The Impossible Job Demands of UX Design
And How to Deliver On Them
On first read (and probably second and third too) this will appear to be quite a daunting list — one full of paradoxes and contradictions. How can one (and the same) person possibly hope to meet these requirements? Imagine the following section headings as excerpts from an honest job description.
“Candidate must be:”
Both a Strategic and a Tactical Thinker
It’s “big picture” vs. “small picture;” a “20,000 ft. view” vs. being “in the weeds”…There are many apt phrases to describe this difference in perspective, and most people have a preference. However, as a user experience designer (and this is actually the best-case scenario, as I’ve described what the worst can look like), you won’t often get the luxury of choosing your operational elevation; one day you’re designing a discrete form interaction, and the next, you’re creating entire user journeys for your company’s product offering. The shift can get dizzying. The upshot is that the special kind of personality that appreciates this variety would also be hard pressed to choose one vantage point over the other.
How to Deliver
The good news is, strategy and tactics come baked into a mature UX design process. That means that you need a mature UX design process. Read more about what that looks like.
A Generalist AND a Specialist
This juxtaposition is similar to the “big vs. small picture” perspective, and applies especially, though not exclusively, to UX professionals in a senior or management role. It’s an understatement to say the field of user experience design is broad; imagine maintaining working familiarity with every aspect of it. Further, if part of a small team, you certainly won’t always have the capacity to delegate all the work to others. You’ll still have to occasionally get your hands dirty, all while staying up-to-date on all of the disciplines for which your team is responsible.
How to Deliver
Unfortunately, proficiency with the minutiae and managing that minutiae comes mostly by experience. There are only shortcuts insofar as there are shortcuts with learning something new. In a way, being on a small or one-person team is the shortest path to becoming proficient in many areas of UX design, as well as learning how all the pieces come together. In the event you are silo-ed in your function as part of a larger team, build your UX design muscles with online video courses, UX resources, and of course, by shadowing team members.
Equal Parts “Right-brain” and “Left-brain”
Although modern psychology has debunked the mythos of each hemisphere having primary domain over either “logical” or “creative” characteristics (the whole thing works together), the “left/right brain” metaphor is still useful in describing those who lean more toward their visually creative “side” versus those who are decidedly more analytical. Regardless, how the brain is actually wired matters little to the UXer, who must constantly straddle the divide between being an artist and being a scientist. It won’t be enough to simply be a designer (as many of us start out); the job will demand that you marry the artsy, emotive aspect of your personality with a rational, analytical one. This is vital to the creative problem-solving that is required daily. After all, both the form (aesthetics) and the function (organization, interactions) of a website or app will determine its success — or lack thereof.
How to Deliver
This one is a bit trickier. It’s hard to completely disregard one’s natural abilities. However, one is always at liberty to further develop existing abilities or even to cultivate new ones. I’m no neuroscientist, but it’s apparent that at least some measure of what people are good at, and by extension, how good they will become, is determined by what they prefer doing. If I prefer drawing pictures to doing algebra (I suspect I may be in the majority here), and possess even a modest amount of talent, chances are good that I’ll become much better at drawing than solving equations. Does that mean I can’t also learn to solve challenging equations? The important takeaway here is the knowledge that you shouldn’t walk into a UX design career with the expectation that you will only be functioning in a creative capacity, and that hopefully you can embrace and develop your logical “side” — and vice versa.
Both an Introvert and an Extrovert
Introvert, because you have to get work done. Seriously, you have art to create and science to perform.
Extrovert, because getting feedback from users is essential, and because you will probably have to present your designs and findings to your team. Let’s not forget that you will probably also be a UX evangelist at some point in your career, which implies a lot of business user interface (pun intended).
How to Deliver
Similar to whether a person is more co-called “right-brained” or “left-brained,” each has their natural inclination. The level with which a person is comfortable with both introversion and extroversion is a function of personal and career development. Simply put, it comes with practice. The same programs that help with public speaking, for example, will come in handy with UX presentations.
Multilingual
Because the nature of UX design puts it in the epicenter of many disciplines, you’ll need to be a polyglot — not in the sense of standard languages and dialects — but with different jargons. You’ll not only need to be able to speak them conversationally, but with a sense of the actual meanings of terms, which implies having a certain measure of exposure, if not experience, in those different domains/industries. Examples include the language of business, the language of technology, the language of visual design, and most importantly, the lingo or jargon of the end users.
How to Deliver
The best way to learn a foreign language is by submersion. Likewise, the best way to learn jargon is to associate with those outside of your domain. This contact can be a byproduct of working in a large company, or it could come by way of a “transfer” between industries, such as in the case of a programmer becoming a UX designer. It mostly requires that you have an open mind and willingness to learn, even if it means actually opening and reading that business document that was attached to that massive email thread, or learning to read a bit of code.
Conclusion
It’s all about balance — and experience. Most of the items included in this list are not realistic entry-level proficiencies, as much as they are ongoing objectives that will develop in parallel with your years as a UX designer. Consider them expectations, of you, and for yourself…seeds that will bloom in one of the most challenging and satisfying careers out there.
