There are essential skills that every good UX designer must develop in order to deliver great results. One must not only focus on the creative process or technical skills in order to grow as a designer. These are the essential skills that, when applied to your own work, will help you become a better UX designer and help build up your professional reputation.
Communication
It is important to be able to clearly communicate your ideas to others in order to be a successful UX designer. There are various forms of communication channels you can use depending on what the situation calls for. You can use a Zoom call to talk with a client about important project details or email coworkers on their work status. It's important to know how to communicate in order to get the information you need to create your design.
Organization
As a UX designer, you’ll have a varied workload that will require you to work with many documents and deliverables. This can include things like design briefs, meeting notes and product sketches, to prototypes, wireframes and visual content. You will have to be very organized to increase efficiency and stay on top of projects. It is a good idea to use naming conventions for different projects, in order to easily send files to team members and stakeholders. Any physical content should be in different portfolios and be labeled according to the client name.
Empathy
It is important to have empathy to understand user-interface design. When looking to design a product or service, you should think about how it will be used by the end user. Why did a user choose your product and what do they want to achieve when using it? Empathy will allow you to make more comprehensive design decisions and should be incorporated into the design process from the start.
Learning
A good UX designer will always want to keep learning and advancing their skill set. A designer continues to improve with practice and by setting challenges for themselves. You can improve your design by setting goals, reading books, watching videos or taking courses. A good way to improve your knowledge is to also ask other designers how they created their work and try to find a mentor. You should also try to set challenging goals that will allow you to test your skills and increase your efficiency.
HARD SKILLS FOR A UX DESIGNER
These are the technical skills that every UX designer is required to master. They are job specific and can be developed with experience.
User Research
The amount of research put into a design can be the difference between a good and bad user experience. There are a lot of things that go into making an app or website. The decision that many UX designers make for their project depends on meticulous research, studies and testing before the final product is delivered. You will need to understand your target audience and gather data on them in order to make informed decisions on your design. A UX designer will need to understand the software required to create the desired platform. This will involve wireframing and prototyping to test on your users.
Information Architecture
Information architecture is how information is organized in an accessible, effective and comprehensible way. There is an endless amount of information available and it is the role of a UX designer to present information in a way that everyone can understand. UX designers need to know the principles of information architecture in order to produce label systems, sitemaps and intuitively organize the information in a site map.
Wireframing and Prototyping.
Wireframes and prototypes allow a UX designer to convey and test their ideas. This can range from hand drawn sketches to high quality digital mockups. Prototyping allows you to understand what functions are key to great user experience and how each page should connect with each other. It helps direct the look and feel of your design, and can help catch mistakes before being sent to a developer.
Graphics by Monica Luque
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