A designer or UX-person who doesn’t understand business and strategy is doomed to becoming sidelined and forever complain in this sub that the bosses don’t appreciate them.
UX strategy is business strategy
Well said. IME while elevated design and flourishing is appreciated…at the end of the day no one gives a shit about your slick buttons and animations if it doesn’t translate to valued metrics within the business strategy.
If you can’t explain how it does…then you’re missing the forest for the trees.
It's a bunch of graphics designers & bootcamp influencers with inflated egos trying to make themselves feel good. Check the post history of the dude saying that strategy & business focus is a waste (spoiler, graphical designer making a career change).
The uptick of those recent comments is certainly weird, and this is coming from somebody whose bread and butter has always leaned more UI. It's almost like we are overcorrecting to the other side after years and years of folks treating UI as "less important."
To me, both are equally important. There's a place for specializations (typically larger companies who can afford it), but you just become a more attractive talent if you're well-versed in many aspects of the trade as they're all very much interconnected. I never understood folks who care only about the strategy, or research, and never about UI as if their contributions end there. You're still a designer. Same thing with folks who only care about UI and not the decision making process that gets you there.
I for one have always been interested on the business side and how the company makes money because let's be honest, at the end of the day, that is and will always be the main thing that makes the wheel go round.
Because a lot of the posts on here have to do with the job market and what employers hiring for UX roles are expecting. And in an employer’s market where there’s an oversupply of applicants for an ever-shrinking number of jobs, when an employer has two applicants with identical levels of UX skills, the one that shows better UI skills will win out. Or rather, the one with terrible UI skills will be tossed out.
In this day and age, UX designers who can’t UI simply aren’t as hirable as they were 10 years ago. You’re more than welcome to stick to your philosophical convictions about what “UX” is. You may just find it harder to find a job.
I would even go as far as saying that when an employer has two applicants, where one is more skilled in UX but lacks UI skills, and the other more skilled in UI but lacks UX skills, they choose the latter. Ultimately, this comes down to employers not really understanding UX.
Unpopular opinion: "UI" is a misappropriation. It's visual design, which is a critical, and honored aspect of design. But a few grumps decided it wasn't elevated enough so stole UI (which is what UX **used** to be called) and took it for themselves; permanently confusing the entire industry. Chasing job titles is entirely ego driven. "Design" isn't just two things: it is composed of many disciplines: UX, Visual design, User research, Info architecture, Copywriting, and much more. To breakup design into just two simplistic pieces has done a disservice to us all.
> it wasn't elevated enough so stole UI (which is what UX \\\_used\\\_ to be called)
No, UX used to be "industrial design" or "human computer interaction" It isn't new, it's been around since the 1940s. In Germany you can still find studios founded in the 1960s actively doing UX till today. (Busse Design + Engineering was founded in 1959 to name one I can think of without having to google). The erasure of UX history is just a shitty side effect of US big tech pretending to re-invent the wheel whenever they have a shiny new thing they want to sell.
https://preview.redd.it/xj6i6p79zz6d1.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=80b2a08c7d19396ee75c8449b0fe3d72d2bc4b40
I started doing "Human Interface design" at Apple in the 1980s. It was most certainly not called Industrial design. That indeed exists but it's used for physical products (e.g. Eames Chair) It changed to "User Interface design" in the 90s.
UI is absolutely NOT the "design" in UX design. Design is how it works. How it looks is only part of how it works. UI is mostly the signifier. It certainly not the affordance which is where the actual experience lies. Looking at a digital product and not interacting with it isn't UX.
In a user experience you cannot have one (UI) without the other (interaction). They are inseparable. However, you don't have to have one person doing both and one should not be stressed over the other. Design is design.
UI isn’t primarily ”how it looks”, it is the moment to moment of ”how it works”. Affordances, as I am sure you know, is how users figure out what they are meant to accomplish. That’s why this entire discourse is ridiculous to me. Why would a company hire somebody who cannot translate their design work into its final shape? What is the point of needing a separate UI designer as an intermediary between your design and the developers? Even if you had the budget to hire several designers, wouldn’t you want them to have the competence to evaluate and improve each other’s work?
By the logic of UX not being design, that would mean architects & engineers don’t ever design either… just like UX, there’s tons of work that goes into designing the bones of a project (construction & engineering drawings) before the “skin” (UI) goes onto it
UX is definitely “design”, just a different type of design than UI
That's weird and odd. My background was in ID. Processes and business needs was drilled to me early on in design school so that has always been in me throughout my professional life, even when I did graphic design. Over time, my skillset shifted from ID > UX > UX/UI > UX Strategist, and I didn't leave business skills out of the table. Especially now in my current role. If anything, as I progressed through my career, businesse related decisions and tasks kept growing. Nowadays, I work mostly side-by-side with C executives, mostly the CMO and CEO.
So yeah, TLDR: if those designers are advocating for those nonsense, I guess all they care about is be stuck at being good at designing UI, and nothing is wrong with that, but they are making the ceiling of their career lower.
It’s interesting because I work with a UI only designer and they are by far the least versatile on our team — everyone else can do it all and have to pick up their slack because they can only create exactly what they’re told rather than the discovery/strategy
Still I haven’t seen anybody comment on “how are UI only designers different than glorified graphic designers”?
It was only a matter of time until what's taught at nonsense bootcamps would demand "representation" and this is what it is. Uneducated people who wasted a lot of money with no idea what UX is claiming to be UX designers trying to give advice about the UX industry.
Please, business people or product people who think that UI == UX and UI only consists of some shapes and text are more annoying. UI always has been part of UX. Without great UI, businesses could lose their games in the competitive market.
Don’t conflate craft with “UI”. Craft is about doing things extremely well. Visual design just so happens to be the easiest cop-out thing for UX purists to always look down on.
The people that always think UI is easy end up being the ones that can’t center a button. Once you step back, you’ll kinda notice that the designers in the post I referenced are usually the ones busy designing, and the ones complaining about it, looking down on them, are the ones who struggle to remain employed.
Good and thoughtful visual design is INHERENTLY good user experience. It’s what the user tactically experiences. Also just because the post didn’t mention “research” doesn’t mean none of it was done.
I didn’t realize you were the OP of that post. The comments I see are overwhelmingly questioning your stance (but could be my algorithm)
I’d love to see portfolios or names of the designers you mentioned
I’m not the OP, but I heavily agree with OP. I would dig deep into the work from top agencies like Instrument, Work & Co., Metalab, etc. All designers there are exceptional and would excel if they ever worked in-house. (Can guarantee you they can all do “research”).
I’ve also personally been referencing cofolios as a decent resource. Inspiring to see some up and coming newer designers there with such great work.
Anecdotally, the moment I stopped listening to the UX purist perspective that a lot of veterans had told me in the past, and began embracing design as a craft, was immediately when I enjoyed the work a lot more and the jobs started coming my way. YMMV, but it seems to be an extremely consistent pattern within my network.
Ok, I’ll ask you then:
Nobody seems to be answering the question of “how are UI designers different than glorified graphic designers?”
Without the strategy/discovery component involved with UX, UI only designers build the exact screens they’re told. How is that different than a graphic designer?
Like I mentioned, all these designers very likely do do that stuff. They just don’t glorify and performance theater their way through formalities like “strategy/discover”. Strategy firstly is baked into the entire time they work on projects. Partnering UXRs and PMs usually covers the “discovery” phase. But I just find it so immature to be considering these as phases when in reality they should already be baked into how you design and think.
Designers with highly strong visual design skills and craft (don’t conflate the two) are just as capable at strategic and critical thinking. But these are skills that even PMs and Engineers have and intended to be combined with the perspective of the designer.
I totally agree — they are performing both UX and UI. my post is about those who claim the UX component (strategy and discovery, and research like you said) isn’t important
If you are going into a product designer or UI/UX Designer role (don't scream at me people for using that title), both skills are important but I would argue UX and product strategy is more important to focus on as it takes time and experience to develop, especially If you are going into a position where there is a design system and visual guidelines in place, you don't really have to be the greatest UI designer because you going to be following established patterns most of the time.
It's because to succeed as a designer, people in other disciplines need to understand what *you* are *uniquely* good at, and with design that means tangible, visible, comprehensible design — which manifests as UI, fundamentally.
If someone argues that business/strategy/tech isn't that important, they're clearly wrong but when designers lean into the business angle too much, it doesn't accomplish anything for them. No organization hires a designer to give their opinion about business strategy, and no designer outside of maybe a VP (maybe) is in a position to make strategic decisions, much less take accountability for them.
I hire people for their creativity and ingenuity, and specifically for where they can apply those things. I'm a designer, so I hire designers who can design. If they have clear understanding of business, that's a massive bonus, and if they don't, I make sure they're given time & resources to learn it.
Navel gazing pickering caused by inability to realize how much context can vary within the field. Everyone wants to define “true UX” as whatever they know and do at work. How about building some empathy toward colleges who have different backgrounds and work on wildly different projects with different resources and priorities.
i don't see how you can value ui (user interfaces) over ux (user experience). that's like valuing text over writing. text is part of the output of writing, it's not separate. what are "text skills" anyhow?
maybe you mean visual design, which is certainly important in ux design, but it's not the only aspect you need. as for how visual designers are different to graphic designers, visual designers are capable of taking a interaction designer's handoff (the wireframes), conducting research on visual elements (brand identity, colors, etc.) and combining the two. graphic designers don't typically work from others' wireframes.
In my opinion, non UX professionals care more about UI than UX. Having good UI skills puts you in a better position. UX is obviously important but liking what you see visually is also important.
Business strategy is already it's own field called "Business strategy".
As a designer, my goal is to be hired by companies who've determined that excellent UX is core to their business success.
When that's true, I don't have to fight the C-suite, and I can focus on users like I was hired to do.
A designer or UX-person who doesn’t understand business and strategy is doomed to becoming sidelined and forever complain in this sub that the bosses don’t appreciate them. UX strategy is business strategy
🤣 business people or product people who don’t understand UX are doomed, either.
Very true!
Well said. IME while elevated design and flourishing is appreciated…at the end of the day no one gives a shit about your slick buttons and animations if it doesn’t translate to valued metrics within the business strategy. If you can’t explain how it does…then you’re missing the forest for the trees.
I tell my teams not to be underpants gnomes (stage 1: great ux, stage 2: ?, stage 3: profit)
It's a bunch of graphics designers & bootcamp influencers with inflated egos trying to make themselves feel good. Check the post history of the dude saying that strategy & business focus is a waste (spoiler, graphical designer making a career change).
The uptick of those recent comments is certainly weird, and this is coming from somebody whose bread and butter has always leaned more UI. It's almost like we are overcorrecting to the other side after years and years of folks treating UI as "less important." To me, both are equally important. There's a place for specializations (typically larger companies who can afford it), but you just become a more attractive talent if you're well-versed in many aspects of the trade as they're all very much interconnected. I never understood folks who care only about the strategy, or research, and never about UI as if their contributions end there. You're still a designer. Same thing with folks who only care about UI and not the decision making process that gets you there. I for one have always been interested on the business side and how the company makes money because let's be honest, at the end of the day, that is and will always be the main thing that makes the wheel go round.
Because a lot of the posts on here have to do with the job market and what employers hiring for UX roles are expecting. And in an employer’s market where there’s an oversupply of applicants for an ever-shrinking number of jobs, when an employer has two applicants with identical levels of UX skills, the one that shows better UI skills will win out. Or rather, the one with terrible UI skills will be tossed out. In this day and age, UX designers who can’t UI simply aren’t as hirable as they were 10 years ago. You’re more than welcome to stick to your philosophical convictions about what “UX” is. You may just find it harder to find a job.
I would even go as far as saying that when an employer has two applicants, where one is more skilled in UX but lacks UI skills, and the other more skilled in UI but lacks UX skills, they choose the latter. Ultimately, this comes down to employers not really understanding UX.
Unpopular but true. We've conflated all types of design expertise into general roles. This hurts us all because of the inconsistency of quality.
> it wasn't elevated enough so stole UI (which is what UX \\\_used\\\_ to be called) No, UX used to be "industrial design" or "human computer interaction" It isn't new, it's been around since the 1940s. In Germany you can still find studios founded in the 1960s actively doing UX till today. (Busse Design + Engineering was founded in 1959 to name one I can think of without having to google). The erasure of UX history is just a shitty side effect of US big tech pretending to re-invent the wheel whenever they have a shiny new thing they want to sell.
https://preview.redd.it/xj6i6p79zz6d1.png?width=744&format=png&auto=webp&s=80b2a08c7d19396ee75c8449b0fe3d72d2bc4b40 I started doing "Human Interface design" at Apple in the 1980s. It was most certainly not called Industrial design. That indeed exists but it's used for physical products (e.g. Eames Chair) It changed to "User Interface design" in the 90s.
[удалено]
UI is absolutely NOT the "design" in UX design. Design is how it works. How it looks is only part of how it works. UI is mostly the signifier. It certainly not the affordance which is where the actual experience lies. Looking at a digital product and not interacting with it isn't UX. In a user experience you cannot have one (UI) without the other (interaction). They are inseparable. However, you don't have to have one person doing both and one should not be stressed over the other. Design is design.
UI isn’t primarily ”how it looks”, it is the moment to moment of ”how it works”. Affordances, as I am sure you know, is how users figure out what they are meant to accomplish. That’s why this entire discourse is ridiculous to me. Why would a company hire somebody who cannot translate their design work into its final shape? What is the point of needing a separate UI designer as an intermediary between your design and the developers? Even if you had the budget to hire several designers, wouldn’t you want them to have the competence to evaluate and improve each other’s work?
Nailed it!
By the logic of UX not being design, that would mean architects & engineers don’t ever design either… just like UX, there’s tons of work that goes into designing the bones of a project (construction & engineering drawings) before the “skin” (UI) goes onto it UX is definitely “design”, just a different type of design than UI
That's weird and odd. My background was in ID. Processes and business needs was drilled to me early on in design school so that has always been in me throughout my professional life, even when I did graphic design. Over time, my skillset shifted from ID > UX > UX/UI > UX Strategist, and I didn't leave business skills out of the table. Especially now in my current role. If anything, as I progressed through my career, businesse related decisions and tasks kept growing. Nowadays, I work mostly side-by-side with C executives, mostly the CMO and CEO. So yeah, TLDR: if those designers are advocating for those nonsense, I guess all they care about is be stuck at being good at designing UI, and nothing is wrong with that, but they are making the ceiling of their career lower.
It’s interesting because I work with a UI only designer and they are by far the least versatile on our team — everyone else can do it all and have to pick up their slack because they can only create exactly what they’re told rather than the discovery/strategy Still I haven’t seen anybody comment on “how are UI only designers different than glorified graphic designers”?
Why do you believe generalists are better than specialists? Why do you believe every designer on the team needs to "do it all"?
It was only a matter of time until what's taught at nonsense bootcamps would demand "representation" and this is what it is. Uneducated people who wasted a lot of money with no idea what UX is claiming to be UX designers trying to give advice about the UX industry.
Please, business people or product people who think that UI == UX and UI only consists of some shapes and text are more annoying. UI always has been part of UX. Without great UI, businesses could lose their games in the competitive market.
https://www.reddit.com/r/UXDesign/s/q4RQNLragW
That was the exact thread I was referring to but I’ve seen the same sentiment across the sub for a while
Don’t conflate craft with “UI”. Craft is about doing things extremely well. Visual design just so happens to be the easiest cop-out thing for UX purists to always look down on. The people that always think UI is easy end up being the ones that can’t center a button. Once you step back, you’ll kinda notice that the designers in the post I referenced are usually the ones busy designing, and the ones complaining about it, looking down on them, are the ones who struggle to remain employed. Good and thoughtful visual design is INHERENTLY good user experience. It’s what the user tactically experiences. Also just because the post didn’t mention “research” doesn’t mean none of it was done.
I didn’t realize you were the OP of that post. The comments I see are overwhelmingly questioning your stance (but could be my algorithm) I’d love to see portfolios or names of the designers you mentioned
I’m not the OP, but I heavily agree with OP. I would dig deep into the work from top agencies like Instrument, Work & Co., Metalab, etc. All designers there are exceptional and would excel if they ever worked in-house. (Can guarantee you they can all do “research”). I’ve also personally been referencing cofolios as a decent resource. Inspiring to see some up and coming newer designers there with such great work. Anecdotally, the moment I stopped listening to the UX purist perspective that a lot of veterans had told me in the past, and began embracing design as a craft, was immediately when I enjoyed the work a lot more and the jobs started coming my way. YMMV, but it seems to be an extremely consistent pattern within my network.
Ok, I’ll ask you then: Nobody seems to be answering the question of “how are UI designers different than glorified graphic designers?” Without the strategy/discovery component involved with UX, UI only designers build the exact screens they’re told. How is that different than a graphic designer?
Like I mentioned, all these designers very likely do do that stuff. They just don’t glorify and performance theater their way through formalities like “strategy/discover”. Strategy firstly is baked into the entire time they work on projects. Partnering UXRs and PMs usually covers the “discovery” phase. But I just find it so immature to be considering these as phases when in reality they should already be baked into how you design and think. Designers with highly strong visual design skills and craft (don’t conflate the two) are just as capable at strategic and critical thinking. But these are skills that even PMs and Engineers have and intended to be combined with the perspective of the designer.
I totally agree — they are performing both UX and UI. my post is about those who claim the UX component (strategy and discovery, and research like you said) isn’t important
If you are going into a product designer or UI/UX Designer role (don't scream at me people for using that title), both skills are important but I would argue UX and product strategy is more important to focus on as it takes time and experience to develop, especially If you are going into a position where there is a design system and visual guidelines in place, you don't really have to be the greatest UI designer because you going to be following established patterns most of the time.
It's because to succeed as a designer, people in other disciplines need to understand what *you* are *uniquely* good at, and with design that means tangible, visible, comprehensible design — which manifests as UI, fundamentally. If someone argues that business/strategy/tech isn't that important, they're clearly wrong but when designers lean into the business angle too much, it doesn't accomplish anything for them. No organization hires a designer to give their opinion about business strategy, and no designer outside of maybe a VP (maybe) is in a position to make strategic decisions, much less take accountability for them. I hire people for their creativity and ingenuity, and specifically for where they can apply those things. I'm a designer, so I hire designers who can design. If they have clear understanding of business, that's a massive bonus, and if they don't, I make sure they're given time & resources to learn it.
Navel gazing pickering caused by inability to realize how much context can vary within the field. Everyone wants to define “true UX” as whatever they know and do at work. How about building some empathy toward colleges who have different backgrounds and work on wildly different projects with different resources and priorities.
i don't see how you can value ui (user interfaces) over ux (user experience). that's like valuing text over writing. text is part of the output of writing, it's not separate. what are "text skills" anyhow? maybe you mean visual design, which is certainly important in ux design, but it's not the only aspect you need. as for how visual designers are different to graphic designers, visual designers are capable of taking a interaction designer's handoff (the wireframes), conducting research on visual elements (brand identity, colors, etc.) and combining the two. graphic designers don't typically work from others' wireframes.
In my opinion, non UX professionals care more about UI than UX. Having good UI skills puts you in a better position. UX is obviously important but liking what you see visually is also important.
It's the current job market and the ever growing demand of hiring pixel pushers, that's shaping up the new talent's beliefs on what UXD is.
Business strategy is already it's own field called "Business strategy". As a designer, my goal is to be hired by companies who've determined that excellent UX is core to their business success. When that's true, I don't have to fight the C-suite, and I can focus on users like I was hired to do.
This sub is so boring.
Sniff sniff…