How to survive suddenly becoming a UX team of one | by Kai Wong

Written communication is critical to managing expectations

“It’s just me now.” I said, after wishing my colleague the best. She just accepted a new job offer, meaning I was back to being a UX team of one.

This wasn’t my first time as a sole Designer, but it was still unexpected. Due to layoffs (and people leaving), I, like many of you, went from a team of UX professionals to just me.

In these cases, it’s not just a matter of doing more work: it requires shifting your and your team’s mindset. You must set clear boundaries to avoid trouble when you’re the sole designer on a project.

In this case, it starts with defining your workload in writing.

Define your workload in writing to manage your limited resources

When you’re a UX team of one, you might feel incredibly pressured by the rest of the team to “Hand over deliverables.”

It wasn’t until Debbie Levitt pointed this out that I remembered being gaslit about this.

I remember one such project manager always rushing me through my design process to hand stuff over because we didn’t want to have the Engineers sitting around doing nothing.