Stand Out as a Product Designer
What can you do to communicate your worth as a product designer? What mindset and skillset do you need to stand out from other designers like you?
Businesses are becoming design-driven and are now, more than ever, hiring more designers to help drive growth and keep them relevant to their users. This created a side-effect where more and more people are going to tech and design, saturating the digital space. Anyone can be a UX designer with a 6–12-week Bootcamp. This is a good thing because new UX jobs are popping up every day so it’s great that people are ready to take on the role of pacesetters and change-makers.
What I hope to focus on here is the saturated aspect. Everyone does what you do, some better, some cheaper. If your process is similar to many other designers, you will soon run out of clients or lose your job.
This article is not about discouraging new designers or why you shouldn’t be a designer. It’s about looking beyond the pixels, how to capitalize on what you know and become invaluable to any team. By being different, I am referring to your approach to design thinking and problem-solving. But if being different is only about new trends and modern user interfaces, then we should all be ok… until AI starts using Figma just like us.
How can you be a better UX, UI, or Product designer?
These are my opinions:
Taking initiative.
As designers, we get to begin the project. The project doesn’t start without research and design. Programmers don’t start without an idea of how to make it look like. However, a lot of times designers decide to function as pixel pushers and order takers. It may be because some designers are introverted, so are scared to lead a direction. Others want to do just what they are told, so they don’t want to do something not approved by the higher-ups. We wait for approval before we start working on a redesign, research, etc. But what if the decision-makers are undecided or taking too long? What if the problem is getting out of hand? What if that new competition is already gaining a hold in the market?
A product designer who is confident in his process can, and should, lead a project. Forget the approval; just get started. Sometimes the initiative is what is needed to conclude. And your work might get rejected, and that’s ok. But it beats waiting for the C.E.O. to decide whether the call feature is necessary.
Adapt
At a point in your design career, you should realize that UX is just one part of the solution. If you adapt well enough to understand your niche, you automatically become a better expert. Sometimes engineers find it difficult to understand your design. It’s not necessarily your, or their, fault. But it’s still there, so what can you do about it? You could learn to code. And no, you don’t have to know all the C++ or Java concepts. Believe it or not, designers and coders apply the same analytical and systematic thinking. Programming languages were designed too, you know. If you can understand that connection, even though you may not code, you can still suggest various ways to implement your design.
Look for patterns and connections.
How does the UI affect user actions? Does it match the company’s brand? How will DAU affect success metrics? Is this feature necessary right now, or is it contrary to our objectives? How can we implement a microservice architecture now or later without increasing development time or shutting down the related systems? It’s one thing to know each part, and another thing to make them work together.
Think like a Freak
Think in detail. Think big picture. Think convergently. Think divergently. Understand the Why, not just the How. The rest of the team looks to you to know the relationship between what is abstract and what is realistic, so think deeper and wider than anyone on the team.
Understand the entire design process
From the details of the research phase to the business strategy of the product, a product designer has enough knowledge to comprehend how the entire system works. He is valuable at every stage, as he can actively contribute, sometimes without even being involved in the direct implementation. You may not be a tech person to build a tech product, but if you know just enough, you can make a better tech product.
Open Minded
A lot of what we do as designers involve humans in their everyday, natural routines. Sometimes you may not know much about them, so take the time to observe and listen. You can’t make a good design for someone you don’t understand, and you can’t understand them if you let your personal bias get in the way. We are all biased, so we can’t deny that it exists, but if you can put them aside to focus more on what matters, your work as a problem solver becomes easier.
Design is universal, transcendent, responsive, adaptive, and innovative. It has no preferential filter, is not restrictive, and is not overwhelming.
Making factual assumptions
Have you ever watched “The Mentalist” or “House”? Simon Baker’s Patrick Jane can predict and influence people’s actions and behaviour, sometimes even without seeing or knowing them. Hugh Laurie’s House uses unorthodox thinking and application methods that always cure patients of life-threatening diseases, despite raising questions from his hand-picked team and his boss.
What makes these two characters great is their ability to make decisions and assumptions about people that the rest of the world tends to miss. They predict a possibility accurately just by observing and remembering existing facts. But to any other person, they made a wild guess. Yes, sometimes it’s their gut feeling, but at the core, it’s because they studied human behaviour in great detail.
What is the point of this? We also make assumptions in design, but it’s based more on what we want to believe about the user than what is true. We want to believe a lot of users have a particular problem when in fact, they don’t. We also refuse to accept it because that will imply that we were wrong all these past months. So, we build the app, fail, and blame the users for not using it
Resourceful with ideas
Ideas give birth to businesses. Sometimes they hit the mark perfectly; other times, it’s unrelated to the problem. Remember that time when everyone shared their ideas on the project but there were some of these ideas that everyone just didn’t like, or laughed at? One time in System Analysis and Design class, we were asked to quickly come up with ideas for our end-of-year projects, and one guy proposed a ‘gym management system’. It was ridiculous at the time, given how he explained it. A few years after, it just hit me; he was thinking of a fitness app.
Is there something like a bad idea? Maybe in the context, or how it was presented, but generally, I don’t think so. I think every idea that comes up is a missing piece in a bigger concept. Ideas are not complete on their own: you don’t just sit under a tree and have million-dollar ideas falling from the branches on your head (We might have been oversold on the Newton scenario).
Ideas are to product designers what gold is to gold miners. A product designer is resourceful with ideas. Every idea is a piece of a puzzle, and he knows when to move which piece. He takes it, refines it, and makes it work.
Put the user first, always
There would be no product without a user to buy. Some products are more business-oriented, and others user-centric, but the best ones are those that care about the user. They do more than just sell emotions. Sure, they may have a few bugs, but they don’t make the user feel dumb or leave them hanging, confused, or both.
There’s always more to product design. It’s a field of constant learning, unlearning, and relearning. Things that work today will not work in the next few years. The new design trends that everyone is following now will be replaced. Sans-serif fonts were most popular until Grotesque fonts came in. The crazy web3 frenzy will settle down by the end of this year, and probably become obsolete by the next. You should know these trends, but not let your design career depend on them.
So, when they say they want a designer who is a great UX/UI person, I believe what companies want in a designer is a visionary, risk-taking, purposeful, focused, and business-minded individual. That, and you should also be a great person to work with. Don’t imitate House’s personality, unless it’s your last day at the company.
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Thanks for reading. This is my second article, and I’m looking to improve my writing, so let me know what you think in the comments. Also, I’m always looking to connect with other designers, so find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
