Business: UX Roles

It’s happened again: you’ve received a LinkedIn message or an email message from a recruiter who is attempting to interest you in the open position he’s trying to fill—or has asked whether you know of anyone who might be interested or qualified. But the message or its accompanying job description has just made you cringe. Perhaps a company was looking for a unicorn to handle both UX and development duties. Maybe the job description specified that a candidate should have a degree in “Computer Science or similar”—yes, this recently happened to me. Or, perhaps the desired qualifications are for skills that have nothing to do with the field of User Experience. Read More

When thinking about what UX roles a given team requires, so much depends on the nature of the company and the type of project. But there are definitely some UX roles that most teams need when designing and developing applications. Let’s start with the most obvious, then work our way to those that are more obscure. Finally, I’ll describe the soft skills that all UX professionals need to succeed.

Typical Design Roles

The visual design function is absolutely necessary on most UX design projects. The reason for this is not because visual design is the function most central to User Experience. Actually, relative to many other roles, the visual design function is more peripheral to what User Experience essentially is. Rather its importance stems precisely from the fact that visual design is the first thing most stakeholders think of when they think about User Experience. Therefore, visual design is a primary role on a UX project team. More importantly, an application’s visual design is also the first thing users notice, so providing a design that has aesthetic appeal and high quality is critical to the legitimacy of a design solution, in the eyes of both its intended users and the stakeholders who review our work. Read More

In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our expert panel discusses the key UX roles on a typical project team, as well as the core soft skills that UX professionals need to succeed. Because there are many factors in a project’s success, it’s necessary to consider which of the many UX skills and roles are essential to the success of a given project.

Of course, a team needs to consider what user research methods would help a team to understand the design problem a project is addressing, the application or Web site’s design—both the user interface itself and the information it conveys—and usability testing to validate that design. On a macro level, it is also vital to consider how a project’s design strategy can ensure that a design solution fits a product line, as well as a company’s overall business and brand strategy. And, of course, business analysis considers how a project will meet business needs and connect to the bottom line. The best design solution in the world provides no business value unless a company can successfully bring the product or service to market. Read More