Top Qualities for UX Designers

UX design is a demanding domain because of the constantly evolving technology trends and creative needs that go into it.

This means that as recruiters, hiring a UX designer that fits growing skill demands can be a challenge. Even with multiple candidates, it can be difficult to pin down the right person. To help you narrow it down, we’ve listed the best qualities that a good UX designer should have.

What Should You Look For?

1. Research Skills

Great UX design starts off with research. These can vary from interviews, surveys or other forms of market research which are fundamental to building a great experience.

Adequate research provides designers with insight into what users want, why they gravitate towards a specific product and their possible response to new features.

2. Creative Competencies

UX design relies on multiple creative skills such as writing and visual design to name a few. This is because UX touches upon everything from sights, sounds to even the emotions of users.

Measuring creativity can be tricky. You can check  elements in a candidate's past work and ask why they made particular creative choices.

3. Fits Your Software Development Approach

Nowadays, many software development companies abide by specific methodologies such as Agile. We at Starshot follow Agile ourselves!

It's vital that the UX designer you hire has experience working with your preferred approach. Experience enables them to fit in faster and collaborate more effectively with your team, while also being more familiar with what is expected of them.

4. Can Explain Complex Concepts in a Concise Manner

Members of a development team each have their own allocated roles. A good UX designer should be able to translate their work into layman's terms for the benefit of their teammates' understanding.

This is a display of excellent communication skills which are critical to UX design. As a designer's job is to make products more accessible to users, being able to tell their colleagues about their work in an appealing and digestible way is a positive sign.

For one of our designers, being able to explain Complex Concepts in a Concise Manner has played a critical role in satisfying our clients:

"For me, this is one of the most important qualities along with having good communication skills:

I like to think that nothing is obvious, I think about how I would like things to be explained to me and I usually follow these rules:

1. Provide context.

2. If something is difficult to explain, draw it.

3. Refine your explanations to minimize the chances that they are misunderstood.

4. Before sharing your explanations, read them over and over again until you feel they are totally clear and easy to understand.

Doing this not only helps me save time in my project communications but also allows me to solve problems for users in an easier and more logical way."

- 'S.' Starshot UX Designer

5. Empathy

A UX designer needs empathy to truly understand users. It's a difficult but vital quality to measure, this is because UX design must adhere to the needs and wants of the user. Without empathy, a designer will have a hard time understanding those needs and wants.

How do you measure empathy? Interactions during the hiring and onboarding process offer some insight. Another method is checking feedback from clients that they have worked with in the past.

6. Programming Knowledge

They may not be software developers, but UX designers with programming knowledge often produce better work than those who don't. This is because knowing how to code will help them work more smoothly with developers and recognize what's feasible with the product.

Programming Knowledge may not seem important to UX designers at first glance, but as said by one of our UX Designers:

“Every digital product has its technological layer, therefore, although it is not necessary for a designer to have programming knowledge, it is definitely a great point in favor.

Having knowledge in programming makes the designer a better one since he is capable of understanding processes that go beyond the pixel. Being able to understand how a product is built will facilitate conversations with developers, which will allow them to propose better solutions and anticipate possible problems.”

- 'J.' Starshot UX Designer

Final Thoughts

In many ways, a UX designer is a jack of all trades possessing a wide-range of skills to be applied for your project. They may not build the software from the ground up, but they are responsible for making it attractive to users.

Hence, a UX designer is a critical member of your team and finding the right one can definitely make or break your product.

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