5 Qualities of An Effective UX/UI Designer

So, you’re thinking of starting a career in UX/UI design? You’re probably wondering now what it takes to be a successful UX/UI designer.

When we search on the Internet about “what it takes to be a successful UX/UI designer” or “what to do to become a successful UX/UI designer”, we are often presented with learning materials and tips on how to acquire skills in this career – which is obviously what you will need if you are to succeed in this career.

However, it is also important to learn about and have some of the qualities of an effective UX/UI designer. Will this career fit into your personality? Are you willing to work on some of these qualities if need be? If your answer is “Yes”, then that’s a great start! But then, what are these qualities that make up an effective UX/UI designer? Let’s find out below!

5 Qualities of An Effective UX/UI Designer

1) Empathy and understanding for your users

We can argue that empathy is the most important (though not the only important) quality of an effective UX/UI designer. Why? Because UX/UI designers design for humans. To some extent, we can say that, generally, design is for humans.

As Dieter Rams beautifully put it, “You cannot understand design if you do not understand people; design is made for people.”

If you don’t understand people, if you don’t know your users, you won’t be able to properly design for them because you don’t know their needs and wants to begin with. But once you understand what they need and what they look for, you can properly address them through your design.

2) Loves meeting new challenges and solving problems

UX/UI design is essentially about solving problems to meet the needs not only of your users but of the business that you design for as well.

As a UX/UI designer, there will be obstacles that require creative and analytical solutions to address it. Hence, as a UX/UI designer, you should thrive in solving problems rather than shying away from them.

But the reality is, all of us are problem solvers in varying levels. How? Simply because we all face problems in life and, therefore, we all ought to learn to solve these problems to thrive in our lives.

However, some people have a knack of solving challenges and problems and others prefer to stay conservative. If you tend to seek challenges and like to solve problems, you would probably do well in UX/UI design!

3) Always curious and likes learning new things

The beauty of being a UX/UI designer is that, you will constantly meet new challenges to solve. In the process, you will need to constantly learn new things to keep yourself updated and apply your design based on new information and knowledge at hand.

On the one hand, you might be designing for a financial company. On the next project, you would probably need to design for a pet care company. As you meet new tasks and challenges, you should always be willing to constantly learn to be able to address the new challenges you have at hand.

4) Analytical and detail-oriented

A UX designer who is naturally analytically inclined will be able to justify every design decision based on best practices and data. This not only means an affinity for data driven design and metrics but the ability to also draw conclusions and themes from qualitative user feedback. Quantitative and qualitative data is increasingly becoming a key ingredient in usability and user-experience work. Anyone who has the ability to reflect and draw useful insights from information will do well in a UX role.

An effective UX/UI designer does not only solve problems and learn new things, but he or she is also good in analyzing the data at hand and knows how to draw proper conclusions from them to make good design decisions.

It is important that you know how to analyze the data that you are dealing with. More importantly, it is important that you are good in drawing conclusions. “Why do people like this page over the other?” “Why does this landing page converts better compared to the other landing page?”

 Drawing proper conclusions is important because this is where your decisions would mostly come from. If you have good conclusions, you’ll mostly have good decisions – and vice versa.

5) Good team player

As a UX/UI designer, you will be asked to work and collaborate with a team. Hence, being a good team player is important if you are to succeed and thrive in UX/UI design.

As a team player, you are expected to communicate well, listen well, and above all, to collaborate with your team to succeed in your goals.

If you are shy but you really want to be a UX/UI designer, don’t just shy away – you can still be a good team player as long as you’re a good listener and works well with the team. As for the communication, just be sure to communicate your ideas properly; that’ll be a good start!

Final Thoughts

Being an effective UX/UI designer is not only about having the skills needed to do it; it is also about having the qualities needed to succeed and thrive in it.

If you want to be a UX/UI designer and think that you have some (if not all) of these qualities, then that’ll be a good start for you! If not, but you’re really dedicated to become a UX/UI designer, then you can still acquire these qualities so long as you’re willing to work on them!