Designing the user experience of a product is a multidisciplinary field. Creating a well-designed product is an endeavor that requires analytical thinking to obtain a deep understanding of what people need, product knowledge to know how the product should be packaged and positioned, technical skills for understanding of development backend systems and tremendous creativity to make the designs visually appealing yet simple to use.

One product design goes through multiple drafts, multiple times between the teams/experts, before the final output. Here’s a guide on how we at DesignCoz structure the product delivery teams:

1. UX Researcher

Can you create any product without understanding the end user? Nada! This UX researcher expert/ team understands how users behave, how users think, and what motivates them. Insights from user research help understand why people act the way they do, and when supported with data, can help you dive into reasoning user behaviour. That understanding of user needs is what inspires product definition, feature prioritization and product design.

Key skillset: Cognitive science and problem articulation

1. UX Architect

A well-designed product or service considers all the touch points a user has with the offering, from onboarding, acquisition and conversion to moving the user through the experience and making them enjoy the brand interaction. At the highest level, this type of design is the manifestation of the company’s core values, mission, and principles in the form of the actual product or service offering. UX Architect helps define what product is being built and, equally important, what is not being built. They are deep thinkers: they understand interdependencies, requirements, and constraints, and take a step back, see the big picture, and clarify how everything fits together. Deliverables may include wireframes, prototypes, functional specifications, and flowcharts.

Key skillset: Big picture thinking

1. UX Designer

The most popular title used in the industry, UX designers receive the requirements from their fellow UX Researcher and UX Architect. Once the information architecture and product flowhave been determined the UX designer creates wireframes. Through the wireframes the designer details out the flow. Given that design is an iterative process, and that the first draft or sketch is rarely the “right” or “best” design, it is important for the UX designer to pick a medium to be able to create the designs quickly and iterate constantly. They sweat over the details; no detail is too small to mind.

Key skillset: Attention to detail

1. Visual Designer

As the name suggests, they are great visualizers. They visualize to understand how people see and process information and use that understanding to create designs that are easy to comprehend and are comfortable to “live” in. They understand that visual adornment (UI) is meant to support the experience, and not BE the experience. Hence, they avoid creating products that are “over designed”. They will marry their aesthetic judgement with brand guidelines to come with visual layouts ideal for the user interface.

Key skillset: Visual aesthetic and creativity

Takeaway:

Are all those sticky notes & flow creations starting to make sense? These defined skilled teams/ experts need to tightly work together to make sure nothing is assumed or diluted through the process. A great product is an output of several minds beautifully functioning together.

P.S – Send this link to anyone who thinks UX UI is a quick & one person’s job.