From Journalism to UX: A Skill I Never Thought I’d Use Again

In my final year of college where I specialised in Journalism, we were taught shorthand — a lightning-fast writing system journalists use during interviews. At the time, it felt like a superpower. I imagined myself chasing stories, pen flying over paper, never missing a word.

But life took a different turn.

I ended up doing an MBA, explored HR, sales, writing — and finally landed in design. Over time, shorthand faded into the background…Until one day, mid-user interview, it came rushing back.

🚀 The Moment It All Came Back to Me

…and why it changed everything.

While conducting a user interview during an internship, I found myself scribbling furiously — using shorthand without even realizing it. That “aha!” moment made me pause:

“Wait… this skill is still in me. And it’s still incredibly useful.”

That’s when it clicked:UX designers are basically investigative reporters. We listen, observe, synthesize. We need to document fast — especially during real-time sessions.

But that’s not all. It’s not just user interviews where shorthand helps.

📢 Stand-ups. Stakeholder Calls. Design Critiques.

You’re missing insights if you can’t capture fast.

UX life is full of high-speed, high-context conversations. In a typical day, we jump from team standups to stakeholder syncs to sprint planning — and every single one drops nuggets you don’t want to miss. Not to mention the user interviews.

Shorthand isn’t just a cute trick from journalism school. It’s a survival tool for modern UX designers.

If you’re ever in a call where someone says “Let’s revisit this later” and you didn’t jot down what to revisit and why — you’ll feel the pain later.

❌ But traditional Shorthand is… a commitment

And that’s where I hit a wall.

I was tempted to relearn the classic Pitman systems (Popular in India). But let’s be honest — between research, meetings, design, deadlines, and Slack pings, I didn’t have time to master a formal system.

So I asked myself:

“What if I built my own UX shorthand?”

One that works for me, in my context, with symbols I understand.

Simple. Efficient. Personalised.

🧠 Shorthand, Defined

For the curious: it’s a way of writing that replaces words or phrases with symbols or shortcuts — so you can write more in less time.In the world of journalism, it helps capture quotes mid-conversation.In the world of UX, it helps capture insight mid-chaos.

💬 We’ve all been using shorthand already

You may not realise it, but shorthand isn’t foreign to us. We’ve used these symbols forever:

• @ → at or at the rate

• & → and

• ∴ (three dots) → therefore

• ~ → approximately/ similar

• etc → et cetera

In maths, science, and in textual conversations, we’ve always used shorthand. Journalism just formalised it.

📚 Should you learn traditional shorthand?

Honestly? It’s totally up to you. If you’ve got the time, patience, and discipline, go for it. There are different systems like Gregg, Pitman, and Teeline — each with its own rules and strokes.

But if you’re like me and need something more practical, you can invent your own version of shorthand, customised to the UX world.

🔧 Here’s how I created my UX shorthand system

I took out my user research notebook s— a single diary (not many) I’ve been using since day one to document all my user interviews. I went through pages and highlighted the most commonly used words, phrases, and non-verbal cues.

Some frequent phrases included:

“Where is the button?”

“How do I proceed?”

“I don’t like this design”

“It’s too confusing”

“I love it”

“I don’t have time”

"It’s not user-friendly”

“I get stuck at…”

Then, I created visual or symbolic shortcuts for each — simple enough to draw during a conversation, meaningful enough to interpret later. Over time, these symbols became muscle memory.

🛠 My Process (So You Can Try It Too)

Step 1: Flip through your user interviews or meeting notesStep 2: Find common words, phrases, reactions, emotionsStep 3: Create symbols or codes for eachStep 4: Practice them during calls, interviews, or critiquesStep 5: Refine as you go

Remember, this isn’t art — it’s function over form. The only rule? It should make sense

to you.

And, an important thing to note here — Don’t forget to create your own shorthand for non-verbal cues during user interviews/ research.

Here is how my note taking looks now:

First sentence - "How many steps?" Second sentence - "How long/ how much longer? How much time will it take?"

I made symbols for commonly used words and phrases and developed my own visual vocabulary to make this work for me. Below is a snippet form my UX shorthand dictionary:

✨ Make it yours

Your shorthand doesn’t need to follow a fixed rule. It just needs to make sense to you.

For example, I practiced frequently used words like “what,” “why,” “how,” “like,” “dislike,” “yes,” and “no” until they became muscle memory.

🔎 Can’t think of a symbol? Google It

Let’s say you want to create a shorthand for “unanimous.” You might search: “unanimous icon”

The results may not be practical to sketch fast — but they’ll spark ideas. Let's look at what we found inteh Google Image Search:

This icon is great, but not something I can draw quickly during an interview. So I made my own shorthand version.

Let me break it down:

• ^n → I use this to mean many, a lot, often (inspired by mathematical notation)
  

• 👤 (a simple stick figure) → represents a person
  

• 💬 or “comment bubble” → represents a thought/opinion/statement
  

So, if I draw:

• thought + person + ^n, it translates to: a shared thought by many people → which means unanimous.

You can also flip the order to change meaning. For example:

• thought + ^n + person → could mean one person had many thoughts.

There’s no single way to do it. The idea is to build a visual language that helps you take faster, smarter notes.

🙅🏻‍♀️ And if symbols aren’t your thing…

Use abbreviations. Create shortcuts with letters and codes—whatever works for your brain. For instance:

• WDYT → What do you think

• NS → Not sure

• NTK → Need to know

• BFD → Big freaking deal

As long as it helps you listen better, capture insights quicker, and focus on the person in front of you—it’s doing its job.

💬 To sum up

When you stop scrambling to write full sentences, you start listening better. You make eye contact. You hear the hesitation in a user’s voice. You pick up micro-emotions. You capture the “why,” not just the “what.”

Shorthand isn’t just for journalists. It’s a powerful skill for UX designers too.

It’s not about being artistic or perfect. It’s about being efficient, thoughtful, and present. So go ahead—flip through your research notes, spot repeated words, and build your own little language. You’ll be surprised at how much more productive (and fun) your note-taking becomes.