r/UXDesign

I design wireframes for client projects, mostly web apps. Everything looks good until real feedback starts. The moment stakeholders join, my online wireframes stop being a design tool and turn into static pictures. People describe changes in text instead of visually. Product managers write paragraphs. Developers interpret things differently. Clients circle things in screenshots.

Instead of a collaborative wireframing process, it becomes a broken game of telephone.

What i need from a UX wireframing tool is a space where people can visually think with me move elements, sketch alternatives, map user paths, drop notes next to components not just comment under a screen like it’s a social post. Right now, every feedback round creates more confusion than clarity.

Hi all, I could really use some perspective. Apologies for the impending long ramble.

I’ve been working as a UX/UI designer for over six years. In every role I’ve had, I’ve been the only designer in the company.

I started as a graphic designer in an edtech company and basically had to teach myself UX so I could work on the product side. I’ve never interned, never worked under another designer, and never had strong design processes modelled to me. I've never had a mentor or a clear curriculum to follow, I've just had to figure it out as I go.

Because of that, I constantly feel like I don’t know what I don’t know and suffer from terrible imposter syndrome.

To make things worse, I was fired from my second job after two years. It was a toxic environment (picked on by the CTO, no clear performance review process, no formal PIP). I was burned out and actually off sick with stress when they let me go. I still don’t have full clarity on why. This was a couple of years ago, but it still lives rent-free in my head and makes me assume I must have been terrible.

Since then, I’ve learned a lot and moved on. In my current role (7 months in), I’m leading discovery and design on multiple complex features, overhauling the entire design system, and owning accessibility improvements.

I was hired as mid-weight but recently asked for (and got) a promotion to senior because of the scope I’m handling. The problem is I feel even more exposed now.

Objectively, I know I’m good at strategic thinking, being pragmatic, and shipping intuitive designs under constraints. Other than that one firing, I’ve consistently received positive feedback about my work and collaboration.

But I’ve never worked on a “mature” product team. Every company I’ve been at has had immature or messy design systems, very tight time/resource constraints, little to no research capacity, pressure to ship fast, massive tech debt, no analytics or metrics or KPIs. I've never been able to meaningfully improve the look of the UI because we've had to work with the components we've got, I don't have time to properly redesign anything and devs don't have time to build it because the priority is on shipping new functionality yesterday.

So I don’t feel like I’ve ever experienced a full, well-executed design process. And tbh I’m not even sure I’d know how to run one properly if I had the space. I've read around the subject including things like "the UX team of one" but it's not really helped.

I also have ADHD, which makes documentation and structured storytelling difficult for me. My portfolio is weak because I struggle to clearly articulate process and prove impact — especially when the reality has been messy, constrained, and rushed and the results afterwards haven't been measured (no "I increased the speed of the onboarding process by X%" etc).

I wish I could rewind my career and start as an intern somewhere solid, just to learn “properly” and avoid feeling this constant anxiety.

I’m also paid badly right now, so hiring a mentor or doing expensive courses isn’t realistic. Taking extended time off to decompress isn’t either.

So I guess my questions are:

How do you fill knowledge gaps when you’ve always been the only designer?

How do you sanity-check your process without mentorship?

How do you build confidence at senior level when you feel self-taught?

Any free or low-cost ways to structure your own “curriculum”?

This anxiety is genuinely making me ill. I don’t want to quit the field, I just want to stop feeling like I’m secretly winging it.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated.