What UX Designers Do: Explaining Their Responsibilities
The rapid development of the digital sphere has contributed to the emergence of many new professions, particularly in the design industry. Web, graphic, motion, animation, product, user interface, user experience - this is not even a complete list of attributes we can place before the word "designer".
Therefore, it is not surprising that the question "what do UX designers do?" puzzles many, especially those who need to hire such a specialist for their project.
We want to help those who are looking for a designer for their team and want to ensure that a UX designer is exactly what they need. And to understand what this profession entails, it is worth starting with clarifying the term "user experience design".
What Is UX Design?
There is no universally accepted definition of UX design. User experience design is a multifaceted concept encompassing many disciplines: interaction design, information architecture, visual design, usability.
Nevertheless, if we need to provide a definition, it would be as follows: UX design is the process of creating products that are useful, easy, and enjoyable to use. It is about improving the product experience so that customers easily find its value.
The goal of user experience design is to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty through the usefulness, ease of use, and pleasure the customer gets from interacting with the product.
Who Is a UX Designer?
A UX designer is a specialist who primarily focuses on how users interact with a product. UX designers study various approaches to solving specific user problems. The main task of this specialist is to ensure the logical flow of the product from one stage of the user journey to the next, until the customer achieves their ultimate goal.
To accomplish this task, UX specialists conduct product research, then build wireframes and prototypes based on the collected data, and conduct user tests to ensure they have created a convenient and intuitive product that provides value and satisfies the customer.
In other words, a user experience designer collects analytics and turns it into a logical workflow, consistent layout, and user-friendly interface. A UX designer acts as a bridge between the programmer and the user, the web designer and the site visitor, and plays an important role in creating a convenient interface for a software product.
Key questions that a UX designer addresses:
- Setting goals and objectives (what we ultimately need to achieve)
- Choosing suitable UX tools to achieve these goals
- Designing a product that is as convenient and simple as possible for the target audience
- Analyzing the results and testing them (checking how well the product meets customer expectations and the level of user satisfaction).
Key tools that UX designers work with:
- Figma
- Sketch
- Adobe XD
- InVision
- Framer
Now let's talk about the typical responsibilities of such specialists in more detail.
Responsibilities of a UX Designer
The roles and responsibilities of a UX designer can vary depending on the company they work for and the type of project they are working on.
Therefore, responsibilities can range from conducting research and usability testing to being involved at every stage of the UI/UX design process. Nevertheless, some responsibilities are fundamental for any such specialist.
Conducting Research
UX research typically involves studying the market (to understand the reason for the product's existence) and the target audience (to learn about the needs and goals of end users).
Research helps designers avoid making decisions and assumptions based solely on their personal feelings. The goal of UX is user-centered design, and research allows understanding who the end user is, in what context users will use the product or service, and what their ultimate goals are.
Research helps:
- ensure the correct selection of the product's target audience
- understand goals, expectations, and context of use
- identify usability problems in the current solution
- test ideas and new concepts for product development
- find out how users perceive your product compared to competitors.
The initial stage of work, during which the specialist gathers information needed to develop the optimal design solution, includes:
- interviews with business experts and users
- statistical analysis
- analysis of competitors and their audience
- studying the product and personal usage experience
The collected data is processed to develop the correct design decisions based on it.
Defining and Creating User Personas
The term "user persona" is used to refer to a fictional character representing one of the user categories for whom the UX specialist is designing the product. The best way to create a persona is by using various types of research, such as user tests, surveys, questionnaires, focus groups, and other UX research methods.
A user persona does not necessarily have to include all aspects of the imaginary person's life; it rather focuses on those characteristics that influence how customers interact with the product.
Defining Information Architecture
After conducting research and creating user personas, the UX designer defines the information architecture of the product. Information architecture considers the principles of organizing and navigating information, helping people find and process necessary data faster and more successfully.
It defines the basic structure of the product and shows the connection between the user's current position and their goal. Building information architecture means creating intuitive navigation, prioritizing data, and creating categories.
The next important responsibility is creating wireframes.
A wireframe is a low-fidelity design of the product. It shows:
- Main content
- Page structure
- Description and basic visualization of interaction between the interface and the user.
Think of it as a skeleton of the design that reflects every detail of the final product.
Wireframes are important because they allow the designer to plan the arrangement of elements and interaction with the interface without being distracted by choosing colors, fonts, text, etc.
Prototyping
A prototype is a simulation of the final user interaction with the interface. It may not look exactly like the final product, but it must be accurately modeled and have significant similarity to the final experience.
They should allow the user to:
- Perceive the content and interact with the interface
- Test basic interactions similar to the final product.
Prototypes are fully used in user testing. These simulations of the final product serve as the basis for conducting qualitative usability tests even before development begins.
User Testing
Testing is very important for UX designers because it allows them to understand if there are problems users might encounter when interacting with the product, and whether the product needs further changes and refinements.
Usability testing is conducted with real users because they are more likely to find weaknesses than people working with the product, as the latter may already overlook them.
Involving new and existing users in testing is a great opportunity to understand how:
- if they know how the product works, if they are confused or lost
- if they can perform the main actions needed to achieve their goals
- if they encounter usability problems or errors
- if they enjoy working with the product?
Who to Hire: Junior or Senior UX Designer
Now you have a basic understanding of who a UX designer is and what they do. The next task is to understand if there is a significant difference between the roles and responsibilities of a junior and a senior UX designer.
Let's start with what both junior and senior UX designers do:
- Conduct product research
- Develop user-centered solutions
- Conduct user tests
- Refine the product based on test results.
It seems they both perform all the main responsibilities. So what does a senior UX designer do that a junior does not?
Typically, the responsibilities of a lead UX designer include planning and overseeing the UX team's workflow. They do not perform every step of the design process.
The responsibilities of a junior UX designer allow them to join the team and assist with various tasks at any stage of the product lifecycle.
Mainly, junior designers work with common problems, while senior specialists solve more complex tasks.
Another important point distinguishing these two specialists is salary.
Therefore, if you are a startup with a limited budget, hiring a senior specialist may not be advisable, and it is better to find a well-trained junior UX designer. If you are a large company with sufficient financial resources, you can hire a higher-level designer.
Summary
The true benefit of hiring a UX designer lies in their main task: making the user's path to their goal as short, simple, convenient, and efficient as possible.
To achieve this goal, UX designers use the tools and methods we discussed earlier in this article: they conduct thorough research, study the target audience and create user personas, define the most optimal information architecture, create intuitive user flows, wireframes, and interactive prototypes, and finally test everything to arrive at the best design solution.
Finding the perfect candidate is a challenging task.