UX Designer, what is that?

I’m often asked by friends, family, and others what I do for work. The simple answer is that I'm a UX Designer, but it seems that very few people know what that entails. You’d think after the 100th time of people asking, I’d have the perfect answer, but it’s a difficult job to explain.

I could say “I create better user experiences within digital products”, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot to most people.

Is it better to say “I design websites, apps and products”? Maybe, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.

I could say “I do a range of tasks depending on the solution the client is trying to achieve. This could include user testing, analysing those results, creating wireframes, mapping out user journeys, running workshops, creating prototypes, providing recommendations, creating decks etc”, but for most people remembering someone's name is tough, let alone memorising the 8 tasks the random UX Designer just mentioned.

What started as a trivial question of “how do I describe my role?”, has turned into a bigger question of how do you describe what a UX designer does. I started to do what any good UX designer would, and began with the problem.

The problem is that the list of tasks I can do and do do, can range dramatically from day to day, week to week. I also realised how my role as a UX designer is different from my previous UX roles, yet it was the same title.

The tasks a UX designer does can also depend on the company or client they work for. For example, you may be a specialist in conducting user research, and this may be your sole focus each day. For other UX designers, the focus could be conducting user research in the morning, followed by wireframe designs in the afternoon, followed by UI design work the next day.

Another problem is that the task list is constantly changing.

I haven’t been in this industry for a lifetime, but I've seen my role as a UX Designer change significantly over the years. A big part of this change has been the rapidly growing popularity of AI. It’s exciting to think what skills I may develop because of this, and scary to think what skills will deteriorate and even disappear over time. If you told me 6 years ago what AI can do now, I would have thought you were explaining the next big sci-fi movie to me.

AI has made certain tasks faster, easier and more efficient, but it’s created a whole new list of responsibilities for me. We’ve been able to delegate some of the more mundane tasks of UX design to AI, including summarising large quantities of user testing data, catching mistakes and missed requirements. My role in all of this, above all, has been to be the tastemaker, reviewing user testing data, providing recommendations, crafting designs and finding the best outcome for the end user.

The ambiguity around UX can also become a problem for clients. It's difficult to expect clients to understand the value of UX, or what they're paying for, when the role itself can be so difficult to explain. As UX continues to evolve, so does what we're capable of offering, making it even more important to communicate the value of what we do.

It’s clear that this difficulty explaining the UX role can, and has, caused problems. From awkward social interactions, to others not understanding your role, and therefore the importance of it. It’s ironic. I spend so much time working on creating clear and concise user experiences, yet trying to explain what I do in a clear and concise manner always felt difficult.

After too much time thinking about this, I realised my problem was that I always tried to describe UX by the tasks I do, rather than my overall goal and focus as a UX Designer.

Put simply, UX is about understanding and solving the needs, wants, and frustrations of people using digital products. Think of it like this. You need to build some IKEA furniture, but the instructions come as a written document, with no picture examples, nothing is labelled, and you have to buy each piece of the furniture separately. The experience would be lengthy, frustrating, and confusing. If someone came along and offered an alternative of perfectly labelled instructions, labelled pieces, and all the pieces packaged in together, you’d have an easier time. This is essentially our job, but with digital products.

It’s a good reminder that the value of UX doesn’t come from any one task we do, but from how everything comes together for the people using the products. Ultimately, our job is to make digital products easier, more intuitive, and less frustrating to use. So next time you meet a UX designer, know that we’re trying to make your experience with digital products just that little bit easier.