UXmatters has published 44 articles on the topic Soft Skills.
This article was inspired by a discussion at last week’s Silicon Valley IxDA meeting, where Daniel Szuc and Josephine Wong spoke on the topic “Sleepwalking + Designing for a Healthy Future,” which got me thinking about what qualities one must have to be an effective UX professional. So much of success derives from mindset rather than skillsets, and mindset takes a lifetime to develop—or, for those of us who believe in reincarnation, multiple lifetimes. Your mindset derives from your life experiences and the way you respond to them, as well as what you learn from those who influence you greatly—such as your parents, mentors, and spiritual teachers. Read More
Well-established UX design patterns, laws, and rules form the foundation of our profession. Foundational principles steer our design decisions and offer scaffolding for our design processes. These tools and techniques make up our toolkit. In contrast, domain expertise provides the blueprint, which gives us the context, depth, and understanding to use our design tools effectively. For example, the design of a healthcare app requires knowledge of healthcare protocols, while designing a finance tool demands financial expertise.
This article emphasizes the significance of domain expertise in UX design, positioning it as essential for informed decision-making, efficient communication, and enhanced user empathy. Any UX designer who lacks domain knowledge faces significant challenges during the discovery phase, highlighting the need for designers to adapt quickly to new industries. It also outlines a strategic learning plan for acquiring domain expertise, with a focus on identifying knowledge gaps, useful learning approaches, and the efficient creation of documentation. Read More
Perhaps you’re thinking about a career specializing in user research. Perhaps you’re looking to hire a user researcher. Or perhaps you manage or work with user researchers. If so, you might be thinking about what qualities lead a person to succeed in user research. While others have written about this topic—notably Demetrius Madrigal and Bryan McClain in a 2010 column on UXmatters—I want to add my own perspective based on what I’ve observed specializing in user research over the past 17 years.
The following list of characteristics may seem daunting, but you don’t have to be a perfect ten in all of them. There are certainly areas in which I have strengths and weaknesses. We all have room for improvement. But the more of these qualities you possess, the more well suited you are for a career in user research. In this column, when I refer to a user researcher, I mean both user-research specialists and generalists who do both user research and design. Read More