Lesson 2 — Find balance in your design team
Stop looking for a UX designer and get more specific with your needs.
This is the second post in the Effective Design series. If you haven’t read Lesson 1 already, I recommend starting there
It’s heartening to see how much the design ecosystem has grown in the past few years and how many more people have a basic understanding of design. Until a couple of years ago, it wasn’t an uncommon situation for designers to have to explain to the rest of the world the difference between UI and UX.
We’ve now reached a point where team sizes at most companies are starting to grow. But one issue that is still prevalent is that most job postings still ask for a generic UI/UX designer or a visual designer. It seems that to many, user experience is still tied down to how an interface looks, it’s visuals, and the flow of the product in terms of screens.
Truth is, user experience is inherently tied together with every element of the product. Right from user acquisition (whether organic, or social or paid) to the key moments in the product itself. Every sound they hear, every bit of data they see, every message they read, the typography and the interaction patterns, they’re all part of the user experience.
Hence, if you’re scaling up your design team, it is extremely important to focus on the balance, just as you would for your tech team. Try to bring on board talent that would all contribute to specific elements of design. Your end product would immediately feel so much more complete as a result.
Do you still need a dedicated UX Designer?
Yes, but the role of the UX Designer in your team is going to be different — the dedicated UX designer is, in a sense, the team lead. UX designers are like Product Managers — it is their duty to pull the design team together, have them contribute individually and helping them make the right design choices. It is their responsibility to improve the experience itself, and all of the individual designers need to work towards their vision.
What this also means is a UX designer must have an explicit specialization in at least one field of design, with a decent understanding of several others. This turns them into a jack of all trades, so to speak, but with the ability to get the most out of the rest of the team.
Find your specialization
A number of UX designers out there call themselves one because they feel under-confident about their credentials in any one particular specialization. You are not doing yourself any favors. Take out the time to flesh out your skills, practice a lot and get better.
The range of choices is vast — from motion design to psychology — so ensure that you have one hard skill. If you call yourself a UI/UX designer, double down on your interface design. Failure to do so significantly harms your growth prospects since it limits you from joining an increasing number of teams where every individual has a specific role.
