Would You Make a Good UX Designer?
Find Out What it Takes
A Summer 2017 UX student highlighting and discussing potential features of a solution sketch during a Design Sprint.
Let me start by asking you this:
What do you think are some traits of a strong UX Designer? Do you know one? What are they like as an employee? As a person?
We’ve seen a diverse range of students come through the doors at our school. Having TA’d and led the UX Design Part-Time and Full-Time course for multiple cohorts, we have noticed an unexpected yet consistent pattern. A lot of people in the industry and generally have the assumption that UX Designers need to have some sort of design background to excel. But to what extent is that true?
One of our goals as Educators is to solve this challenge: how can we ensure that students will emerge from the program as critical thinkers and be industry-ready?
So we had to ask ourselves these followup questions:
- Who are most likely to succeed in our program as UX Designers?
- Why are some students strong UX Designers and others not?
- What were their educational and industry backgrounds?
- What kind of personality traits did they encompass?
- How are they as a student and as a person?
I guess the first response is, "That's easy, good UX designers have a design (graphic, interior, architecture, visual communications, etc) background." But what does "design" mean? Graphic design? And is that even true?
Curiously enough, graphic designers/web designers weren’t always the obvious candidates, (some were actually the weakest) and here’s why:
- Visual and Graphic Designers have to visualize concepts, which causes them to focus on aesthetics, layouts, compositions, hierarchy, and colour before anything else.
- They are most comfortable creating visual compositions because they are visual learners, which causes them to jump ahead to UI Design and Branding before holistically understanding the problem space, before establishing the user’s needs and problems, before developing a product strategy, before creating value for users through functionality and usability, etc
- They come into the classroom with preconceived notions about the traditional design process which hinders their ability to embrace new mindsets and concepts. Usually, these types of people are feature-driven, and we want to encourage them to focus on user value first.
Unfortunately, I hear this too often:
"How do I make this more pretty?"
That shouldn't be a UX designer's first priority. What I want to hear is:
"How do I make this more intuitive? How do I create value for users?"
UXFT Fall 2017 students mapping out the holistic experience of a user booking a flight online, with an emphasis on emotional highs and lows.
Instead, we often realized that the most successful UX Designers and critical thinkers had experience or knowledge in the following backgrounds:
- Architecture
- Behavioural Psychology
- Social Anthropology
- Engineering
- Research
- Communications, Hospitality
And/or had the following personal attributes as people and as lifelong learners:
Empathetic
They can put themselves in their user/customer's shoes with as little bias as possible, and don't think or work in a vacuum. They don't design for themselves.
Problem-Solvers & Risk-Takers
They can approach things with a critical, logical, and strategic mindset with a focus on problem-identification: they are an advocate for outcome rather than output.
Collaborators & Team Players
They can work well with others and be supportive of other team member's ideas. They are also great visual and verbal communicators – through wireframing, speaking, presenting, etc.
Independently Driven
They can manage their own time and scope of work effectively when it comes down to execution when a team diverges. (They can get sh*t done.)
Perceptive
They can understand people, their interactions and relationships with other people and with products/services, and their way of living.
Open-Minded & Creative
They are flexible and can accept new ideas, concepts, processes, and mindsets without judgement and are able to produce innovative solutions – they are blue sky thinkers.
Effective Listeners & Leaders
They can not only hear other's opinions but rather listen to understand. They understand that their success is also tied to their team's success as well, and exercise facilitative leadership.
Creators & Makers
They aren't afraid to get messy, ideate, sketch, or brainstorm – to just make things in the hopes of putting products in front of people to get perspective.
Student Background Demographic
This data tells us that the majority of our UXFT students do have visual design experience. There seems to be a gap that traditional print/branding/visual designers need to fill in order to allow them to progress with the fast moving "digital" train. It is somewhat of a natural transition to learn UX concepts and methods to adapt to these technological advances and to stay current in an in-demand and fast growing industry. "Is print dead?" That's another story. But the smart move is to get on this train.
I want to redefine the perception of the term "designer" to "maker" so that people understand that it isn't limited to visual design.
Obviously there are outliers – if you are a graphic designer, it does not mean you can't be a successful UX designer.
I'm proud to say that we've seen plenty of Art/Creative Directors, Typographers, and Visual/Graphic Designers become holistic UX/UI Designers.
Check out a few examples of our previous students who had extensive graphic design backgrounds who emerged from the UXFT program with comprehensive project pieces:
Photo Credit: "Strive" by Courtney McNeilCourtney McNeil (Former art director)
Photo Credit: "Mirage" by Mike Boz (Former art director)
Photo Credit: "Peloton" by Jayson Zaleski (Former designer and educator)
On the other hand, I'm also proud to say I've had the pleasure of teaching Athletes, Psychologists, Broadway Performers, and Architects, and seen them grow to become strong Designers too.
Take a look at some other students who came from many varying industries and backgrounds emerge from the UXFT program with equally compelling and strong work:
Photo Credit: "Kinder" by Morgan McNinchMorgan McNinch (Former athlete)
Photo Credit: "LunchTime" by Pavla Bobosikova (Background in architecture)
Photo Credit: "Tco." by Mathieu Bellemare (Former theatre arts performer)
All in all, strong UX designers are great scientists, problem-solvers, detectives, and makers. They experiment. They are driven by feedback. They put people first.
Technical software skills are secondary, understanding foundational concepts and embracing UX mindsets are primary.
So let me conclude and ask you this: do you think you possess any of those characteristics?