Whether you’re looking to pursue a career in product designing or want to advance your career in UX design, having a firm understanding of UX concepts is essential. While UX designers concentrate more on the practical design phase of the process, product designers are involved in every step of the creation of a product.
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The terms “product designer” and “user experience (UX) designer” are frequently used interchangeably because of their similarities.
UX Designer Versus Product Designer
Here is a summary of the essential qualities shared by both product designers and UX designers at a glance:
- Both UX and product designers rely extensively on UX techniques and technologies. Both jobs strive to guarantee a seamless and straightforward user experience for the end product, even though specific duties may differentiate them. This means that both career paths require familiarity with standard UX tools, such as Figma, Balsamiq, and Sketch.
There are a few significant differences between user interface design company product designers and UX designers:
- Product designers frequently have a stronger focus on business. It is reasonable to assume that product designers are more knowledgeable about business priorities than UX designers are. This could take the form of collaborating more closely than a traditional UX designer would with product or business teams and ensuring that business requirements are satisfied in an end product.
- Generally, product designers are always in control. Frequently, it is up to product designers to lead the entire design phase of a product. They might bring together business teams, researchers, and UX designers to ensure that all of a product’s requirements are satisfied. As a result, product designers typically demand project or team leadership experience.
- UX designers are more focused on design. UX designers are often asked to create a product’s interactive and visual components. Not that product designers don’t, but as a UX designer, you should anticipate getting a little more involved with the practical side of creating a user-friendly product.
Career Paths For Designers
Despite their similarities, product and UX designers are two careers that play different roles. There are a variety of additional positions in the design industry that you could look into, each with its specialties.
- A graphic designer creates the aesthetic elements of advertisements, websites, and other graphical user interfaces. If you have a flair for design but aren’t quite ready to go into UX, this can be an excellent place to start.
- UX Developers are responsible for writing the front-end code for websites and apps while keeping UX concepts in mind. It might be an excellent choice for individuals who are drawn to coding and web development,
- UX Researcher: UX research may be a career option to pursue if you appreciate learning about people and their behavior. You’ll perform surveys, interviews, and data-driven studies that show what features of a product are successful, what features are unsuccessful, and what customers want as a UX researcher. UX designers use this information to design products.