want to do it one day, you need to step back and think about why it is so important for you to become an expert?

Why do we all want to look like an expert?

We all want to become experts because we want our opinions to be taken seriously by others. To be respected and make ourselves more valuable, and to satisfy our own self-confidence, of course, the most important thing is that we want ourselves to be the best and have our own unique and powerful way of doing things.
In any case, as we will talk about next,Becoming an expert is not just about letting others follow us.. If we can only achieve this, we cannot truly achieve our expectations and be recognized by others.

It is not our only expectation to become an expert. Some people think that it may give us more job opportunities and more voices. However, unfortunately, in many cases, many experts do not know more than others, or even do not get more salaries in areas they are familiar. Becoming a niche expert does not greatly improve your career.

Even so, we are considered experts who can help us work with our customers and give us the potential to create better quality jobs. So how can we become experts?

How can we become experts?

In Outliers, the author Malcolm Gladwell suggests that it usually takes nearly 10000 hours to become an expert. For most full-time web designers, this is equivalent to an 8-hour job without a full 4-year vacation.

I think the 10000-hour suspicion is that I can see that this theory might be effective in some ways similar to musical instrument training or sports, but I'm not sure that this theory is applied to other web design such. For example, 10000 hours of Photoshop experience won't make you a web design expert, and at best, it just makes you a Photoshop expert.

Of course, the Gladwell statement is true to some extent. To become an expert, you must have time and experience.

Many people claim to be experts, but only a few have really invested thousands of hours. Image Source: Brett Jordan.Time and experience

There is no need to doubt that professional skills must be achieved through time-consuming and balanced exercises. It is never a flash of inspiration overnight, and there is no shortcut to reach a high level of skills. As your experience grows, the more you learn, the more you will find yourself needing to learn.

Of course, you can say that the field of web design changes very fast, and the knowledge four years ago is almost useless now. But I don't think this is a problem. In my experience, although the technology is changing, the people who use the technology remain unchanged. When developing a website, you will always be dealing with the details of the user or user experience. At the same time, years of experience can improve your ability to solve problems. Although the challenges are brand new, you will become more and more proficient in solving the problem. Your accumulated theoretical knowledge and work processes make you better. Therefore, the knowledge learned several years ago is still useful today.

Paranoid passion

I am not saying that experience is everything. For example, I don't think you should spend several years working nine to five to get enough experience. On the contrary, you can always find something worth learning and have creative work in your business. The most important thing is that you need passion to deal with what you note.

For myself, my career started from IBM, and after a few years I felt that I did not have much improvement in skills. Many people around me cannot work with passion. Without passion, there is no desire and motivation to learn new things.

I believe thatParanoid passionIt is necessary to become an expert.

In addition, my IBM colleagues never want to take risks. The courage to try and occasionally make mistakes will be a must for an expert to experience and learn.

The importance of making mistakes

Being a real expert cannot avoid the fact that you must be willing to make mistakes and make many mistakes.

Unfortunately, we do not live in a social culture where praise fails. We need successful people. However, success is not just a flash of inspiration, but an attempt to work with Hanshui. Winston Churchill said:

Success is defined as continuous failure and never giving up your passion.

Success in your career and becoming an expert require you not only to experience one or two failures, but to constantly experience them.

Failure is an important part of our achievements as an expert. Charles Willson said:

The so-called expert means that he knows what should not be done.

Without failure, we cannot learn the best way to do things. We can also learn a lot from others' failures, but nothing is similar to the failures we have experienced.

We need to overcome our fear of failure. When an error occurs in a project, there are two instinctive responses. Some people are constantly entangled in the issue. Otherwise, they are unwilling to accept the input but not output results. At this time, it is important to learn when to let go. Others try to escape from these problems and pretend that they have never happened. But this means that you will never learn from your mistakes. We need to spend some time at the end to examine the mistakes in our projects and learn from them. This process is very difficult, especially when you deal with a customer that is already unhappy.

Those who have never experienced failures may be reluctant to try, worry about criticism from others, or have no desire for success at all.

How to determine that you are already an expert

Sometimes not everyone agrees that you are an expert. It is not enough to have enough knowledge. We also need some people to agree with the knowledge we have gained.

This may be a problem you will often experience. You have completed your 10000-hour learning and learned from your mistakes. Even so, your customer or boss does not agree with your accumulated knowledge and experience.

How can you convince them that you are already an expert? Should you seriously consider your suggestions?Show some modesty

The first step is to avoid excessive performance.I am an expertAttitude. Real experts are often the last people who call themselves experts. In fact, experts tend to actively admit their limited knowledge, so that others can better accept their views.

People tend to doubt people who claim to be experts. It is more effective to allow your knowledge to speak for you than to actively attract attention from others. It is unwise to say that you are an expert. You can suggest this in different ways. One of the most important methods is scenarios.

Show your advantages with scenarios

When you take some modern art paintings from the gallery and put them in elementary school, it is very likely that you are mistaken for being a child graffiti. Because the environment affects the identification criteria for transaction acceptance. Imagine that sometimes managers will listen to the opinions of some external consultants very seriously and ignore the opinions of their employees, even though they both say the same thing. Because they paid more for their consultants, their views seemed more valuable. You may not be able to raise your labor price. However, you can change your expression and let people recognize your value.

Like the works in the gallery, your professional skills will be recognized in some suitable scenarios. For example, speaking in a meeting room or expressing opinions only at a station may be more important in a meeting room. Similarly, if your expertise comes from some books, it will be much more valuable than you boast in the conference room.

As an expert, I often make mistakes because I am standing on the stage. Picture source Marc Thiele.

Not everyone has the opportunity to publish a book or speak at a meeting. In this case, you can publish your own books, make some podcasts, blogs, or participate in some open-source projects. It is easier to show yourself like an expert than you think. If you get an invitation to give a speech or write a book at a meeting, it means that your skills have been recognized by some people. Conference organizers and publishers are like quality assurance. If they agree with you, people will determine what you want to talk about at the beginning.

Of course, the scene is not everything. What is more important is your opinion and how to express it.

Style and subject

Writing books, speeches, blogs, or playing videos is more effective than simply talking. These are more rigorous expressions than conversations.

Express your importance. When some things are clear to you, others may not, especially some repeated problems. When a customer asks you to make their Logo larger or more white, you must take these things carefully. You may be impatient or indifferent because such a thing is always happening. However, careful consideration of your response methods and countermeasures will make you more convincing. Apart from the subject, the style of your opinion and communication is equally important. Experts should be confident in expressing and authority when talking. The audience will not feel uncomfortable because of your different opinions. they will change their views as long as they are properly expressed. If you want to be recognized as an expert, learn about yourself, relax, and express your confidence. Unfortunately, sometimes the problem still occurs, because the other party has already prepared its own point of view.

Excessive prejudice

It may be a challenge to assume an expert role before your existing boss and customers. Especially when you were a junior employee, their attitude towards you will not change overnight. Fortunately, you can do some effective work to help you switch roles.

First, provide valid evidence for your opinion. When your boss is worried that your proposal cannot reach the stage, show him valid evidence, as shown in the scroll bar behavior report below.

Referencing a study results increases the credibility of your content. Second, referencing an existing expert will effectively support your opinion. For example, someone has written a report on the scroll bar case.

These skills do not support your opinion. At the same time, they can fully show you a wide range of reading and research. At the same time, when you do this, you also increase your credibility and think about problems like experts. You are one step away from the experts.

Of course, there is no way to quickly eliminate prejudice. This is very difficult for people who always work with the same person. However, after a period of time, they can effectively demonstrate their professional knowledge and use these skills to ultimately change their views on you.

More capabilities, more responsibilities

This article focuses on how to become an expert. Before that, I would like to explain what it means to become an expert.

What if you get respect from customers, colleagues, and bosses? Becoming an expert is not just a journey of self. More are relatedServing others. When you become an expert, you can better serve your customers, provide more value to your company, and promote the development of your industry. If you only want to gain everyone's love and respect, then you will never truly achieve your goal. People will realize that you may just satisfy your vanity and ignore you.

That is to say, we must take our work seriously. If you do not take it seriously, a good website may become worse. I'm sure you have shared with others that the website is getting worse because others have not listened to your opinion. However, it may be more helpful to tell you stories about how to persuade the boss and the customer to take your opinion seriously.