Do you have the ambition and enthusiasm for a career in UX design but don’t know where to start? You’ll be pleased to know there are many paths you can take. Even as a relatively new field, user experience (UX) design has both general and specialist job roles. This variety means there is a role waiting for you that fits you perfectly based on your passions and experience. However, UX roles can sometimes be confusing—you may find the same position at different companies but with different names. Here, we’ll look at eight common UX roles and how they contribute to the design process. Soon, you’ll clearly understand which job role is the right fit for you.
A common misconception is that UX is just what you see in the final product. However, the tangible elements of a product are just the tip of the UX iceberg , as explained in this video:
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When we hear the term 'user experience', we tend to think in terms of screens, websites, mobile apps or other smart technology. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. The Elements of User Experience In the book *The Elements of User Experience: User-Centered Design for the Web*, Jesse James Garrett outlines five elements of user experience: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton and surface.
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Before beginning any work, product teams conduct user research to understand who their target users are and what the users' needs are. It's important for teams to be aware of the business's goals and objectives because if the product does not return a profit, the business will not be sustainable. The strategy helps you identify *who you are designing for and why*. The scope defines *what you will be designing*. Designers work collaboratively with all stakeholders to identify
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what features and functionality will help address user needs. While the *scope defines what a solution does*, the *structure defines how the product or solution works*. You create the blueprint of how the system works behind the scenes and how people, the users, interact with it. You then create the *skeleton*, laying out the first interfaces of the solution and creating the first tangible elements of user experience.
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And, finally, you flesh out the skeleton to create the most visible element – the *surface* that your users see and interact with. Much like an iceberg, there is so much more to UX than meets the eye. And, just as in the case of an iceberg, each element of UX above and below the surface affects the other. Decisions taken at one plane can cascade up or down the layers. For example, if you introduce a new feature, a change in the scope, it will impact all the elements above.
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You might even find users interacting with your product in unexpected ways, prompting you to rethink your strategy. There will likely be unknown considerations that emerge later, which might impact the experience. For example, if the team encounters technical challenges or budgetary constraints during development, they might have to revisit some design decisions. User experience design is concerned with *all* the decisions leading up to the surface,
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from the most abstract to the most concrete, from the known to the unknown, and continues to evolve throughout the life of the product.
UX design is still a relatively new industry. The first job to include the term “user experience” was Don Norman ’s role as User Experience Architect at Apple in 1993. New UX roles and specializations are appearing constantly , and the field continues to evolve as technology and user needs change. For this reason, user experience is an incredibly exciting industry to be a part of—a fact that has likely brought you here.
Unravel UX Roles and Find Your Perfect Fit Kate Conrick, a designer working for the Australian government, aptly sums up the sometimes-confusing state of UX roles:
“I built on my background in tech and design, picked up some solid research skills, added some business process and a sprinkle of marketing, and voila! A user experience designer. Or a Service Designer? A UX Researcher? A digital strategist? An experience analyst? Design thinker? Stuff tinkerer? Unicorn? Power ranger? You tell me. Because I’m not sure I know the answer.” —Kate Conrick
If you’re confused about UX roles, you’re not alone. But don’t worry; you’ll soon have a strong grasp of the different UX roles available and which one you’d like to pursue. With your destination in hand (i.e., the role you aspire to), you can plot your course to becoming a UX extraordinaire. Eight of the most common UX roles are:
Once you’ve chosen your role, one of the primary stepping stones on your journey is to build your UX/UI design portfolio —an essential asset for your UX career. In this video, Morgane Peng, Design Director at Societe Generale CIB, explains what a portfolio is and its purpose:
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A portfolio is a collection of work and projects curated by you to showcase your skills, experiences, and achievements. Think of it like a friend: it's your best advocate. It tells your story, it introduces you without you being around, and, if you're looking for a job, it's a key tool to get noticed and hired.
For each UX role, you’ll learn the expected tasks and deliverables and get a rough idea of whether you’ll like the role. Ready to make sense of UX roles?
Forget The Semantics and Focus on the Design Process With all these job titles, it’s essential to contextualize their collective purpose—all UX roles exist to serve the design process . A great way to understand UX roles is to examine how they contribute to the design process. UX professionals perform a whole slew of UX tasks as they go through a design process to create a final design.
For instance, designers usually start by understanding users before they create designs and test them. Different UX roles simply take charge of various subsets of these UX tasks.
Design thinking is one of the most common design methodologies and helps illustrate where each UX role fits. As you can see, the stages are closely connected; they overlap and are iterative by nature. This overlap is partly why job roles are often so difficult to define and separate completely.
© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
The design thinking process involves 5 phases that feed into one another:
Empathize: Where you learn about your users.
Define: Where you identify problems and user needs.
Ideate: Where you generate design ideas to solve the problems.
Prototype: Where you create mockups and, eventually, the final product.
Test: Where you test your designs with users to improve them.
These are some of the key UX tasks designers perform in each of the phases:
Example task 1
Example task 2
Example task 3
Empathize
User interviews
Contextual inquiry
Survey
Define
Persona creation
Journey mapping
Affinity diagramming
Ideate
Brainstorming
Worst possible idea
Storyboarding
Prototype
Paper prototyping
Wireframing
Hi-fi prototyping
Test
Usability testing
User testing
Heuristic evaluation
Each UX role explained below performs a slightly different range of these key UX tasks. For instance, a UX Designer is a generalist who takes charge of all the UX tasks, while a UX Researcher focuses on the empathize and test phases.
If you frame each role within the design process, it will help you see the big picture. That way, when a new job title pops up, you’ll be able to understand it in the context of the design process.
On top of that, companies might define UX roles differently. However, once you understand UX roles as “how they contribute to the design process,” you’ll be less confused when you go job hunting and portfolio building. In other words, you’ll focus less on the job title and more on what you’ll be doing.
The design process will also aid in your portfolio, as you’ll be able to target specific roles based on the stages you include in your UX case studies . For example, if you want to become a UX Researcher, you will want to focus on the empathize, define, and test stages in your case studies.
Enough talk; let’s look at the eight most common UX roles!
UX Designer: The All-Rounder The role of a UX Designer is an exciting one! UX Designers cover the entire design process . This means you’ll get the satisfaction of seeing products or features go from a user problem to a final solution. As a UX Designer, you’ll:
Deeply understand your users, their needs, and what they want to achieve.
Generate and ideate ideas to solve your users’ problems.
Prototype designs and test them with users.
Do you have excellent problem-solving abilities? Then you’re in the right place! UX design is all about problem solving, from simple problems that have a single cause and effect to wicked problems that require a little more thought and ingenuity to solve.
© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
The role of a UX Designer can look different depending on the size of the company. In large companies, a UX Designer typically works in a dynamic team with other UX professionals, including UX Researchers and UI Designers. In smaller companies like start-ups, UX Designers tend to handle all the design work. This means there’s a UX Designer role out there for you, whether you love to collaborate with specialists or own the whole design process.
UX Designers Are Also Known as... What Tasks Will You Perform as a UX Designer? A UX Designer conducts all kinds of UX activities as part of their role. As a UX Designer, you will:
Conduct user research through interviews, observations, and other research methods.
Based on your user research, analyze and identify pain points from the users’ perspective.
Generate ideas through ideation techniques, such as brainstorming and worst possible idea. These techniques help to solve the users’ needs in a way that provides value to the company.
Select the most promising idea(s) based on their feasibility, desirability, and viability.
Prototype designs, which can range from simple paper sketches to high-fidelity digital mockups.
Provide and solicit feedback on your designs as well as the designs of your teammates.
Conduct usability and user tests to determine if you can improve your design(s) further.
Push a design solution out into the world that will benefit both your company and your users.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UX Designer? While each company—and indeed, each team within a company—expects different deliverables from a UX Designer, the most common ones are:
User research reports.
Personas .
User journey maps.
“How might we” statements that capture a problem that your design aims to solve.
Paper prototypes.
Wireframes.
High-fidelity, pixel-perfect mockups.
Usability reports.
Heuristic evaluation reports.
User testing reports.
Design pattern libraries, style guides or design systems.
You’ll Love Being a UX Designer if you... Want to be involved in the entire design process, from the initial stage of understanding users to the final stage of producing a high-fidelity prototype.
Love to learn and master a wide range of topics and skills, including:
Are fulfilled by analyzing complex data to produce design goals that you then work towards.
Thrive on creating intuitive and useful solutions that solve the problems users face in their lives.
UI Designer: Where Aesthetics and Usability Meet UI Designers combine usability with visual design to build intuitive user interfaces. This role is an excellent fit if you’re a creative person who wants to incorporate psychology, user behavior analysis, and visual storytelling into your work.
Since a UI is a significant component of a product, it requires research, ideation, prototyping, and testing. Therefore, as a UI Designer, you have the chance to get involved in all five stages of the design thinking process.
Many UX Designers also take on UI design responsibilities, but it's important to remember that UI design is a component of UX design —they are not synonymous. Discover more about UI vs UX in this video:
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Do you find the terms "user experience" and "user interface" confusing? "User experience" and "user interface" are related and sound similar, but they mean different things. Don Norman, the inventor of the term "user experience", said, "User experience encompasses all aspects of the end-user's interaction with the company, its services and its products." - They're all about optimizing for the people, try to use and understand what they're given so that they can understand it,
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so that they know what to do when something goes wrong, so they know how to actually accomplish their goals, so they feel good about it and the technology does not get in the way. - UX designers have to create an all-around pleasurable experience that meets the needs of the users. This holistic perspective is what makes it different from user interface or UI. - User experience design, or UX design, is everywhere, from how you interact with your smartphone to how your home is designed. Of course, not all experiences are well designed, and that's why UX design is
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such a rewarding and challenging field to be in. - The user interface encompasses all the visual elements the user sees, hears and interacts with, including colors, typography, buttons, icons, screen animations and more. These visual elements are key to support tasks and usability. UI is how a product looks and all its visual elements, which plays a significant role in UX, which is the overall product experience. - What you need to do to get good is to remember those couple of things:
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Always align your buttons well. Always create hierarchy by larger spacing between groups and reuse the basic forms and just a couple of colors initially because that's going to help you get better understanding of what is really important in that UI design. And then you can experiment and you can explore outside of those boundaries. Let's look at it this way – observe the car dashboard. What you see, the icons, layout, even the shape and location of the gear shift are all UI.
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The holistic experience of what you *feel* – "Is it easy to drive? Is it comfortable and intuitive to use? Is it easy to understand the information displayed?" – is the overall UX, and both are essential to design brilliant and successful solutions and experiences.
UI Designers Are Also Known as... Interface Designer.
UX/UI or UI/UX Designer.
What Tasks Will You Perform as a UI Designer? As a UI Designer, you will:
Use your visual design skills to create attractive interfaces that align with brand guidelines and meet user needs. Color, typography, graphics, and Gestalt principles all play a role in UI design.
Design layouts with well-organized, consistent, and accessible content across all devices.
Develop and maintain product design systems. Design systems include components like buttons, icons, and typography styles.
Apply accessibility standards and cultural considerations to produce inclusive designs.
Collaborate with UX Designers to turn wireframes and prototypes into refined, high-fidelity designs.
Provide detailed design specifications and assets to front-end developers.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UI Designer? As with UX design, UI design deliverables vary from company to company. However, the most common deliverables include:
High-fidelity UI designs.
Interactive prototypes that showcase animations and transitions.
Design systems, including components like buttons, icons, and other reusable elements.
Visual style guides that include typography, color palettes, spacing rules, and more.
Responsive design layouts for various screen sizes and devices (such as mobile and tablet devices).
Documentation and design files for developers.
You’ll Love Being a UI Designer if you... Relish the challenge of perfecting the balance between aesthetics and usability.
Are passionate about visual design and its principles, such as typography, color theory, and layout.
Thrive in the structure that comes from design systems and clear rules for branding, but know when to break the rules.
Are ready for the challenge of making complex information easy to navigate through thoughtful design.
Aspire to collaborate with UX Designers and developers to bring high-fidelity designs to life.
Have excellent attention to detail and get obsessed with the minutia of a design.
Product Designer: Upgrade to Business Class Are you excited about becoming a UX Designer, but wish you could incorporate your business acumen into the role? Well, you’re in luck! Product Designers pay special attention to the product as a whole on top of the user’s experience.
As a Product Designer, you will contribute to the creation and management of the product’s designs, goals, and roadmap . A product roadmap is a high-level strategic summary of the direction of the product’s offerings and features.
Product design lies at the intersection of UX, visual design, and business strategy. While all UX designers consider business goals when designing user experiences, product designers must consider not only today’s business goals but also those of the long term.
© Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
Product Designers Are Also Known as... There aren’t any synonyms for Product Designers. Some companies define Product Designers as identical to UX Designers. Other companies view Product Designers as senior UX Designers who have the added responsibility of charting a product’s goals and roadmap.
What Tasks Will You Perform as a Product Designer? All the tasks listed under “UX Designer” above, plus:
Inform and plan the product’s roadmap 6–12 months into the future.
Collaborate closely with development to ensure they can successfully implement designs.
Work with marketing teams to communicate and plan product launches.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a Product Designer? Product Designers produce all the deliverables listed under “UX Designer” above, in addition to product roadmaps. You will likely co-develop roadmaps with stakeholders such as team leaders, the product manager and the CEO.
You’ll Love Being a Product Designer If You… Are passionate about design and business.
Are excited by developing and integrating business goals into design and product decisions.
Want to participate in the entire design process.
Are ready to develop a deep knowledge of design and a good understanding of business.
Have a knack for analyzing data and reaching conclusions that balance business goals with user needs.
UX Researcher: The User’s Champion UX Researchers bring the voice of the user into every part of the design process. They spend their days talking with users, analyzing data, and using their findings to influence design decisions. As a UX Researcher, you’ll participate in the empathize, define, and testing phases:
You’ll empathize with users to really get to know them and their needs.
You’ll define the problems that the product should solve.
Once the design team has created a prototype, you will test it with users and help validate and improve designs.
Discover more about UX research in this video:
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User research is a crucial part of the design process. It helps to bridge the gap between what we think users need and what users actually need. User research is a systematic process of gathering and analyzing information about the target audience or users of a product, service or system. Researchers use a variety of methods to understand users, including surveys, interviews, observational studies, usability testing, contextual inquiry, card sorting and tree testing, eye tracking
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studies, A-B testing, ethnographic research and diary studies. By doing user research from the start, we get a much better product, a product that is useful and sells better. In the product development cycle, at each stage, you’ll different answers from user research. Let's go through the main points. What should we build? Before you even begin to design you need to validate your product idea. Will my users need this? Will they want to use it? If not this, what else should we build?
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To answer these basic questions, you need to understand your users everyday lives, their motivations, habits, and environment. That way your design a product relevant to them. The best methods for this stage are qualitative interviews and observations. Your visit users at their homes at work, wherever you plan for them to use your product. Sometimes this stage reveals opportunities no one in the design team would ever have imagined. How should we build this further in the design process?
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You will test the usability of your design. Is it easy to use and what can you do to improve it? Is it intuitive or do people struggle to achieve basic tasks? At this stage you'll get to observe people using your product, even if it is still a crude prototype. Start doing this early so your users don't get distracted by the esthetics. Focus on functionality and usability. Did we succeed? Finally, after the product is released, you can evaluate the impact of the design.
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How much does it improve the efficiency of your users work? How well does the product sell? Do people like to use it? As you can see, user research is something that design teams must do all the time to create useful, usable and delightful products.
UX Researchers Are Also Known as... User Researchers.
Researchers.
What Tasks Will You Perform as a UX Researcher? As a UX Researcher, you will:
Gain a rich and complete understanding of users through qualitative user research methods. Methods include user interviews, user observations, and field studies.
Conduct quantitative user research using methods like surveys and card sorting. This research will confirm your qualitative research outcomes and inform design decisions.
Analyze the data you’ve gathered on users to synthesize key findings and make design proposals.
Advocate for users’ needs and perspectives within the design team.
Help inform product goals by presenting your research findings to stakeholders.
Test and improve designs by conducting evaluative research, such as usability and user testing.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UX Researcher? These are the main deliverables you’ll create as a UX Researcher:
User research reports (for various qualitative and quantitative research methods).
User personas.
User stories.
User journey maps.
“How might we” statements.
Usability/user testing reports.
Heuristic evaluation reports.
You’ll Love Being a UX Researcher If You… Have a strong passion for human psychology and the study of people.
Enjoy stepping into users' shoes to empathize with them and build a rich and deep picture of their perspectives and problems.
Are well-versed in psychology or interested in learning deeply about it.
Get excited about generating and analyzing complex data.
UX Engineer: A Bridge Between Design and Development UX Engineers exist in the gap between design and development teams . If you’re a developer who understands and advocates for user experience, then you might have just found your perfect role. You can find UX Engineer positions at large companies with strong UX maturity. Given their coding and UX abilities, a typical responsibility of UX Engineers is to build high-fidelity prototypes that closely resemble the final product.
In this video, Syzmon Adamiak, Co-Founder of Hype4, explains the importance of good communication when designers hand off designs to developers:
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How We Can Communicate Better So, the first thing is that we need to establish some *ground rules*. When developers get a design, they know nothing about the product, usually, or almost nothing. And you designers know everything – you are the authority. We just lay the code bricks here and there.
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So, *your job is to share your knowledge, share the context with us*, and *our job is to listen, to absorb it*. And this is a moment where there are the most problems. And I think that the reason is that we often *share some misconceptions* about each other's work, and designers often think that their job is to create a design, hand it off, and their job is done.
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They also tend to believe that developers are lazy and don't do a good enough job with the designs. And, actually, that's often true, unfortunately. Even in my company – my company started as a design-only agency, and my partner is a designer, but he's seen over and over again how developers execute the design
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and that the design was a totally different thing than the final product. And this is a realistic example, to be honest, so the colors are more or less fine but it doesn't look how it should at all. So, it really happens. And it happens a lot. And also, developers have many problems with designers, especially with some changes in the designs
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that we are not aware of and they are made. And also, many times designers think that something is just a minor change. You have to do it, and you have to do it fast – and, for us, it's a huge thing and not possible to change in a week or even a month sometimes. So, these accusations are sometimes true but it shouldn't really matter
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because we both have our flaws and we have to recognize those flaws, and focusing on that creates a really toxic and unfriendly work environment. So, I think we don't have to avoid making mistakes and talking about them, but *embrace* them. So, I think there are two important mindset shifts that can help us.
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One is to *change the way we think about handoff*. So, handoff – I don't even like the word 'handoff' because it sounds like a one-time thing, and it really isn't, especially now. It's more of a process. And I really like the term that Brad Frost coined about handoff: He calls it a 'hot potato' process. And the difference between – I called it 'waterfall' here – but the old way when the designer works,
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hands off the design, and then the developer works, and the hot potato process is that 'hot potato' process. In the 'hot potato' process, we work at the same time. So, usually the designers start work, they create some screens, they give it to developers, and we start building them, and we start exchanging information, communicating, improving, working in iterations. So, most digital products nowadays are created like that.
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So, that's the first mindset shift. We should stop thinking about handoff as a one-time thing and *start to think about it as a process*. And the second mindset shift is *giving others the benefit of the doubt*. And I already mentioned that we will make mistakes that happen; we can fix them, we can improve them, and in my experience not thinking about designers as someone who's just an evil overlord
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who changes designs when they want, but like another human being who has their problems, too, and their job is very hard. It helps a lot in cooperation.
UX Engineers Are Also Known as... What Tasks Will You Perform as a UX Engineer? Build high-fidelity, functioning prototypes using your UX and coding skills.
Package designs and communicate them in a developer-friendly format.
Work across research, design, development, and product management teams.
Front-end development tasks such as implementing UIs and new features.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UX Engineer? Many of the same deliverables as a UX Designer, plus:
You’ll Love Being a UX Engineer if you... Perform best with a varied and multidisciplinary workload.
Have the desire to utilize both coding and UX skills.
Enjoy a fast-paced work environment where you will build rapid but functioning prototypes.
UX Writer: The Master Communicator If you’re passionate about words and user-centered design , then you will make an excellent UX Writer. Copy is one of the most essential parts of a design , and it requires a specialist touch to optimize it for the best results.
As a UX Writer, you’ll write instructional text, onboarding content, and microcopy for buttons, error messages, and tooltips. You’ll contribute to the prototype phase of the design process, and you are crucial in finalizing the product before launch.
Torrey Podmajersky, UX Writer, explains how to get into UX writing:
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Well, there's been a lot of paths in. So far, I've seen really successful paths in from people with *traditional content* backgrounds, people with *traditional design* backgrounds making the switch and saying, 'Actually, can I just work on the words? That would be cool – I love the words!' Great. People with *journalism* backgrounds, because in journalism you are frequently thinking about 'What's the purpose of this story? Why am I telling it? To whom am I telling it?'
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And all of that. Also, people from *education* backgrounds; like I think you mentioned before, I used to be a high-school teacher. And that is a *great* transition into interaction design because teachers are doing interaction design *all the time*. In my case, it was with 30 teenagers in a room with live fire and chemicals. So – you know – it can be intense, and you want to make sure you get it right,
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just like the rest of interaction design I do. So, to get into those careers, it is helpful to take one of the *classes* that are starting to be offered; it is important to start putting together a *portfolio*, and one of the ways to do that is to take experiences you know to be broken. Right – like, I'm a big fan of taking government forms or government processes and saying,
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'Why is it like this?' Well, because they didn't spend your tax dollars on a clever design team. Great. But how could we use language to make that better and why? And then, I recommend going for *entry-level positions*, *especially in teams that have other UX writers or other content designers* in it because then you get that *buddy effect* of having people help you out.
UX Writers Are Also Known as... Copywriters.
Content Strategists.
Content Designers.
What Tasks Will You Perform as a UX Writer? As a UX Writer, you will:
Write copy for user interfaces so people can easily navigate, use, and troubleshoot the product.
Create compelling page titles and navigation menu item names for optimal usability.
Write error messages that are simple, effective, and blame-free. In the unfortunate event of an error, users should feel assured rather than annoyed.
Craft effective emails and newsletters to achieve product goals (such as account signups).
Weave a cohesive narrative throughout the product. Users should experience a consistent tone of voice and direction no matter which screen or page they access.
Define and maintain a vision for the product’s language that other stakeholders will use.
Test your copy for performance and improvements.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UX Writer? As a UX Writer, most of your work will be directly incorporated into the product itself , so it often won’t appear as a standalone deliverable. As a result, your most common deliverables are:
Copy, which you will incorporate into the product itself.
Editorial guidelines or product language guidelines that set the tone and content style for the product.
You’ll Love Being a UX Writer if you... Have a strong desire to help users achieve their goals with the least cognitive load.
Can strongly empathize with your users and understand their goals.
Are passionate about achieving product and business goals.
Possess deep knowledge in writing and a solid understanding of UX design.
Enjoy using empathy , data, business goals, and logic to inform your writing.
Service Designer: People, Processes, and Places Service Designers create cohesive, end-to-end solutions for services. This role is for you if you’re passionate about UX but want to take a wider view and design a service holistically. Service Designers focus on every touchpoint a customer or user interacts with and the internal processes that support the service. For example, a UX Designer may focus on the design of an ordering screen at a fast-food restaurant. However, a Service Designer will consider the entire customer journey , from how they find the restaurant to when they pick up their order.
Service Designers are involved in every stage of the design process, from research to testing. They cover multiple disciplines, including UX, customer experience (CX), and operations. In this video, Frank Spillers, CEO of Experience Dynamics, explains what service design is and isn’t:
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We'll get into defining Service Design and seeing where it's being applied. So, what is service design? And, probably more importantly, what *isn't* service design? So, service design is about designing an experience from a service orientation. So, it's like user experience design
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– where you're designing for the UX usually of a digital product – but in this case the service may touch many, many other places – you know, "omni-channel" as it's called: different channels. So, the user might start out on the web and they might go to the phone and they might go to the store or they might go to a location or to a form. They might pick up a brochure; back onto their mobile phone. And however that whole service is being delivered – you know – sometimes you *have to* go to a different channel
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in order to continue with the journey. And so, that's what service design is. It's a *wider kind of view* – stepping *back* from UX. I like to think of it from a *systems thinking perspective*. And by 'systems thinking', I'm talking about the engineering discipline, not systems as in database systems. Though systems are actually really important in service designs
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because – you know – you have computer systems, database systems, you've got business processes and logic. So, service designs think about *everything* – not just what's happening on the screen. And they think about what the smoothest ways are to deliver that – but not just from the consumer's perspective; they think about *how* to deliver the service experience
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in a way that's *appropriate* for the *user* and for the *business* and for the *systems* that are going to support that – the processes and all the back-end stuff. They're about being *exact* about that because – you know – it's *very* very apparent when there's a service experience failure. So, service design has to be *feasible*. It means it has to work again from a business perspective. And it has to be *scalable*
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so that you can't just come up with a great idea but then it doesn't work for rolling it out to 10 million people. The other thing is *financial viability* is really important. And I think that's part of scale. So, there's engineering scale. But there's also "Is this going to work?" – you know. If it's a free service, for example, is freemium – that model – going to work? Or are you going to have to change the model and therefore maybe jeopardize your users?
Service Designers Are Also Known as... What Tasks Will You Perform as a Service Designer? Service Designers have a broad remit and carry out many tasks. They:
Map the entire service journey, including both customer-facing and behind-the-scenes processes.
Visit competitors, analyze their services, and discover what works and what doesn’t.
Conduct research with customers and employees to understand pain points and moments of delight.
Design service blueprints to outline how all parts of the service interact.
Collaborate with UX Designers, CX professionals, and operations teams to optimize service delivery.
Prototype and test solutions with customers and employees.
Align digital and physical service touchpoints for a consistent and immersive experience.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a Service Designer? Many of the same deliverables as a UX Designer, plus:
You’ll Love Being a Service Designer if you... Enjoy solving complex, system-wide challenges that cover multiple touchpoints and interactions.
Thrive on designing holistic, end-to-end experiences that benefit customers and service providers.
Are passionate about improving not only the user experience but the operational efficiency of services.
Love working at the intersection of UX, CX, and business strategy.
Enjoy collaborating with various stakeholders, from customers to frontline employees and business leaders.
Have a keen interest in research with both customers and employees to gain actionable insights .
UX Unicorn: The Mythical Start-up Beast You will typically find UX Unicorns in the world of tech start-ups . If you’re someone who possesses the usual set of skills required for a role and additional skills in another domain, then you might just be one of them. These additional skills multiply the value a unicorn contributes to a business—hence the legendary name.
A UX Unicorn is similar to a UX Engineer and typically refers to a UX Designer proficient in design and front-end or even full-stack development . Where UX Engineers and unicorns differ, however, is that the engineer is part of a team, whereas the unicorn often is the team . However, UX Unicorns that can achieve results comparable to those of a designer and developer team are extremely rare.
What Tasks Will You Perform as a UX Unicorn? All the tasks listed under “UX Designer” above, plus:
Develop live front-end prototypes to test with users for more realistic results than a static prototype.
Implement the front-end code of a design. In exceptional circumstances, the unicorn may also implement the back-end code.
What UX Deliverables Will You Produce as a UX Unicorn? All the deliverables listed under “UX Designer” above, plus:
You’ll Love Being a UX Unicorn if you... Excel at both UX design and development, and have a desire to take on both roles. A UX Unicorn is the sort of phenomenon that happens if, for instance, you have been an active hobbyist for years. If you’ve got a strong passion for and deep knowledge of front-end development , this might just be the role for you.
Take Your Pick: Which UX Role Should You Go For? Which of these eight UX roles speaks to you the most? If you cannot decide, Stephen Gay’s advice might help you. Stephen Gay is the UX Lead of Google One, and he recommends that you choose your design role based on your passion and skills :
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What would your advice be to like a junior person? Would that be to go for a a position that's that's generalists geared towards a UX generalist or one that's more aimed at specific sectors, specialization? Yeah, I think, you know, for my personal career,
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I think I've gone deep into interaction design, which is, you know, been successful move for myself. But I think it really depends on an individual. I think it's important for an individual to find their passion and kind of focus on that. So if an interaction designer has passion for interaction and loves visual design, it's important for them to nurture their hybrid capabilities. I think you know, companies all over the valley and all over the world are looking for different types of designer. Startups will look for more hybrid designers.
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Large organizations might look for a special interaction, but depending on what your your skill and competency level in design is, it's important to go deep and focus on doing great work. So it's more more about focusing on your passion and doing great work and of course also adjusting that to the career opportunities that are available to you as opposed to to more sort of a generic career advice of either going for this or for that. Absolutely. I think design is organic and it changes over time.
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So I've seen visual designers who are amazing shifting to become more interaction designers. I've seen interaction designers shift to become strong researchers and I mean seeing interaction designers shift to become product managers or developers. So, you know, there's no one path to take. But again, I think if you if you love what you do and you focus on doing great work, the doors and opportunities will open up.
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© The Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA-NC 3.0.
If you’re still unsure, know that many people start their UX journey with the UX Designer role. This allows you to experience the different specializations, and if you find you especially like one of them, you can dive deeper into it.
UX Roles Are Ever-Changing UX roles are in flux —and likely always will be. After all, designers seem to have a limitless amount of creativity that makes them reinvent and redefine roles every few years . For example, artificial intelligence and voice interaction are two areas where the demand for new UX practices is rapidly growing.
When you go job-hunting, remember that different companies might define roles differently. Large companies, for instance, tend to hire specialist designers , so they often have specific roles such as “User Researcher” and “UI Designer.” Small and medium-sized companies, on the other hand, tend to prefer generalists and will have roles such as “UX Designer” or even “UI/UX Designer.” Always carefully read the job description of an opening before you apply, and check the requirements to see where they fit within the design process.
Next Steps: Build a Standout Portfolio Once you’ve chosen your role, your next course of action is to build your UX portfolio . And you can get started right away! You can use student projects, hobby projects, hypothetical projects, and more to create case studies that will get you hired.
Remember that each case study is a story, and you’re in complete control of how it is told. For example, if you start as a UX Designer and realize you are most engaged with UI design, you can translate any project into a focused UI design case study.
You can even reframe your past non-design experiences into the UX role you’re aiming for, as Morgane Peng explains in this video:
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Have you reskilled into UX and product design? Are you not sure how to talk about your past or maybe you're afraid that this will make you less competitive than people who only study UX? This is a common worry for people who do a career switch, so let's look at a few strategies to connect your past working experience with your desired role in design. The first thing you need to realize is that you should not hide it. If you feel insecure about your past, there's
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a high chance that this insecurity will be noticed in your interviews, which can turn people off. And there's actually nothing wrong in finding UX later in life as it's still a new topic of specialization in our education system. A lot of people are like you probably, and there are chances that even your interviewers also switched from their former careers into UX. So instead, focus on why you got drawn into UX in the first place and why you want to work in this field now.
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Talking about your career switch is the perfect excuse to show your motivation and commitment. Chances are that you have less projects to show and less practice than someone who studied at school for 3 to 5 years, and this is something that hiring managers should understand. Use this opportunity to focus on how much you accomplished in such a short period of time, especially if you had to juggle with an existing job in parallel. And here's the secret: the best way to leverage on your past is to find transferable skills. It may require you to change your perspective
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on how you think about your past or brainstorm with a mentor. So here's a few examples from my students or the people I hired. For example, I hired a former chef who could use his experience in the kitchen to prove that he has a very strong work ethic and is able to cope under pressure. I hired a former architect who could talk about his experience in systemic thinking when building physical spaces for people. I mentored a former real estate agent who could show that she has
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good client empathy and that she could analyze client needs. I also hired a former financial expert that helps now the team, the design team, understand the business side of things. And the business culture. Usually it's best to mention all this in your behavioral interviews or have a dedicated space in your portfolio. But sometimes you can go also further and turn your past into a case study. A real example comes from my real estate student. I suggested that
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she create an empathy map of the process of buying a house for the first time. As she knows the clients and their highs and lows during the whole process from her real life experience, she was able to map out the entire process and levels of satisfaction and frustrations. She also added a section where she, as a real estate agent, was able to address the pain points at each stage.
The Take Away UX roles can be confusing and overlap in some ways, but all exist to serve different parts of the design process . A great way to understand UX roles is to identify which phases of the design process they contribute towards.
“The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.” —Steve Jobs
Here’s a quick summary of the eight common UX roles:
UX Designers take charge of the whole design process and work on all five phases of the design thinking process.
UI Designers focus specifically on a product’s UI and combine visual design with usability.
Product Designers are like UX Designers but also help chart a vision of the product’s mid-to-long-term roadmap.
UX Researchers focus on understanding and advocating for users. They participate in the empathize , define, and test phases.
UX Engineers fill the gap between designers and developers and use both UX and developer skills.
UX Writers are all about crafting persuasive, clear, consistent copy that contributes to the prototype phase.
Service Designers take a holistic approach when they design services and cover the disciplines of UX, CX, and operations.
UX Unicorns are rare people who handle both UX design and front-end development, typically by themselves.
Aim for a role that matches your passion and skills. If you’re still working out what excites you about UX, get started as a UX Designer to allow you to experience different areas of the field. You can then narrow your focus as you discover what you truly enjoy doing.
Finally, once you’ve chosen a role, you can get started on your portfolio , and you’ll be preparing for interviews in no time!
References and Where to Learn More Want to create a portfolio that gets you hired? Take our course, Build a Standout UX/UI Portfolio: Land Your Dream Job , and learn how to showcase your skills, tell compelling project stories, and impress employers.
If you don’t have any UX experience, discover 3 Ways to Find Projects for Your UX/UI Design Portfolio Case Studies .
Find out How to Use Visuals to Elevate Your UX/UI Design Portfolio Case Studies , regardless of the role you choose.
Learn more about the following disciplines in our topic definitions :
For a robust foundation in UX, take our courses, Design Thinking: The Ultimate Guide and User Experience: The Beginner’s Guide .
Discover How Much You Can Earn as a UI & UX Designer .
Read Kate Conrick’s thought-provoking article on UX roles, We Need to Talk About UX Roles.
Find out why Jakob Nielsen’s believes that AI may bring about more UX Unicorns .
Images Hero image: © Interaction Design Foundation, CC BY-SA 4.0
Author/Copyright holder: Yuval Yeret. Copyright terms and licence: CC BY-NC-SA 3.0
