Want to Become a Digital Design Pro? Learn People, not Tools

Lately, radical changes have been happening in the way designers work and solve problems. Our tools have changed, as well as the approach to assessing designers’ skills.

Let’s start with tools. Over the past few months, I’ve been observing an interesting shift in the use of design instruments by teams in both small startups and large companies.

After the era of the Adobe Photoshop monopoly, a lot of great tools for creating wireframes, design mockups, prototypes, interactions, etc. appeared on the market. In this video — which by the way is more than 3 years old — you can clearly see how many of them there were. Today, Figma has been added to this list. Framer and Protopie have become simple and effective. Sketch has built up its muscles…

Today, designers and businesses agree the market is oversaturated. We now spend too much time choosing the “right” tool, switching from Sketch to Figma, trying to find the perfect way to show developers how this animation should work, etc.

The moment of truth has come, which has been talked about so much in recent years.

At the same time, 3 years ago, I wrote an article, in which I collected forecasts from different designers. One of my interviewees said then:

“A product designer will be closer to the business development. User experience and product development strategy are closely linked to the effectiveness of design decisions. This is when the design outcomes have a significant impact on the company’s growth.

Research and understanding of cognitive psychology, on which we do not currently focus enough, will be the main tool for understanding people, formulating hypotheses, and creating a final user experience.

Design tools and services will become more automated and will help us to focus more on creating value thinking about technical details.”

I believe this moment has come. The main tool in which designers now work every day is mostly Miro. It is universal, lightweight, highly automated and designed primarily for building effective communication. It allows you to formalize hypotheses, synchronize vision, communicate with other teams, make presentations and create design at a low-fidelity level.

Sure, we use Figma, Sketch, etc. But the work in these tools is now fast, and we strive to automate it as much as possible with the help of already known patterns, ready-made libraries and design systems. We can see how AI tools are stepping into the game, so more to come. We finalize the chosen solution and make its specification, but this is 15–20% of the total working time.

I also observe a large-scale shift in the assessment of designers’ skills in the interview process. Hiring managers are also prioritizing now soft skills instead of hard skills. Of course, the portfolio still plays an important role, but only at the screening stage. Moreover, the potential employer is now interested in the storytelling skills like never before. Yes, crafting pixels and problem-solving mentality are still essential, but now hiring managers are looking for more than that.

All in all, understanding of business, metrics, competitive environment, industry specifics and the product has become more important than the experience of using graphic editors.

Understanding the user. To create an effective solution, you have to understand the people who will use your product and the problems they face when using it. Hence, skills in psychology, communication, and research have also already come to the fore.

Responsibility. This is one of the most significant skills for designers. You must be responsible for all your actions, requirements and decisions, as well as be in contact with all other people involved in the project. The days when the designer’s area of responsibility was reduced to moving and painting pixels are already in the past.

Teamwork and soft skills. You can be a triple introvert (like me, for example), but if you are annoyed by the large number of meetings with other team members, you will not make progress in your design career today. We have become a bridge between different specialists and teams, a unifying link and keepers of product knowledge.

Instead of a conclusion. A year ago, I would say that first you need to master graphic editors, basic tools, and only then move towards the development of soft skills. Times and environment have changed. And now these priorities have swapped.

Thank you for reading!
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