If you are thinking of changing to a career in user experience (UX) design, you might be wondering if you have the right skills. Some hard skills designers need are writing and public speaking skills and soft skills are empathy and communication. Some of these skills can be learned in classes, while others are gained through experience over time.
Hard Skills Vs. Soft Skills
Hard skills are the abilities that UX Designers learn through classes and training programs to do their job. Soft skills are personal traits that UX Designers possess, many of which drew them to the field of design in the first place.
Hard Skills Useful for UX Design
Some hard skills that are important for designers might include the following:
Project Management
The ability to oversee complex projects is important in a field like UX design. Project management skills include assigning the right people to the right jobs, setting schedules, creating and following a budget, keeping the project on track, and reporting to stakeholders. These are excellent skills for a UX Designer to acquire and anyone who wants to follow a career path into management would be wise to learn them.
Group Facilitation
Running workshops and meetings is another skill that UX Designers need. Brainstorming and ideation sessions are crucial to the design process, so UX Designers must become comfortable with scheduling meetings, setting up the room, running the ideation session, and reporting on the results.
Writing
UX Designers need to be able to write clearly and competently. They need to write reports, compile and explain research results, and convince clients and businesses that the design is going in the right direction. Sometimes UX Designers become UX Writers and compose the text that is included in the product.
Public Speaking
Part of a UX Designer’s job is to get up in front of gatherings and talk to people. This can be at design workshops, stakeholder meetings, or even at design conferences. The ability to present information in a clear, concise, and entertaining way is an important job skill.
Visual Design
Although visual design is usually the territory of UI Designers, UX Designers can end up handling that part of the design process, especially in small companies and start-ups. UX Designers need to understand the principles of visual design to create products that have the right look.
Data Analysis/Analytics
Research is very important in UX design, and that includes collecting and analyzing data. UX Designers interview and observe users, design and conduct surveys, and perform usability testing on prototypes, and then they need to interpret that data to discover and describe the user’s journey.
Data Visualization
Along with data analysis, UX Designers should be familiar with data visualization tools to create graphs, charts, and tables to help the team understand what the data mean. Data visualization helps members of the design team identify user pain points and priorities.
Market Research
Larger companies have marketing departments but smaller firms often rely on the design team for help, so UX Designers with some experience in marketing research are in-demand. Marketing tests look at different elements than usability tests, so UX Designers in smaller companies need to be flexible and willing to take on extra tasks.
Content Strategy
Along with the ability to write well, UX Designers need to have an understanding of content strategy. This means developing a plan for how to create, position, and promote content that is consistent with the product brand, reaches the intended audience, and meets the stated goals of the project.
Instructional Design
Instructional design is a system for developing educational materials following research on how students learn most successfully. This is an important skill for UX Designers, especially those who work on educational products, but other projects can benefit from instructional design as well.
Soft Skills Useful for UX Design
Other skills that are useful for UX Designers are what are considered soft skills like:
Communication
Strong communication skills are important for UX Designers. It is important to be able to describe elements of the design, get ideas across, and keep the team on track. Good communication between team members is the foundation of collaboration.
Empathy
Empathy is the first phase in the UX design process. It means setting aside your own beliefs to learn what the user’s world looks like. Empathy allows the design team gets to know the user and the best way to do this is through research. The first step in the research planning should be to define the goals of the effort, and those goals usually include Identifying the user’s pain points. Empathy helps designers go beneath the surface of design problems and is just as important to the process as design tools.
Listening
Listening is much more than hearing. The ability to listen helps a UX Designer collect research data, collaborate with team members, and understand what a customer’s goals are for a project.
Teamwork and Collaboration
This is strongly connected to communication skills and is what makes a design team successful. Good UX Designers know how to work together with their colleagues to accomplish shared goals. They work out issues in a timely fashion and make sure everyone has an opportunity to participate.
Problem Solving
Problem-solving skills are important in any design endeavor. No project goes completely smoothly and the ability to creatively and rationally look at a problem and come up with a solution makes for a less stressful and more enjoyable workplace.
Technical Expertise
UX Designers use a number of digital design tools in their work. Adobe XD, Sketch, InVision, and Figma are some of the more popular tools for design. Designers also need to use tools for research and data analytics.
Business Understanding
An understanding of business principles is helpful to UX Designers when trying to balance design priorities with cost and scheduling concerns. A good design needs to meet the needs of users and customers.
Learn UX Design
If you would like to learn some of the skills necessary to switch to a career in UX design, one of the best ways to do that is to sign up for classes. You can choose classes that meet in-person or online to learn XD, Photoshop, and Illustrator. Some people prefer to attend brick-and-mortar sessions when learning new information, but that isn’t always available. Live online classes have a similar set-up with a real-time, remote instructor who can answer questions and take control of your monitor—with permission—to show you how to do things. Training is part or full-time and available weekdays, weeknights, or weekends.
The best way to prepare for a career shift to a field like UX design is to enroll in a bootcamp or certificate program. These are intensive training courses that run from a few weeks to a few months and will cover the design process and software in much more depth than tutorials can. Another plus of training is that you will leave class with a professional-quality portfolio that you can show to prospective employers.
Conclusion
It’s easy to take UX design classes and start a new career. Choose between in-person sessions in NYC at Noble’s location or sign up for live online UX design courses and attend from anywhere. Find UX bootcamps in your area and get started in a new direction today.