Pune: While lakhs of people are switching to digital media daily, very few consultants are available to find solutions to make digital space user-friendly. Sadly, the design course of User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) which is a process to enhance customer satisfaction and improve the usability of the digital product remains alienated from students thereby depriving them of various job opportunities.
Experts have stated that there are plenty of job opportunities in the area, however, there are no takers for it.
“UX/UI design studies the user psychology like the user reads from left to right. Therefore, how a user can comfortably access the visuals on the digital platform is considered carefully. Unlike, earlier when an IT person or web designer would just add colours to make the page look good. Here the designer keeps validating the outcome with the customer and designs it logically,” said Neha Modgil, Co-founder of TechVed, which offers three month short-term course to working professionals on UX/UI design. One batch which starts from September 15, while aptitude test for the second batch will start in November for January batch.
“Digital designing is the most upcoming and evolving sector at present. Until four or five years ago, the industry was unaware about these terms,” Modgil said.
“But now, even human resources (HR) team defines the requirement of UX/UI consultants in many companies but they have given a feedback that they don’t find a good consultant. There are vacancies but sadly no takers,” said Modgil.
Modgil also stated that many students travel abroad to pursue courses like Human Computer Interaction/Interface (HCI) which is less known in India. Moreover, design education in India is expensive. “Even today, there is a taboo related to courses other than medical and engineering. It is reflected by the graph of number of takers of such courses. Those who fail to study engineering, pursue design courses and most of them are from well to do families,” said Modgil.
Vaibhav Khatavkar, Professor of computer engineering at College of Engineering, Pune stated that most of the companies do not take direct recruitments for these sectors which is why students have a perception there is no scope in the field. But the reality is otherwise.
“There are vacancies and a lot of scope in the field. Also, many students in CoEP opt for HCI subject in the third year. However, since UX/UI design is done in real time, not many companies take the risk to hire freshers for the job and they prefer internal employment for the project. Hence, since during placement, companies don’t recruit for this profile, students feel that there is no scope in it and are not inclined towards the subject,” said Khatavkar.