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12 Character Traits of Great UX Designers
Things I’ve noticed about excellent designers
What’s a great designer anyway? Does it mean they work at a fancy company? Does it mean they create a meaningful difference in the world? Is it because they’ve written a bestselling book on design?
Could be all or none of the above, it doesn’t matter. When you work with a great designer, you have a sense of it by the way they are. It’s the way they carry themselves, the way they think, the way they design. They’re all different in their approaches. They all have different strengths, different quirks.
I’ve worked with excellent UX and Product Designers. There’s a long list of skills they possess, and this list is by no means exhaustive. Here are a few common character traits I’ve noticed.
“The secret to being a great designer is to love designing” (Onur Cobanli)
They‘re interrogators
“Effective questioning brings insight, which fuels curiosity, which cultivates wisdom”
Designers recognise that the present reality is a changeable condition. Great designers regularly question things. If something doesn’t make sense, they’ll ask the question.
They avoid the straight line
“Walking in straight line one can not get very far”
The motto of explorers is “never take the straight line”. Exploration has something of the unknown about it. Explorers don’t know what they don’t know, as their aim is not to find but to understand. In my experience, great designers explore projects with an open mind not sure what they’ll find.
They’re ambiverts
“Ambiverts (people who possess qualities of both introversion and extraversion) tend to be more creative because of their greater adaptivity to situations”
Ambiverts are moderately comfortable with groups or social situations but also love time alone doing their own thing. Great designers need to work with groups to collaborate. They also love their creative side projects.
