Now first things first: it’s hard to write about a day in the life of a UX design grad because each day is always different. Here’s what I thought each day was going to look like at REA Group:

• Ride to work from the new apartment, then shower in the fancy facilities in the office so I never have to buy shampoo and conditioner again.
• Head to the community café to grab a coffee where the payment is a donation to one of REA’s community partners, then bump into some familiar faces and have some general chit-chat before heading upstairs.
• Jump into squad standup, where we chat about what awesome things the team did the day before and update each other on what we’re all working on today.
• Collaboratively get cracking on big user problems, floating through different meetings and teams with diverse backgrounds and expertise to solve the issues that matter for the end users’ experience with our products.
• Lunchtime comes around and I’m either at a café, pub or common area with the other grads.
• Repeat points 4 and 5 with the occasional catchup with a mentor to ensure I’m on the right track.
• Finish off the day with an online course improving and refining the competencies that REA Group values in a UX designer.
• Spend the evening at a UX meet-up, hanging with the grads for after-work drinks or bouldering down the road at Burnley bouldering wall before riding home along the Yarra.

For the most part, this sounds about right for the first month at REA this year. Little did I know that I’d be cooped up in my teeny-weeny apartment with my two housemates for the rest of 2020. Time to write off the social morning vibes I had in mind, and goodbye pub lunch.

The novelty of working from home wore off pretty quickly. It took me a while to adjust to the situation. I’d spent several months travelling before settling into my first full-time job, the first month in the office felt like a party, and then suddenly my small bedroom became the place where I spent almost all my time for the next several months.

Once I found my rhythm, my days at REA online started to look a bit like this:

6.00 - 7.30 AM – Wake up

My alarm is set for 7.30 AM, but I usually wake up earlier from a housemate making a smoothie. Thereafter, I’ll obsessively smash through ABC articles about COVID-19 and general global turmoil. Once I’ve had my fix of despair, the rest of the time is usually spent either stretching or chatting with my housemates.

8.00 AM – Podcast and walk

I started getting into a pretty serious groove of walking throughout the day while listening to podcasts relating to product design. Walk times vary between 20 minutes to 1 hour.

9.00 AM – Jump online

Now this time slot varies most days, but it is usually one of the following things:

• Zoom catch up with my design mentor (a senior designer in my squad), the tech lead of the squad (to learn more about the tech side of the team), or my grad mentor (another senior designer supporting me through the entire grad program)
• Reading articles from Medium on UI and UX design or recommended readings from senior designers and product managers
• The classic ‘check emails and Slack messages

9.30 AM – daily stand up

Stand-ups in the business are generally in the morning so we’re set for the day.  My current rotation standup in the Flatmates part of the business is at 9.30 AM and involves a fun banter/catchup for the first five minutes. Then we get into it and run through a board detailing larger pieces of work and breaking the work down into tasks for the day. People allocated to the task update the rest of the team on their progression on the task since the last standup.

After we make our way through the board of tasks, the team lead tends to say ‘Gooooo team!’ like an American football coach dispersing his team from a huddle. Standup tends to finish early, so I’ll usually spend the gap in my calendar making a coffee.

10.00 AM – product and design discussions

Rather than working on the problem in isolation and coming back to the group with a solution, I’d rather work through the problem with others to get to the solution quicker. I tend to spend this time with a few members of the squad (usually the product manager and senior designer) establishing, refining and discussing current and upcoming design work and problem spaces.

If there isn’t a meeting to be had, then this time is usually spent getting into the flow of visual design and UI design work until lunch.

12.00 PM – lunch and walks

Lunchtime during COVID-19 has largely been successful thanks to Uber Eats. After some food, I head outside once more for another walk while listening to another work-related podcast. I found this really helps me deepen my understanding of the craft and best practices from outside the problems we’re solving for at REA.

1.00 PM – No Zoom time

REA has an initiative during this time of no zoom calls between 12 PM - 2 PM to avoid zoom fatigue. From 1 PM - 2 PM, my calendar is blocked so this time can be spent on tasks that need to be done. The tasks vary each day, but it’s usually spent as thinking or designing time to improve the usability of current or future digital experiences.

2.00 PM – Design pairing with a senior designer

At this time of the day, some design work and challenges are iterated on my own and then to emulate the office environment, my design mentor and I will work through my proposed design changes together.

This helps us co-design and solve UI and UX problems faster. For me, it’s a great opportunity for feedback from the design mentor to ensure I’m thinking pragmatically about design solutions. It’s important to align the design solutions with the needs of the business and consider technical constraints.

3.30 PM – Skills building

I don’t come from a visual design background. To help ensure I’m building on my visual design and user interface design skills, the next half hour is spent working on more ‘blue sky thinking’ design work. This approach to UI design work allows for designs to be unconstrained by business needs or technical constraints.

The exercise usually involves designs outside of day-to-day squad work and will instead relate to other products under the REA Group umbrella. A senior UI design specialist external to my squad goes through my designs to provide feedback, which allows me to refine my visual design and UI design competencies.

4.00 PM – Catch ups or reflections

Once a week, the final hour of the day is spent in a one-on-one with my Rotation Lead (RL). My RL is a product design leader that checks in with me for the hour to go over anything I may be struggling with, discuss career planning, establish areas of experience I ought to be exposed to in my rotation, or just general chit chat. Either way, the RL there is to ensure that I’m set up for success in my rotation.

Other days, this final hour is spent writing reflections, or, it’s a grad catch up where we play games or just chat until it’s time to jump off. With lockdowns and consideration of screen time, by 5 PM - 5.30 PM, I’ve found it pretty important to get away from the screen and tune out.