The Top 5 User Experience Design Skills You Need to Master
User Experience Designing is considered as one of the most relevant careers of the present time that is applied in different industries. This is because how professionals implement their UX skills can make or break a product. After all, the UX designing process considers the application, usability, function, and branding of the product all in one place.
Therefore, if you want to excel in your profession, then you need to work on UX skills assessment. In this must-read post for the related professionals, I will make you familiar with the top 5 UX design skills that you should master to excel in your career.
Part 1: What you Should know About Must-have User Experience Skills?
If you are planning to make a career in user experience designing, then you should try to have a holistic approach towards the domain. This is because to provide a memorable experience to the end-user, we need to explore all sorts of verticals and work on different things at the same time.
From the knowledge of emerging technologies to technical writing, there are so many skills required for UX designers. Though, the following 8-level UX skills matrix will help you focus on all the key responsibilities.
Source: Userfocus
1. Research
While working on the design of a product or checking its usability, you need to do extensive research about the users, market, and other parameters.
2. Usability evaluation
The overall usability of the product is the most important parameter for its success. One of the most crucial UX skills, it will make sure that the product is easy to use with a universal appeal.
3. Prototyping
Most of the UX skills assessment will need prototyping skills so that you can easily create an overall high-fidelity prototype of the product to work on.
4. Interaction Design
This is another vital part of the UX designer skills list that would work on how the user would interact with the product. Mostly, the interaction should be seamless without any technical complications.
5. Visual Design
This parameter of the user experience skills works on creating a visually appealing product. From the color pattern to the grids and icons to the overall interface, it would include all the visual components.
6. Information Architecture
This is a more comprehensive UX skill assessment that deals with the flow of the work, the architecture of the product development, and other high-end stakes.
7. Technical Writing
It might surprise you, but one of the most sought-after skills required for a UX designer these days is related to technical writing and editing of content. This also includes the creation and editing of macro and micro-copies.
8. UX Leadership
Most importantly, you should have good leadership as your user experience skills so that you can easily work with your team and make tough calls whenever needed.
Apart from these general parameters of the UX skills matrix, there are other specific UX skills that you should focus on. I have listed 5 of these most demanding UX design skills in the coming segments.
Part 2: Major Skills Required for a Career in UX Design: Frontend Development
When we talk about UX skills assessment, frontend development is the most important thing to look out for. Most of the experts consider effective design as a problem-solving technique and frontend development is its key.
- To work on the frontend development, you need to check the performance of your product based on different parameters.
- At times, you would need to work on search engine optimization and quality architecture for seamless frontend development.
- Apart from the overall design of the interface, these UX skills are also based on learning frontend coding languages (like CSS or JavaScript).
- Research is one of the most important parts of frontend development. You should keep exploring the market, track your competitors, and implement different modules to make the frontend interface better.
Source: Nashville Software School
Part 3: Major Skills Required for a Career in UX Design: Voice Design
I have already listed visual design as one of the most important user experience skills that one should have. Besides that, voice design is another new-age concept that is often considered as the future of UX design.
These days, AI-enabled voice assistants like Alexa, Siri, or Cortana have changed the way we interact with different gadgets. Therefore, these next-level UX design skills are focused on voice development, in which we provide automated services to our users.
- While creating a voice, you should give it a unique persona (just like Apple has made Siri so distinctive).
- Customized performance is another vital UX skills assessment to make sure we provide a one-of-a-kind experience to our users.
- Work on cognitive load and integrate the voice assistant with AI so that it would keep developing via machine learning practices.
- Data privacy and security are some of the most crucial things to consider when working on voice design. While this might not be under the domain of UX skills, it is recommended to have basic knowledge of the same.
- Lastly, you should have a foolproof error handling strategy so that your voice assistant won't fail or enter a deadlock.
Source: JustinMind
Part 4: Major Skills Required for a Career in UX Design: Writing UX Microcopy
In nutshell, microcopy depicts the set of phrases and words on the interface, which is responsible for the overall user interaction. To work on these user experience skills, you need to have a clear motive for interaction and incorporate a user feedback mechanism as well.
- Setting up the overall voice and character of the copy is the most important thing. It should be consistent and go with the tone of your organization.
- Another important factor in the UX designer skills list is to make the copy conversational. This will make it easier for your users to interact with the provided interface.
- Try not to complicate things and make sure that the microcopy is clear and easy to understand by everyone (with minimum technical jargon).
- To work on this UX skills assessment, you need to have clear copies and they should serve their purpose by being as effective as possible.
- Since working on microcopy can be a hit-and-trial process, you can always perform A/B testing to pick the best-performing option.
Source: Prototypr
Part 5: Major Skills Required for a Career in UX Design: User Interface Design
While both UX and UI are considered different practices, they are related to each other. You can have all the other UX skills, but without the knowledge of UI design, you can't come up with a flawless interface.
UX is focused on the overall experience of the user while UI is all about building an interactive interface. Therefore, a lot of times, UI is considered as a vital part of the UX instead.
- To improve your UX design skills, you need to know the tools used for UI designing and the overall process involved in it.
- Not only the use of icons and other graphics, but you should be familiar with the design system and the production methodology.
- There are a couple of parameters (like user research or layout design) that are considered a part of both UX and UI.
- Understanding the concept of user testing is one of the crucial user experience skills that would help you work on the interface of the product and improve it with time.
Source: Scalable Path
Part 6: Major Skills Required for a Career in UX Design: Data Understanding
Even though it might seem simple at first, the concept of data understanding and mining can be extremely deep. While UX design skills won't need you to master everything, you should focus on the basics of both quantitative and qualitative parameters.
- At first, you should know how the data is stored and processed so that the user experience can be error-free.
- Furthermore, you should devise the behavior of users to work on the interface in a progressive manner.
- It is always recommended not to mix user data to understand individual behaviors. This will help you provide a customized experience to users, which is one of the most important UX design skills.
- If you want to get better results, then you can also work with data scientists or use readily available tools. These applications would track and study user behavior, collect their data, and will ultimately help you improve the product.
Source: UXCam
Now when you know about the vital skills required for a UX designer, you can certainly excel in your career. If you are just starting, then first explore the 8-parameter UX skills matrix that I have mentioned above. After exploring this essential UX designer skills list, you can master other industry-specific UX skills. If you want to hone your UX design skills, then keep learning new tools and practices so that you can always be at the top of your game!
