Top Personal Skills of UX Designer
In a recent design interview for (can’t specify), I was asked a basic yet difficult question. I believe I gave the appropriate answer but I was not so sure. I shared my answers with a few of my seniors and most of them agreed with my thoughts.
So, the question was “What other non-technical skills do you possess that help you as a Designer?”
My answer revolved around these 3 skills:
- Interactive Approach
- Keen Observer
- Empathy: Obvious One :)
Interactive Approach
Being interactive as UX Designer is a bit different from just being good at communication. It means a bit more than that. Processes like understanding business requirements, user interviews, contextual inquiry, and usability testing require the designer to actively interact with users and clients.
Other than users and business owners designers are also tasked as POC to developers and sometimes also with the sales & promotion team.
Keen Observer
Observing skill is used by designers a lot. After a good amount of experience designers unconsciously develop this skill. A UX designer constantly hunts for ideas to improve their projects and they also hunt for flaws that are making their user’s and client's life harder. Further, to find out the pain points and opportunities a UX designer has to constantly observe, not just the digital platforms but also the user behavior and their motivations.
Being an excellent observer helps designers in UX design processes like persona mapping, usability testing, ideation, and heuristic evaluation.
Empathy
A User Experience Designer is not a UX Designer if he/she can’t empathize. I believe this skill is not a requirement but a necessity for a career in UX Design. The whole UX process is a test to judge how human-centered design a designer can achieve, which can’t be achieved without your ability to empathize. UX process as a whole demands designers to be an empathizer.
What Else?
While communicating with other designers I came across a few other interpersonal skills that might suit your personality traits!
Other personality traits of UX Designer: reasonable, curious, listener, detail-oriented, and problem solver
My answer —
“I believe I’m interactive, I can communicate my ideas and understand others' perspectives without much effort. It helps me in various stages of the UX journey. I am also a keen observer which assists me in grabbing ideas and what users are trying to express which is useful in understanding their motivation, pain points, and their needs. Empathy is also there in me and I’m constantly working on it to make my design more human-oriented.”
I was asked a follow-up question after this which was — How do you rate yourself in these skills? and my answer was 9 :)
Please note that these are my self-introspection and they might be different from your own traits, which might represent and sync better with you as a designer.
My Behance | My LinkedIn | mishrasachin811@gmail.com
