u/Electrical-Yam9240

Hi all. I am a product designer have been for 10 years and had found success in my field for a while.

Lately I have not. As UX roles compress and change, the demands put on by management etc, to perform more, produce more and be more at a faster and maybe unsustainable pace has kinda burned me out.

A little more about me. I recently escaped a pretty toxic environment (for me). I have a learning disorder (adhd, cognitive disengagement syndrome) and require more time to do meaningful work. I’m also a big picture person. Great at visioning, etc.

I have done some service design when working at Kaiser though this was at the dawn of the ai revolution in 2022, and in the last 4 years know all fields have shifted and become leaner.

I’m interested in taking the plunge into service design. Even in UX I was much better at high level strategic thinking then i ever was on a given screen. I accelerated at and have always enjoyed the strategic end of the design spectrum and continue to.

So I guess with that context in mind I have a few questions.

1. How and where can I gain service design skills? Note. Currently. It working and taking a break.
2. Do you find the field to be growing, shrinking or just changing? If so, how?

I did do a cursory look at service design jobs, and didn’t see as many as other design roles like graphic or product. But maybe it comes down to naming?

3. Who is best suited for service design roles? Does the field reward slower more methodical thinkers like myself or does it require more now in terms of pace and expectations?

4. How much do you find satisfaction in your role? Are there many people staying in the field, leaving?

5. Do you find yourselves to be isolated or alone? I’ve been a solo designer in ux a few times. Not my cup of tea.

Any thoughts, ideas and help would be great.

Trying to gauge whether this is something people would genuinely be interested in.
It likely won’t be craft-related—it will focus more on workflow optimization.

A bit about me: I’ve been a designer for 10 years. I’m neurodivergent—autistic, ADHD, and I have a slower cognitive tempo. I’m a deliberate, deep thinker who processes things carefully and with intention.
I also know many other designers share similar traits.

I’m trying to assess interest: is this something the community would find valuable?
Looking forward to your thoughts.

Ugh. I know it’s coming. I joined a company two months ago. It’s been tough like really tough. I have floundered from day 1.

I’m a senior designer, I have 10 years of experience, but I’m also neurodivergent, so sadly sometimes take me longer. Sometimes I miss details. It sucks and I should do better and it’s not an excuse, but is my reality. And sadly that reality is pretty consistent across all work experiences.

I had a lot of misgivings early on in the interview process and my gut was right and…it fucking sucks.

I asked what their onboarding Process looked like sadly it was a slide deck. She. I pushed my hiring manager on ways he would support me as a designer on his team, he said, “you can read the onboarding slide deck I gave you on day 1. On day 1 in my first meeting when I asked a question, in which the answer was in the onboarding packet, which I had read but maybe didn’t absorb fully because hey it’s day 1 and there is a lot going on, he admonished me n front of the team.

He mentioned it’s a low maturity environment and it is. And because of that there are also very high expectations. No mislabeled layers, etc.

I turned in early assignments and was ripped apart more, for the quality of my work. This is something that never happened at other jobs and I was often praised for it and my problem

Solving skills.

I struggled with ADO because I was used to using Jira and struggled. When I asked for help, I was told that I better figure it out soon.

Whe. I asked him early on for help directly, I was told to ask someone else.

I also biffed early projects because I, again struggled with ADO

Things came to a head last week. He told me I need to “pay attention more”. He also said I move and ask questions like a junior. And that I better get my shit together.

The co text of that he requires to review all outbound work. We reviewed one of my designs for a modal. Super simple but was ripped apart for the wording and verbiage choices.

Beyond this, I was told that I’d be shadowing other designers until I got a play of the land. For the entirety of the 2 almost 3 months, I was abandoned by my team and left to figure it out on my own. It’s been rough and demoralizing. Every time I have asked to be shown something, it’s been held against me.

And like look I get it I’m a senior designer with 10 years of experience. I should be plug and play. The reality is I have been elsewhere. But I have never had it held against me so much for asking questions or asking for help.

I should also mention on top of this during the two months I’ve been there I’ve had a

Project change hands 3 times as one product owner immediately got promoted, another quit. Luckily I got a pretty cool one now and I’m developing. Report with. I. Short I’m finally understanding how the place moves and operates and just starting to feel kinda ok, and was desperately trying to turn things around.

Let me ask fellow neurodivergent designers what tips tricks and plugins do you use and how the hell do I make damn sure not to find myself in this position again