What Does A UX Designer Do?
A UX designer creates products that provide positive, helpful, and meaningful experiences to the people who use them. Their day-to-day work spans user research, information architecture, wireframes and user flows, prototyping and user testing, and coordinating with UI and development teams.
design touches all facets of design—research, branding, usability, and functionality. It shapes how we feel about products, how we use them, and whether we can complete tasks or solve problems.
User experience architect Don Norman coined the term “UX design” in the early 1990s while working for Apple, using “UX” to describe all aspects of a user’s experience with a product.
Everyday UX design
Every time you use an app, scroll through a website, or complete a task online, a UX designer has likely crafted your experience. Whether the interaction is satisfying or agonizing comes back to UX design.
While UX design is strongly associated with digital products and services, designers also create physical spaces and events with a approach.
Some include:
- A food box company that saves your payment information and favorite orders for a one-click, seamless purchase.
- A payment platform that makes international transfers a breeze.
- A pet adoption app enabling you to discover your new furry family member in a simple and meaningful way.
- An easy-to-navigate public park that’s relaxing to walk through.
Regardless of what you’re interacting with, a UX designer is probably behind that process.
What’s the role of a UX designer?
UX designers aim to produce meaningful, user-friendly products and services that perform important tasks efficiently.
Because UX design is relevant across all design stages, UX designers often jump between disciplines—such as research, , and —to create optimized products for end users.
UX design is also a people job. Designers balance business aims with the while working with other teams to bring their designs to life.
The main tasks of a UX designer
The role is varied and draws on many different skills. The main tasks of a UX designer include:
- User research, including creating user personas
- Developing
- Designing wireframes and user flows
- Prototyping and
- Coordinating with essential teams
- Optimization
[Asset: 7n41sMmnHRgFGqo3p6hTCE]
User research
The UX team’s work starts when they receive a brief—a document outlining the project expectations and scope—from their company or a client. Creating human-centric products requires understanding people, so the first step of UX design is rigorous user research.
The designer’s goal is to deeply understand the users they’re producing an experience for. They interview current or intended users to discover their needs, pain points, and wants in a product, often conducting this through focus groups or .
This stage also tends to involve creating an outline of the intended product or service, conducting background research into the relevant industry, and deep competitor analysis.
Creating user personas
detail the intended users for a product. Designers use data gathered from focus groups, interviews, , and to identify groups of users, then create personas representing those groups in a personal, approachable way.
Personas help designers create products with a specific person in mind rather than designing too generally—and they make it easier to genuinely empathize with the intended user.
A one- or two-page persona document includes information such as:
- Key attributes
- Motivations
- Goals
- Personality information
[Asset: 5j17niMw3L48HrqbYRturt]
For example, a user persona might be Amanda, a 30-year-old mother looking for other mothers to connect with. One of her main goals is to quickly move her interactions offline for genuine connection. Her pain point is not knowing about scheduled events in her area.
Another could be Jack, a 21-year-old looking to sell his used car. He wants to list his car specifications as quickly and seamlessly as possible, having found the process tedious and complicated in the past.
The more the UX designer knows about Amanda or Jack—their needs, wants, and pain points—the better they can create meaningful, useful experiences for them.
Creating information architecture
Information architecture is how content and information are organized within a product. UX designers aim for cohesive, natural, and logical layouts so users can find what they need quickly and intuitively.
Designing wireframes and user flows
Wireframes are a blueprint for intended products. These illustrations map out how the product will function, where the content will go, and a simple layout of how the product may look.
User flows are diagrams detailing how a person will move through the product or experience with various options at each step. This helps the UX designer discover any refinements they can make and gaps they can fill to ensure a seamless journey.
[Asset: 7v7hg8O2bgI6yJRcdolR1p]
Prototyping and user testing
Once the designer maps out the intended process through wireframes and , it’s time to create low-cost prototypes. This might mean something simple made of paper or a scaled-back version of the product.
Prototypes enable user testing. Users engage with them to show how practical and simple a product is to use, highlighting design gaps, challenges, and potential refinements before .
UX designers typically put prototypes through multiple rounds of testing and iterations, making adjustments as they go. This ensures the final product will fulfill the brief and delight users.
Coordinating with UI & development teams
One critical skill of UX designers is balancing the interests of multiple teams, including the needs of the business alongside the user. UX designers also work alongside and development teams to bring products to life.
UI designers
People often use the terms (user interface design) interchangeably, but they’re distinct concepts. UI design is a critical part of UX design, while UX design is much broader.
UI design breaks into two main categories:
- relates to the look and feel of the product.
- design covers the functionality, interactions between elements, and ease of use of functions.
[Asset: 32ikvfYuVjSC9YCrQoMsvl]
UX designers don’t typically work on the visual design of a product. Instead, UI designers create the visuals—including typography, buttons, menus, and color schemes.
Both roles are critical to creating user-friendly products, and you can’t have one without the other. The two teams need to work closely together.
Development teams
There’s a misconception that UX design involves coding. UX designers don’t code—developers write the code that builds digital products.
UX designers work alongside development teams to ensure their designs are built as intended for the end user.
Optimization
The UX designer’s role doesn’t end at launch. They continue to assess how users interact with the product and make progressive changes over time—a process called optimization. It’s a critical but sometimes overlooked step, especially for digital products.
How to become a UX designer
UX designers draw on an understanding of design, psychology, user research, and product development.
What degree should a UX designer have?
There’s no single path to becoming a UX designer, and a specific degree isn’t required.
Some helpful degrees and courses include:
- UX and web design
- Human-computer interaction
- Information technology
- Information architecture
Many people in the UX industry didn’t have specific experience before they began—a large share of UX designers started their careers in general design before specializing. Work experience within the industry can be a good entry point.
How much do UX designers earn?
Salaries vary by country, company, and seniority, but UX designers can typically expect strong compensation. Salary aggregators like Glassdoor consistently report six-figure average salaries for UX designers in the US.
What are the job opportunities?
UX designers remain in high demand. UX design regularly appears on lists of the most sought-after skills, and demand for the role has continued to grow with the expansion of digital products.
As more of work, education, and everyday services move online, companies keep needing UX designers to make those digital experiences usable.
A broad range of sectors need UX designers, including:
- Technology
- Advertising and marketing
- Government sites
- Big data
- Manufacturing
- E-learning
- Internet of Things
UX design is a varied, fast-moving career path with job opportunities across many industries.
Should you be using a customer intelligence platform?
Do you want to discover previous user research faster?
Do you share your user research findings with others?
Do you analyze user research data?