Characteristics of a User Experience Designer

Google’s job description calls for User Experience Designers that are critical thinkers with a good design sense, a strong technical background, and an eye for making things better. While these traits are certainly important, there are three main characteristics all UX designers should have to be successful in their profession.

Curiosity A user experience designer is always curious about how things work and why they work this way. They are fascinated with human behavior – how people think and act in different situations. With curiosity comes questions and with those questions come answers through observation, research, and testing. Don Norman once said:

“I question my own ideas and that’s the only way to make progress, always curious, always questioning.”

Empathy A user experience designer advocates for the user. To do that, they have to be able to put themselves into another’s shoe – understanding their emotions and feelings. To truly design for the end user, one must understand the struggles and pain they go through when interacting with a particular system.

Passion A UX designer’s job doesn’t just go from 9 to 5. They live and breathe it in everything they interact with. When they buy a movie ticket through a touch screen kiosk, use the latest iPhone, or try out a new feature for their favorite website, they are thinking about ways that the experience could be improved or ways to connect people to one another. They not only have a passion for innovation and technology but also in creating passionate users. People with passion look for ways to make things happen.

Having a traditional design or technical background is helpful but to succeed, a good user experience designer must possess curiosity, empathy, and passion. What do you think? Share your thoughts with me on Twitter (@kennycheny) and check out UX Design Weekly for a curated list of the best user experience design links every week.