ตำแหน่งแรกของต้านจึงครอบคลุมทั้ง UX/UI Design และ Web Front-end Development เป็นช่วงเวลาที่พยายามถือสองเส้นทางไว้พร้อมกัน ด้านหนึ่งอยากออกแบบให้ดีขึ้น อีกด้านก็ยังไม่อยากทิ้งความรู้ด้านโค้ดที่เรียนมา
From a fresh graduate starting out in UX/UI, to someone who designs complex systems to be clear, genuinely usable, and still human.
Tarn's design journey really began on 1 June 2017 — after graduating in Software Engineering and staying on with the same team he'd interned with.
Back then Tarn didn't start out as a confident designer who had it all figured out. He started from a couple of simple questions:
“Is UI design really something I'd want to wake up and do every day?”
And another one he was still unsure about:
“Can I be a designer and a front-end developer at the same time?”
So his first role covered both UX/UI design and web front-end development — a stretch where he tried to hold two paths at once. One side wanted to design better; the other didn't want to let go of the code he'd studied.
But the more real work he did, the more he slowly realised his heart leaned toward design.
2017 — the first year
Photo · the early days at the desk · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/2017-first-day.jpg
The first year — starting from small tasks that slowly built the foundation.
The early days didn't start with big projects or pretty screens ready for a portfolio. They started with small work that slowly built a foundation — proofreading, gathering ideas, making mockups to help the team, and designing within a structure or look-and-feel someone had already set.
Most of that time went into practising the basics of design.
How should the grid be set? Is the alignment right? Where should navigation live? How prominent should this button be? And will the user understand what to do next?
The hardest part wasn't opening the design tool — it was knowing how the thing in front of me should be made better.
Tarn used to be someone who tried very hard but didn't yet have enough tools in his head. When work got stuck, he'd sit and think alone, circling the same screen, feeling “this could be better” but unable to answer where to fix it.
Photo · practising the fundamentals · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/basics.jpg
Grid, alignment, hierarchy — small details that slowly became the foundation.
One moment became a key early lesson: a day I had to design a feature for a website in limited time, but nothing came. I ended up asking a senior on the team for help.
The questions I got back were:
Have you looked at references yet? Have you tried other approaches? Have you studied how others solved a similar problem?
The answer, at the time, was not yet.
That moment taught me that design isn't sitting around waiting for an idea to appear. It takes research, comparison, experiments, and creating enough options before deciding.
From that day, Tarn started to change how he worked. From only trying to make things pretty, to asking why it should be designed this way. From fearing feedback, to trying to understand the reasons behind it. And from thinking design belonged to the designer, to seeing that a product is made by many people working together.
2017–2019 — learning that design has to work with the real world
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A finished UI in a design file isn't a finished product — it passes through many hands.
In those first two years, Tarn grew a lot from working with developers and experienced teammates.
At first, when people said a design “can't be built,” “doesn't fit the system,” or “isn't the pattern that platform uses,” Tarn would feel down, as if his work was being rejected.
But over time he came to understand that a UI finished in a design file isn't a finished product. A single piece still has to pass through requirements, analysis, development, testing, bug-checking, and delivery to real users.
So every decision has to weigh time, technology, the team's constraints, and the business goals all at once. This is when Tarn started to understand the phrase
design so the team can build on it
Good UI doesn't end at looking good. It has to be explainable, hand-off-able, buildable, testable, and right for the people who actually use it.
Starting to share the design process with students who were just beginning.
Around the same time, Tarn got the chance to bring real-world knowledge into lectures for software engineering students.
That first time came with the doubt of whether his experience was enough yet. But once he was in there, telling the story of the design process to people just starting out, he found that knowledge from real work has a value of its own.
Because it doesn't come from theory alone — it comes from deadlines, constraints, mistakes, collaborating with others, and solving problems that actually happen.
After that, sharing knowledge slowly became another part of the path — teaching, writing, and telling stories to people curious about UX/UI.
2018 — working far from home, and seeing a wider world
Photo · travelling for work abroad · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/abroad.jpg
Nearly a month with a team abroad — design is tied to real life more than I thought.
The following year, Tarn had the chance to travel and present projects with a team abroad for nearly a month.
That experience showed that a designer's skills aren't only using design tools or making screens that look good. They also include communication, preparation, presenting, working across cultures, managing time, looking after your own energy, and coping with unfamiliar situations.
The trip wasn't all smooth, but it opened a new perspective: design is connected to real life more than you'd think.
A designer who works well isn't only good at designing — they can listen, understand, adapt, and communicate their thinking so others can see the picture together.
2019 — after two years in UI design
Photo · notes / a letter to myself · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/letter.jpg
Looking back at the first two years, and writing down goals for what came next.
After about two years, Tarn wrote an article to look back on his path and record the key lessons from the early days.
It talked about the first day of work, the excitement of seeing real results, the difficulty of working with a team, burnout, going out to meet people in the field, sharing knowledge, travelling far from home, the work environment, and writing a letter to himself.
At the end of that article, Tarn wrote down several goals for what came next.
Read more Write consistently Keep discipline in daily life Don't abandon coding Build my own online portfolio Make a library of UI examples Keep up with tech and design trends Practise English And try not to pressure myself too much
Looking back from 2026, not all of it happened in the order I planned — but it slowly appeared, in the shape of real life and real work.
Tarn still reads, writes, teaches, experiments with websites, builds his own tools, learns new technology, and has returned to using his coding foundations alongside design again, in a different form.
From UI design to UX and product design
Photo · products that grew more complex · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/complex.jpg
Web3, EdTech, Fintech, SaaS, CRM, enterprise — each one teaches something different.
After the early stretch, Tarn gradually worked on products of greater size and complexity. From ordinary websites and apps, the work expanded into Web3, EdTech, Fintech, SaaS, CRM, enterprise tools, and back-office systems — with lots of data, many user roles, and processes wired together across parts.
Each kind of product taught something different. Web3 meant designing flows many users weren't familiar with, and explaining technical ideas more simply. EdTech meant thinking about learning, continuity, motivation, and a learner's experience over the long run. Fintech meant caring about trust, accuracy, security, and reducing the chance of mistakes.
Enterprise and CRM meant understanding roles, permissions, business processes, dashboards, data, and how an organisation actually works. SaaS and back-office meant thinking about scalability, design systems, components, and reusable patterns that don't make the system confusing.
After many kinds of work, one pattern grew clearer: a lot of design problems aren't about ugly screens. They're about the system not being clear yet.
The data isn't organised Priorities aren't clear Users don't know what to do first The team doesn't see the same picture Requirements are scattered And sometimes everyone is fixing the UI when the real problem is deeper
This is what slowly shifted Tarn's role from someone who designs screens to someone who helps manage a product's complexity.
From someone who takes a brief, to someone who helps question the brief. From someone who follows requirements, to someone who helps make requirements clear. From someone who lays out screens, to someone who helps shape flows, information architecture, roles, permissions, and the relationships between data. And from someone who only looks at the user's experience, to someone who has to see the user, the business, the technology, and the team's constraints all at once.
Growing into senior, lead, and design manager roles
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Helping others do better work is harder than doing better work yourself.
As experience grew, Tarn took on broader roles — as a senior UX/UI designer, lead designer, and design manager. Work was no longer just designing in Figma. It included planning, design reviews, guarding quality, helping the team interpret requirements, talking with clients, and working with PMs, BAs, developers, QA, and many stakeholders.
What got harder in these roles wasn't only making my own work better — it was helping other people work better too.
You have to explain the reasons behind a design clearly Know what needs detail and what's enough Help the team choose what matters first Decide even when the information isn't complete Balance quality, time, and a project's constraints And get everyone as close to the same picture as possible
For a while, Tarn also looked after a design team and took on work from a management angle — learning things beyond design itself: managing people, setting direction, business decisions, prioritising, and the responsibility that comes when your decisions affect others.
These experiences widened the view of product design. A good product doesn't come from one talented designer — it comes from a team with a shared goal, an understanding of each other's constraints, and the ability to decide well on the information they have.
2024–2026 — work that reached beyond UX/UI
Photo · work that branched into many forms · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/making.jpg
Content, graphics, presentations, video, social — all run on similar principles.
Lately, Tarn's work has grown beyond designing a product's UX/UI. Alongside websites, apps, CRM, enterprise systems, back-office systems, and digital platforms, he also works on content, graphics, presentations, video, and social communication.
Working across so many forms shows that whether it's a single screen, a slide deck, a video clip, or one post, they all run on similar principles.
Know who you're speaking to Choose what matters Order the information Make people understand within the time you have And keep the tone right for the context
This is when it became clear to Tarn that the work no longer fits inside the single label “UX/UI designer.” His role is closer to a product designer who blends systems thinking, storytelling, making new things, and actually building.
Making my own spaces and tools
After years working for projects and clients, Tarn started building more of his own spaces — a personal website, articles, experimental tools, small games, quizzes, and projects that grew out of everyday problems or curiosity.
Some tools started from simple questions, like:
How could I help a designer start a moodboard faster? Could I make checking in on my own mood feel less heavy? How might I gather what I want to know each day without taking in too much from social media? Or how could I turn a small idea into something other people can actually try?
These projects reflect how Tarn works. Hit a problem — build a tool. Have something to say — write it. Have an idea — experiment. Think it might help someone — put it out for real people to use.
So the important thing isn't waiting for everything to be perfect. It's giving an idea a form, then learning from real use.
When AI changed how I work
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AI speeds things up, but judgment still belongs to the designer.
Once AI became part of the toolkit, design changed noticeably faster. Today AI can help research, summarise, generate options, draft content, try directions, and cut the time on repetitive work more than before.
But for Tarn, using AI doesn't mean letting AI design or think for you entirely.
AI helps you reach different options faster but the designer still has to decide what's right AI can generate images or text in many forms but the designer still has to know what fits the user, the brand, and the context AI speeds things up but it doesn't take responsibility for the outcome instead of a human
When anyone can generate options easily, a designer's value isn't in producing the most things — it's in judgment.
Knowing what to use what to cut what isn't ready what looks good but doesn't answer the need and what fits the people who'll actually use it
So for Tarn, AI is a tool that supports the process — but the core is still understanding people, reasons, experience, responsibility, and a designer's taste.
From 2017 to 2026
Photo · 2026, looking back · 16:9/assets/article/9-years/now.jpg
Nine years that weren't a straight line, but slowly became a way of thinking.
Looking back over nine years, Tarn's path wasn't a straight line.
It began as a software engineering student moved into UX/UI designer and front-end developer slowly chose the path of design learned to work with developers began teaching and sharing grew into senior, lead, and design manager worked on more complex products understood business and organisations more deeply built its own tools and spaces and brought in AI to extend what's possible
If I had to sum up the whole path in one line, it might not be “Tarn has designed screens for nine years,” but rather:
Tarn spent nine years practising how to turn complexity into something people understand and can use.
From a fresh grad who once worried about where a button should go, to someone now asking bigger questions.
How should this system work? How should the data be organised? What should the user see first? What should the team agree on? What outcome does the business need? And how do we turn complex technology into an experience that's clear, genuinely usable, and still human?
This is Tarn's path as a product designer.
Not perfect from day one. Not confident the whole way. Not right every time. But grown from doing real work, taking real feedback, solving real problems, and slowly building his own way of thinking over nine years.
Tarn still loves to design. Still loves to write. Still loves to experiment. Still loves to share what he learns. And still believes, as before, that good work isn't only about being beautiful.
Good work should be clear should be usable should be hand-off-able should have reasons and should hold a human feeling inside it too
Finally, thank you — really — for reading all the way here. 🙏🏻 I know my path is still small next to many people who are more talented and more dedicated. None of this was meant to teach anyone; it's just a small note from someone still learning every day. If even one line was of some use to you, that already makes me glad. And if there's anything I got wrong or could do better, I'd genuinely love to hear it and keep improving. 🌱
