Should Product Designers Learn to Code in 2023?
Do you need to learn to code as a designer? Do you need it in your workplace? I’ll keep it short. As you might have heard and read many times before, designers don’t have to code to be good at design. And that’s true. You don’t need to know the intrinsic know-how to contribute to a project. Architects don’t build the walls or the roof of the house - they make the concept for someone else to have the visual idea to build it. Does the architect need to build a wall to create the blueprint? No.
That’s the short answer. I’m done.
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Of course, there’s more to it.
Let’s be more specific: do all designers need to learn to code? There are many fields of design, from product design and UI/UX to architecture; to graphic and print design. The only two obvious reasons why, say, an industrial designer might learn how to code are:
[1] to start a career in software engineering or
[2]as a hobby.
The third option would be to get past Photoshop to avoid paid plans, but that’s highly unlikely; besides, you’re better off paying $21 per month than spending a lifetime learning C++ to hack it.
It is not a requirement for designers, in general, to learn how to code, but if you do, you will also make yourself invaluable in every way.
Strangely, some companies believe almost fanatically in tunnel specialization; that UX designers should focus on the canvas and engineers on the code editor; you can’t be good at both. Employers and recruiters with this mindset would hire a designer who only knows how to work with a design tool but overlook another designer who can prototype with code. Why? Because the latter is perceived as having little expertise in both skills, a jack-of-all-trades — what they may be looking for is a super-designer in pixel-perfection and UI transitions.
It is still a popular idea that design is solely about graphics and interfaces; this keeps designers from jumping over the fence of their work culture to explore possibilities from learning in other fields. But what makes someone a good designer? What qualifies as “design”? Making things pleasing to the eye? Or finding the best possible solution to a problem?
This is the undisputed fact: design is the most dynamic skill you can ever have. There isn’t a fixed approach; instead, it is based on your current skill set and personal experiences. Many designers come from various backgrounds and have different skills - human-computer interaction, art, ergonomics, economics, architecture, cognitive science, engineering, human psychology, or business management - but they transfer their past knowledge and experience to create and innovate.
Learning to code isn’t any different. It seems hard at first, but once you finally get the concept, you will open up new possibilities and opportunities.
Benefits
- Broaden your thought process. Coding is a must-have skill, but no one talks about how you learn to think. One of the most exciting things about learning to code is to gain a better understanding of logic, abstraction, and systems thinking. Learning how to code can help you know some problems from a technical viewpoint, and you get a glimpse of what is and isn’t possible when building the product.
- Faster and better collaboration: Learning coding can help you collaborate better with the engineering team. You spend less time debating the best course of action and focus more on building what works.
- To know the limits of technology. Although design is focused on making a user-centered product, technology makes the product possible; it is thus essential to realize what can be built with what technology stack is available.
- Job opportunities. You may learn to code to get a job or make more income. A diverse skill set increases your chances of being employed, as well as your income. Although I also noted that some startups and companies want just a designer who can work only with design tools. But design-driven organizations know the importance of having a design engineer on their production team.
- Design leadership roles. Learning how to code will add to your knowledge base, which you can reference when facing new problems at work and in life. Most design leaders have deep expertise and experience in many fields of work. In his long career, Don Norman has been an electrical engineer, designer, cognitive scientist, psychologist, and computer scientist.
Reasons to learn how to code:
- To build custom systems from scratch.
- To understand how to program software.
- You design products for software developers.
- Curious to know what goes on behind the scenes.
- To increase your value and contribution to your team.
Do you need to master the skill?
With mastery comes a lot of practice and consistency — you need to spend quite a lot of time and energy if you want to master coding. But it also has a somewhat light/dark side: the more you know, the more you realize what you don’t know and how much you don’t know, and occasionally curiosity will feed your craving to learn every detail down to its most basic form, and you will slowly keep getting pulled in. Before, you wanted to learn how to build websites, but now you need to know how the operating system works with the browser.
Don’t get me wrong: at that point, you’re like a coding god, but unless you plan on building and designing everything yourself, that level of detail will only take much of your time. It is advisable instead to learn just enough to work with.
I encourage designers to learn to code - to challenge the box that shapes the majority of designers. It is an exciting journey that will teach you not just the skill to make more income but many other things about systems and functional organizations that will position you as a product leader and thinker.
Ok, now I’m done. Oh, wait… Happy New Year.
