Mathilda asks:
Can you all share how you distinguish product designers from user experience designers? I’ve been trying to determine the differentiation with other UX friends, but it still seems a bit foggy. Some have explained it to me as user experience designers focus on users and usability, and product designers focus on “everything”, i.e. the product and the business. Many of the user experience books and resources I read (Lean UX, Build Better Products, UX Strategy, NNgroup) though seem to frequently connect business outcomes with UX. I’ve also heard the difference explained as product designers having greater visual design specialization, but I’ve seen that in UX designer roles as well. Also, why not hire a visual designer in that situation?
Mathilda in Where are The Black Designers? Slack
It IS foggy, and as usual, I think the term “product designer” was coined to clarify but failed to do so (and introduced conflict with industrial designers among others). I think it mainly comes from poor mutual understanding of the term “UX” and what all a UX designer does or might do in different settings. This varies WIDELY by organization; in general, the larger the org the narrower the role of an individual contributor UX designer and the more the job(s) of working on a specific experience are distributed over multiple people. This narrowing of the role of a UX designer in large organizations has led to folks who do more than “Edward wifreframe-makin’-hands” to adopt the “Product Designer” term.
Here’s what I see as a rough breakdown:
- Graphic: the visual design of things, especially print pieces, marketing collateral, informational websites
- UI: the visual and microinteractive design of web applications, mobile applications, and desktop applications
- UX: the interaction design of web applications, mobile applications, desktop applications, and occasionally embedded or physical interfaces, with an emphasis on arranging the larger requirements and workflows to meet business goals and user needs together, and the research required to do a good job of this (sometimes some of this UX role is split off into a separate Researcher role)
- Product: UX + UI
But companies don’t necessarily follow this, and these terms mean different things to different people, and so it’s always useful to
- when looking for a job
- be open to multiple titles in your job search
- look for clues in the job descriptions you are considering
- explain your capabilities and aptitudes rather than trying to choose a title – use plain English
- ask questions of your prospective employers about what they mean when they say they want a {whatever} designer and compare their answers to what you want to do (always a good idea anyhow)
- when hiring
- be thoughtful and consistent with the language you use in your organization
- explain what you’re really looking for when you write a job description rather than relying on the title
- eliminate needless qualifications and job requirements from the job description
- write a job ad that describes daily and regular activities and how these contribute to org success
- remember that a job description is not a job ad
- when talking within your org
- be thoughtful and consistent with the language you use in your organization
- coach managers and leaders to be consistent in this same way, which will require explaining why
- plan needed capacity and capabilities before settling on roles and titles