UX Unicorn vs UX Horse with a Party Hat
In the End, They’re Both a Horse With a Point.
The term “unicorn” refers to a designer with great design skills, who can also code and cover many of the areas associated with UX design. The “unicorn” designer earns that term because as a unicorn, they are hard to find, maybe even mythical and legendary. Overall, it’s a funny joke term, but it tends to steer away from a forgotten party in the mix. The UX “horse with a party hat”. Sometimes mistaken for a unicorn, this player is as effective as its counterpart, but may not have certain skills. Put simply, UX designers don’t need to be “unicorns”, but they should be able to understand and maybe even mimic what a unicorn designer can do.
Party Horse?
You’ve probably read this introduction thinking, what is a horse with a party hat? Well, it’s something I made up myself because I feel like there are designers, like myself, that do not fit in the unicorn category, nor the “coding is unnecessary” camp. I am currently studying UX design, but I am attempting to learn as much coding as possible because I believe it to be a great skill in today’s web design industry. The horse with a party hat symbolizes an easy to find designer that has effective skills and has an understanding of coding, regardless of their coding talent; because it seems the big element that makes a unicorn, is coding talent.
As a designer, I asked myself why myself and others should go to all the trouble to understand code? Well, there’s the simple answer that it will increase your chances of a job and better pay, but there are other, more beneficial reasons to understand code, that will help anyone as a UX designer. After all, what will it hurt? UXBeginner.com puts it simply:
Instead of fruitlessly wondering if you need to learn code & invest lots of energy + time into it, do this: understand code at a basic level.
Teamwork
The first benefit of understanding code is that it will make you more of a team player when it comes to interacting with the development side. You will be able to understand the jargon and know the flow of the development. Essentially, you are placing yourself in the developer’s shoes and understanding their position while not fulfilling it. This point is about building camaraderie and helping both sides of design and development move more effectively. As designers, we have all experienced our fair share of “use your magic photoshop skills to fix it”, so understanding code will help us to avoid being the person developers resent. Designer Antoine Valot makes a great point explaining that designers should learn code by likening it to other professions:
A good architect has to understand physics, and the limitations of construction materials. A good carpenter doesn’t have to understand architecture in order to just implement blueprints.
I’ll rephrase it in a designer setting:
A good UX designer has to understand code and its limitation of what can and can’t be done. A good developer doesn’t have to understand why a box is colored blue or why an element is in a certain place to implement designs.
What You See
The next benefit of knowing basic coding is being able to code a mock-up that is actually feasible. Once again, this helps developers, but also helps you as a designer. When coding is mentioned, designers reel back thinking that they have to code C++ or other backend code, when in fact they only need to worry about the front end. Front end code consists of HTML, CSS, and if you’re getting fancy, Javascript. Both HTML and CSS are easy to learn, while Javascript is a little more of a challenge.
As HTML and CSS affect how the website will look, it’s valuable that you know, or at least understand, the syntax, so that you can plan accordingly when designing. What good is making a design if it can’t be implemented with code? Knowing before-hand if it can be coded, will cut out needless designs and time-wasting reworks. Antoine Valot helps put into perspective that we should be master and commander over our designs, including code. He states:
You’re not going to be a very effective UX designer if you’re not interested in how your ideas become reality… or fail to.
Fence-sitting
This article is in no way intended to dissuade a person from becoming a “unicorn” designer. Reach for the stars if you want to, I know I am. These points are to urge modern UX designers to be better and more effective. We are moving into a time when knowing how to design isn’t enough and designers need an edge - and that edge is knowing how to code HTML and CSS, or at least have an understanding of front end coding. Don’t be a regular horse, and don’t worry about becoming a unicorn, but help yourself, the industry and your future team members by being a normal, but unique, horse with a party hat.
