Tag: management

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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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A walk in the fog, innovation attempts during Covid-19 pandemic

Upon navigating the uncertainties presented in this COVID-19 Pandemic, it’s helpful to first, understand the context of the challenge we’re facing, to put things into a clearer perspective. Eddie Obeng through his project classifications divides project types into four quadrants based on the clarity of goals, and clarity of enablers.

Which one accurately fits the situation? As you might have guessed, the answers will be different for everyone depending on their organization’s vision and capabilities. However, for most that caught unprepared, it will be the “Fog”, or “Lost in the fog” – They don’t really know what to do and how to do it.

Further explanation can be found in the book “Managing Unique Assignments: A Team Approach to Projects and Programmes” as follows:

“He calls open projects ‘the walking or lost in the fog type of projects’: ‘you can’t stay in one place, and so it follows that you have to move. According to Obeng, in open projects, you and your interest groups are uncertain. This uncertainty has a bearing not only on what must be achieved but also on how it is to be achieved. In his view, a characteristic of this type of project is that an attempt is being made to do something that has never been done before, for example carrying out a quality-improvement programme or developing an entirely new product for an entirely new market. The approach for these projects depends on the project leader’s skill in continually carrying out the cycle of acting, evaluating and learning from what has been done and then replanning.”

According to Obeng, the right type of leadership for this kind of situation is, you might have also guessed it, “Innovator”. In his book “Perfect Projects”, Obeng mentioned the following traits for such leadership:

  • Build trust – Make promises and keep them
  • Find a wide range of stakeholders many of whom do not initially see themselves as stakeholders
  • Be prepared to go to where team are, logically and emotionally (match and lead)
  • Communicate widely and use questions effectively
  • Listen effectively to both logical and emotional concerns
  • Demonstrate calmness (even when panicking)
  • Describe and capture nature of problem faced
  • Clearly articulate a vision (usually opposite of problem faced)
  • Show genuine concern for team
  • Keep stakeholders informed on a day-to-day basis
  • Encourage team to communicate amongst themselves
  • Capture any learning team makes – Proceed one step at a time
  • Reassure team members – Be creative with any new opportunities or insights which present themselves
  • Give hope to stakeholders – Praise initiative taken by team
  • Provide intellectual challenge through questioning and problem description
  • Analyse complex situations and distil few actions likely to give biggest results
  • Accept offers of ideas and efforts from team
  • Involve team decision making & provide a stable ‘base’

For those reading my previous post about navigating your way in this covid-19 pandemic and thinking to explore the opportunities hidden in this crisis, you will be heavily benefited by the diversity of ideas coming from a team effort, therefore, for someone doing it alone should consider of having allies that can work together to accelerate your wayfinding. (byms)