Tag: designteam

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How to understand the different titles of UX Designers

Source: NetMagazine

Among the most asked questions in Quora related to UX Design, a good chuck is about the differences of titles and roles related to the practice.

First of all, when you look into the demarcation of roles today, basically, you can divide designers into two hemispheres: creative designers, and experience designers. The first related more with Marketing activities, while the latter more into, you guessed it right, digital product development, and this is where most UX designers sit in today’s digital startups.

UX Designer Roles

Note: by “UX Designers” I also imply any roles that contribute to the creation of a delightful User Experience, i.e.: UX Researcher (UXR), Information Architect (IA) Interaction Designer (IXD), Visual Designer (VD) or UI Designer (UID), Product Copywriter (PCW) or UX Writer (UXW), Product Copy Editor (PCE), and UI Developer (UI Dev).

Product Designer

In a more agile setting, where designers are distributed into different teams, the role of “Product Designer” usually encompasses all of those specialization mentioned earlier. Alternatively, some companies label this the end to end role as “UI/UX Designer” which is a misnomer as it treated UX activities as simply creating wireframes, a prerequisite for UI activities to create the actual design; an oversimplification.

If you should differentiate between roles, then Interaction Designer (IXD) are those that produce product design concepts, i.e. how the product works, through identifying which intent to be rendered, and how it should be rendered. User Interface Designer (UID) or Visual Designer (VD) are those that translate the design concept into mockup as the representation of the end product, plus the necessary assets to be developed by the Engineering team.

Here’s a matrix from Stephan Takken that I found accurate, which categorizes these roles by their focus:

Tips: the title of the role advertised usually give a good insight into the organization’s UX maturity, where “UI/UX Designer” is preferable by those in the early maturity stage, i.e. still “testing the waters” as to how the role could contribute to product awesomeness, while more mature ones usually prefer specialization like “Interaction Designer”, and “UI Designer”. The more mature it is, the more embedded the designers usually are within the whole product lifecycle, with a seat in the product committee board. (byms)

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Moving ahead by creating visibility of your contributions

“How should I ensure that my work and my contributions get visibility within the company? What new skills do I need to move ahead?”

That is among the most used introduction question used in LinkedIn Career Advice, and I think it’s a very legit one: moving ahead has a lot to do with the visibility of your progress.

As an example, when I first joined Traveloka as a Design Lead, I was glad to meet my new team of 20 designers, which is a huge leap from the 2-5 team members I usually lead. I often read that prominent design leaders manage the team even bigger than this, therefore I think I’m on the right track.

What quickly happened though, is the realization that it’s hard to effectively track everyone’s progress.

Despite doing checkups, 1 on 1, and casual daily interactions, it seems there’s always someone that’s eluding attention by being less approachable, avoiding conversations, and stay silent in meetings, perhaps, believing that the less they share, the better it shows that everything is under control.

On the other hand, there are also a few that often popped up and pose conversation like “I need your opinion on this issue”, “Are you available for quick brainstorming?”, or even “I have problem with this stakeholder”.

Who do you think would leave a more memorable impression?

Those that speak up usually get the attention they deserve, why? Because despite their achievements, by speaking up they got to deliver their story, and research has shown that what changes people’s perception is a story, not data.

Do you know what kind of stories is most memorable? Those that provoke the sense of catharsis in its audience, by connecting on the emotional level.

Therefore, to get your contributions visible, there’s no other way than to connect those to your stakeholders’ emotions. Even better, get them as part of the story, and they will be there to defend you when it’s needed, like in the performance review season.

However, storytelling alone won’t cut it. There needs to be real progress within the story. You can only get so far with a mediocre story. Your story needs to tell about a significant contribution.

Therefore, for those still struggling with creating contributions, then ask your leader or coach on where you can create the most impact, as they can help to give you information on what is expected from your role, and how you can better fulfill those expectations. If there’s still a gap in the skills needed, your leader should also be able to assist you in creating an improvement plan.

For leaders, it’s crucial to have a system, and delegation of roles to effectively scale up your influence, therefore creating scalability (and sustainability) in your leadership.

Do you still have questions? Use the comment section below, or connect with me through LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram. (byms)