20. What Makes a "Good" UX Professional?
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This is the Nielsen Norman Group UX Podcast. I'm Therese Fessenden. If there's anything that I've learned over the course of my career, it's this. Great designs don't happen by accident. Whether they're products or services, well-designed experiences are a careful orchestration of processes, systems, and most importantly, people.

With the scope of user experience work rapidly expanding, the size of the field is also rapidly expanding. At the recording of this episode, there are almost 300,000 open UX job postings. That's on LinkedIn alone. This bodes well for anyone hoping to start or redirect their careers into the field.

But with more UX frameworks, templates, and tools in circulation than ever before, success no longer appears to be dependent on how well you know your processes or how proficient you are at using certain systems, since those are likely to change over time anyway. So, holding processes and systems equal, the one variable left to consider is people. But what exactly makes someone a good UX professional?

I posed this question a while back to my professional network and fellow NNG colleagues, and there were some really compelling responses that I'm excited to share with you today. Here's NNG UX specialist Anna Cayley, sharing her thoughts on some of the skills and habits of effective UX professionals.

What would you say is the thing or set of things that makes someone a good UX professional? Yeah, this is a great question, Therese. Thanks for having me and having me answer it. I kind of grouped these into like six C's, if you will, six characteristics. I think one of the first characteristics I think that comes to mind is

is conscientiousness. And I feel like that's such a hard word to say, conscientiousness. And so thinking about what that means. So somebody who's really careful in their work, maybe not too careful, but careful. Someone who's diligent, who can focus. They have a desire to do good work and do good UX work and take others that they're working with really seriously. And

I think that conscientiousness, also thinking about caring deeply about the work and making an impact, maybe rather than just getting something done. I would say that's probably the first characteristic of what I think of when I think of a really good UX practitioner. Yeah. Actually, on that note too, thinking about the level of detail that is needed

helpful to observe and also helpful to put into work. It's like that level of attention to detail is so critical to really finding some of these more aha moments and also being able to communicate that and whether that's in a design or to somebody else, you know, in putting together some group efforts. So totally agree. Yeah, absolutely. And to that point too, it's almost thinking about

that line between too much planning or too much detail versus like just enough planning, just enough research, just enough detail in order to say, okay, there's something here, let's do something about it. I think that's a kind of a issue or kind of a challenge, I guess, that UX practitioners face is thinking about, you know, do we need to use every method at our disposal? Do we need to answer every research question? And often the answer is no, it's more thinking about

What do we already know? What are we already confident about? You know, and saying, here's what we don't know very much about. Here's what we need to learn more than, and specifically, you know, how to do that in an efficient way. I think the next one would be maybe some, and this, this is a good sort of caveat from the last one is thinking about consideration. So where are my blind spots as a practitioner? Where are my biases? Where am

Where do I need to maybe take the initiative upon myself to learn more instead of kind of expecting others to do it for me? Who do I need to absolutely make sure I'm involving in my process? Kind of letting go of that ego just a bit and kind of that know-it-all tendency that sometimes happens.

in the field and really thinking about, okay, you know, how can I consider not only my team, my users, what the business needs, and really take action on kind of clarifying or removing some of those blind spots as best we can. We'll be hearing about the rest of Anna's six Cs in just a moment, but she's not the only colleague of mine who stresses the importance of acknowledging the impact of your decisions. I asked Maria Rosala the same question,

And she discussed some insights around what the word successful really means in the context of experience design. It's a great question. And I think it's one that's really hard to answer with just one particular. Yeah, what's the one answer that makes a perfect person? Yeah, I think to answer your question, first of all, though, I do kind of want to define in my view,

what it means to be successful or to be a good UX practitioner, because I think people have slightly different viewpoints on that. Some people might think that working for a big named company, making a lot of money is success. I don't really view it that way. I view that a successful UX practitioner is one that's having success

providing a lot of positive impact, providing positive impact for users and also for the organization. So that's how I'm viewing a successful UX practitioner is someone who does have that real impact. And I think to provide that real impact, we do need to be a team player.

So that's the thing I want to talk about. And it's often one of those things that's in job descriptions and it sounds a little bit vacuous. Like, what does it mean to be a team player? But I think what it really means is like you're willing to collaborate

You're willing to seek other people's perspectives. You're also able to communicate in a constructive way. You know, we don't necessarily need to agree with other people's perspectives, but we do need to be able to communicate with them in a way that's

That's helpful, constructive, you know, that helps to move projects forward, you know, as a team. So I think being a team player is a really key thing that UX practitioners need to either evolve or seek out.

because that's really the only way that we can have positive impact. And why is that important? Well, because, you know, designing experiences doesn't fall to one person, right? It'd be great if we were the only person responsible for designing experiences. I mean, would it though? Because that also sounds stressful.

Yeah, it does sound stressful. It's just not feasible, right? But so, you know, we are often working in a cross-functional team or we're working with other departments like product and engineering and marketing. And each of those teams have slightly different ways of working, different goals and perspectives. So, you know, it's really, really crucial for us to be successful in the work that we do to be able to kind of collaborate with other people.

So that's, I think, one of the really key things. But of course, there are lots and lots of like aptitudes and attitudes that UX practitioners need to adopt or have in order, you know, to be good at their jobs. Yeah. Yeah. And you've done some research in this space, right? And I actually asked other practitioners, like what their thoughts are, what are some of these skills? And are there a couple that came up pretty often? Yeah.

Yeah, so you're mentioning the careers research that we did a couple of years ago, which we've actually replicated a few times. And actually, one of the questions is in the survey that we give UX practitioners, we also did some interviews as well with UX practitioners, is what does it take to be successful in the field?

And there were just a huge array of various different, you know, skills that people mentioned or attitudes like, you know, lose the ego, don't have an ego coming into the field or

Or, you know, be patient. You need to have good communication skills. You need to have empathy. You need to be able to put yourself in other people's shoes, including your colleagues, as well as, of course, users. You know, you'd have good problem solving skills. So it's a really huge array of skills and attitudes that UX practitioners need to have in the field, you know, so important.

And that's definitely been demonstrated through that piece of research. And what's interesting, actually, because we've replicated this research a couple of times now, the same things remain dominant, the same skill sets remain

So our work really, although it is changing in terms of like how we do the work, what the work sort of involves and what it takes to be successful isn't really changing over time. So yeah, if you're really interested in that piece of research, then we do have a free report which summarizes some of those findings. So definitely do check that out. That was Maria Rosala. You can find the link to that free report in the show notes or by going to nngroup.com slash reports.

Maria just spoke about the importance of collaboration, which just so happens to be Anna's third C. I think involving others in the process, too. So thinking collaborative. I think good UXers know, you know, that they don't single-handedly create these experiences that we're trying to create for the users that we serve. And, you know, not trying to be a hero, not trying to hoard credit. Like they're taking more of this holistic approach.

And they're involving different roles in design in the research process.

process all the way from research to like a final prototype or a design. So I like to say in my work, I'm not designing for a team or a client or a user, I'm really designing with them. So I think having that sense of collaboration, but again, understanding when there might be over collaboration happening. So recognizing those moments when, okay, we've aligned, we've

We've come together. Now, what can we go and do kind of as a unified force where everyone's doing some of their own heads down work, but they're still kind of making aligned progress along the way. So I think collaborative obviously might be a little bit of a cliche one, but I think one that maybe we don't talk about as much in terms of good characteristics or qualities.

Yeah. And I mean, cliches are cliches often because they're true, right? For a reason. Yeah. I think that it makes a lot of sense to think about the level of collaboration you do have and making sure that you're using it to the benefit of the organization and also not using it as a crutch if it means that we have to do something different. Yeah, absolutely. Conscientiousness. Consideration. Collaboration.

These three things all make for a thoughtful UX professional. But how do you know what to be conscientious about? What considerations really matter? And how can you be effective in your collaboration? Well, it starts by being able to ask the right questions and listen intently, which brings us to our fourth and fifth Cs, communication and curiosity.

Communication. Absolutely. I think, you know, that one almost goes without saying, but it does serve as a good reminder, not only communicating our research and design work, but I think as UX continues to grow and kind of proliferate, I think making sure that we don't assume that everyone has the same understanding of what UX is or what it's not. So I think it's a good reminder.

having a bit of patience with that communication as well to say, you know, I'm going to drive for clarity. I'm going to ask good questions when there are misunderstandings. And so also kind of acknowledging not only, okay, maybe I have to clarify the role of UX, what we do, why it matters, but also making sure we don't get that attitude or kind of start thrashing when we're trying to connect, you know, what we're doing to something valuable, whether that's value for users, value for the business,

And kind of maintaining some of that resilience. Maybe that's even another characteristic, not one that's a C, obviously, but another characteristic there to think about, you know, our communication and keeping it strong. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely. And I like your word choice of thrashing because that can sometimes happen when you're not prepared or things start to go south and then you kind of have to find your way and really clearly get your point across in a way that's grounded in some meaningful info. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And I think the way you get some of that meaningful info is to keep that curiosity. So I think another characteristic there, curiosity of, it could be many different things you're curious about, like the current state of the organization in which you work, a curiosity about the needs that users have, curiosity about what other people

you know, similar products or similar services are doing. So I think keeping that curiosity and that open mind is another really good quality or quality, I should say, of really strong practitioners these days.

Yeah. And curiosity goes hand in hand with empathy, which I know is not a C, but still it is, you know, the way that you really build a sense of empathy isn't by thinking that you know it all, but by assuming you know nothing and asking some of these deeper questions.

The phrase that always comes to mind for me when I think about this is one of our slogans, which is UX is people. This is Tanner Kohler, another fellow UX specialist at NNG. I think I'm a little biased toward that way of thinking because my background is more in psychology than it is in design or graphic design or anything like that. But the reason I think that comes to mind for me is that

Like the designs that we make and the products we create, they ultimately have to be filtered through people. Like that is the ultimate filter of UX. And what I say, what I mean when I say filtered through people is like, we can create anything that we want. We can have the best idea in the world, but ultimately the judge of success is the user and their choice, sort of their freedom to choose. And so if that's not going well, if we don't understand what they want or,

we can't really predict how they will actually behave in the moment, then we lose on every front. So I kind of think a good UX professional is someone that really understands people and isn't really surprised by people's behavior. I think that is key in my mind. Yeah. It's funny you bring that up because it's like on the one hand,

there are times when I run a usability test or some sort of field study and I'm observing and I am like blown away where I'm like, wow, that was not what I expected in the slightest. But at the same time, like when you do observe those moments, everything kind of clicks into place where it's like, well, of course someone would make these choices. But it's really kind of after the fact, after you've observed it, that you really understand. And I think you bring up that term understand, which I think is so important. Like once you understand something,

and actually make the effort to understand, then you have a much higher chance that what you're putting together will actually make a difference. So totally. Yeah, totally. And I think you're kidding yourself if you ever think like, I'll fully understand people to the extent that I can always predict what they'll do. Like, that's mind reading. Like, that's a superpower. You know, nobody really can always predict what people will do. But I think if you do those field studies or you watch people use a product,

and you're surprised, I think it's a mistake to only learn or gain insights about that particular product. I think there also has to be something in the back of your mind that's like, hmm, what am I understanding about humans? What am I understanding about people in general from what I'm learning right now as well? Because that knowledge transfers forever. That transfers to future projects and products and

you know, I think you just want to want to study the product that you're working on, but you want to study people as like a race and tendencies that we have. I think it's so valuable. Absolutely. Like not just limiting your research to a feature or to like, how do people respond to this button, which certainly is valuable, but what do you learn about that person or about this group of people or about just, yeah, users in general, is there something there that, that you can learn? And I think that,

that's really where you're going to make the biggest difference. Tanner brought up this idea that kept coming up again and again as I spoke with other colleagues and peers. That idea, getting out of your own head and setting your own ego aside. Rachel Krause shared her thoughts on how the genius designer paradigm can sometimes feed the ego and even prevent a truly human-centered perspective.

Yeah, I think there's a lot of things that make a good UX professional. We're all a little bit different in the skills that we have, in the backgrounds that we have, in the perspectives that we bring to the table. I think that's actually a really good thing. A few things that I think are really important to be a good UX professional would be no ego, low ego, being a good communicator.

Being able to communicate ideas, being able to talk to others and really collaborate. And the other one would be being a good salesperson, really. Selling others on the value of UX, on what it is we do, that we're not just sitting and playing with Post-its, that we're actually contributing to the bottom line. But also, more importantly, that we're making our users have better experiences with the products and services that we build.

So I think all of those are important. Yeah, I guess, you know, talking about no ego, low ego, being okay with saying, I don't know, being comfortable with kind of living in ambiguity, I think is such an important skill that you can have. And it's so key to brainstorming ideas, to being okay with being wrong about something and really, yeah,

making the pause if we need to in order to change direction and actually put out something that is going to better serve the business and or user at the end of the day. And that I think, like, we can't be tied to ideas. It's not going to get us far. We're only going to fail faster in that way and not in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. I think you bring up that point of

keeping the focus not on the credit that we get out of this. Although certainly, you do want to acknowledge when you've contributed to something. It is nice to be recognized for that, but making sure that it doesn't get in the way of actually solving problems and keeping the focus on

What we are ultimately trying to do, which is to create human centered design. And if we're centering the design on making us look good, then are we really being human centered? You know, maybe not. So I think that's an important point.

I read somewhere about the kind of like two different types of designers or researchers or whatever. And it's really this genius designer mindset or this mindset of experimentation. And the genius designer is going to, they're going to go away. They're going to be in their cave. They're going to do all the things that are going to come back and they're going to unveil something.

versus this designer that has a mindset of experimentation. They're going to work collaboratively. They're going to brainstorm ideas, not be tied down to things because they're experimenting. They're coming up with different ideas and they're throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. And then it becomes this like nurtured

idea that everyone has some ownership in. And I think that that is really kind of the goal with UX professionals is to be that designer or researcher that has this mindset of experimentation. Yeah. And that's,

Being okay if something doesn't work. I think that's something that you often hope, as we all do, it certainly feels comfortable to have a perfect framework that if you do it, it just comes out right the first time. And there is no black and white because you can simply rely on evidence. And certainly it's great to have evidence, but the evidence won't always give you the answers. And there are going to be these times where you're going to be in

the gray area of, well, we could go one way or we could go another. It's not exactly clear. And I do think that comfort with discomfort in a way, that comfort with ambiguity is what will ultimately help you thrive in some of these more stressful moments, which ultimately will come up. It's not a matter of if it's, it's really when. Yeah. And like,

Things are going to fail. You're going to be wrong about stuff. And I would much rather kind of work with others, be collaborative, and I'm

honestly, it just takes the pressure off of being always the person that needs to have the answer or being always this person that needs to be right every single time. That is so much pressure, y'all. Why are we doing this to ourselves? Like we should be, we should be a little bit more comfortable with that ambiguity, with collaboration, with being wrong, with saying, I don't know, because we're ultimately going to learn more in the long run.

There's one final C that we haven't covered, but it has everything to do with being at ease with ambiguity. This is often a contended topic given some of the other characteristics we've discussed so far, like communication and consideration.

However, when you're creating new solutions to new problems with new research insights, there's a whole lot of uncertainty to wade through, which brings us to Anna's last C. I think my last characteristic would be someone who's a critical thinker.

So I don't know if you feel this way, but there's more and more templates and frameworks, tools, new approaches out there, I think, than ever before. So there's sometimes lots of noise or lots of new things to wade through and figure out what's valuable. But I think really good practitioners...

can do that in a really efficient way. They can apply a filter, they can see something, and they think beyond this maybe enamoration or this expectation of finding a one-size-fits-all framework.

or like an out-of-the-box framework or a silver bullet framework, right, to solve all of their problems. I think really strong UX practitioners, and that word practitioner means this inherently, can say, you know, given my situation, given my team, my organization, my context, here's how or why something might work or why this approach might work really well for us. Or having that wherewithal to say, you know, that's interesting, right,

It's not going to work if we blindly adopt it and consider success like, oh, we're doing Scrum. Abiding by a framework is not the goal. Creating value for users and our business, that's really the goal. So figuring out, I think, having that critical thinking to say, okay,

We shouldn't blindly adopt this. Here's how we can tailor this or adjust it to fit our situation and fit our team. Kim Salazar offered a similar sentiment as she explained why the UX adage, it depends, isn't just a cop-out answer, but a means by which you can actually navigate through those unknowns. When I think about this, I tend to go toward thinking

qualities that people have that maybe aren't taught in a classroom or aren't taught in a boot camp. Things that I see in people that really stand out and make me think that they're, you know, really well suited for this profession or this job. One of the things that I think is really important is people who understand that UX is a soft science and

rather than like an exact science. So if you think like, when I think about UX, I kind of think about it as like a tool box of various guidelines, laws, best practices, heuristics, insights, experience about people's behaviors. And all of this is kind of a collection of like loosely related theories and information that you hold.

So there's really no linear rulebook or procedure to follow. Every situation is different in UX. So people who tend to be looking for templates or rulebooks, I think, struggle a little bit more with

compared to people that I see that really understand that every situation is different and they have to leverage all of this knowledge in their toolbox to solve new problems as they present themselves. And it's that saying that we always say about UX in general is, it depends. There's very rarely a blanket answer that always works for every situation. It always depends. So people...

People that are able to take all of this knowledge and fundamental insight and analyze new problems and consider all the various contexts that comes along with that problem, like business needs and budgets and resources and time constraints, and come up with a strategy to improve processes or designs or whatever it is. Those are the people that I think excel.

And I think part of that in a way is being comfortable with the nuance that exists in all of that. Like we say, every problem is different. There's never a blanket solution. So knowing that and being confident in your analysis, you know, being able to say, okay, I've, I've explored all of the,

possible solutions. I've taken in all necessary information and, and I'm able to make a decision and move forward and be confident in that decision. Yeah. And it's interesting. You bring that up to like this, this comfort with nuance and ambiguity and,

Whenever I'm working with some folks, I feel like I see the same thing. Let's just say it's one of our conference courses. We have some activities that we run people through. And at the end of it, it's a design challenge. And it doesn't even need to be in this learning setting. It can also be some other setting, like a setting in which we're prototyping a couple solutions and

There's often this desire of learning or getting the answer. Did I get it right? Is there a green light on this?

And I think you're right. There is never really a fully fledged green light and there is no perfect design. So the only way forward is to be comfortable with maybe some things being unknown while we're doing the best that you can and working toward clarity in other areas. So absolutely comfort with ambiguity in order to pursue some of these, you know, bigger themes and better understanding of concepts. I totally agree. It's, it's tough. It's tough.

It is hard. And I think it comes with experience in many ways that there's no way to say whether your design recommendation, your process suggestion is exactly right or the right one. But having done, it's your job to say that. Your job. I always say this in my classes is your job is to

to create clarity where clarity doesn't exist. So you do the analysis and you do the, the thinking on behalf of the problem. And your, your job is to make that recommendation and be confident that you consider all the things. And there's a lot of flavors of good and, and, and,

Whatever flavor of good that you land on should be based on all the inputs that you take in and the insight that you take in. And there's not always one answer. So people that understand that tend to be able to be successful from my experience. At this point, I was pretty confident that Anna's six C's would cover everything there is to say about a career in UX.

But there was one other clip that we received from a member of our UX certified community with characteristics that I think are really worth aspiring to. Here's UX certified Catherine Joyce, head of design at Capital Government Services Digital. What makes a good UX professional? You have to be curious and constantly asking questions to determine the why and the how.

You have to be a problem solver and someone who isn't afraid to come up with a variety of potential solutions in order to narrow it down to one which could actually work. You need to be creative, but also in some cases technical to understand the limitations of the technology you are designing with for the people you ultimately serve, the end user and your client.

You have to be a facilitator, bridge that gap between engineering and product design and absolutely be a strong communicator. You have to be passionate about your user, be their advocate throughout the entire process from discovery to delivery. And you get excited about user research and being able to test out ideas and get that essential valuable feedback on which direction to turn to next.

You have to be a visionary. That was Catherine Joyce. She has a UX certification with a UX management specialty. If you want to continue to build your skills in the UX space or get UX certified, we're hosting a few upcoming virtual conferences where you can do just that. Those dates are April 23 through 29, May 21 through 27, and June 18 through 24.

And don't forget, we have thousands of free articles and videos on a variety of UX research, design, and strategy topics. You can learn more at our website, www.nngroup.com. That's N-N-G-R-O-U-P dot com. Lastly, if you like this show and you want to support our work, please leave a rating and hit subscribe.

This show is a labor of love, and while I host and produce it, it wouldn't be possible without all of the people behind it. All editing and post-production is by Jonas Zellner. Music is by Tiny Music, Rhythm Scott, Dresden the Flamingo, Marie, Lincoln Davis, and Shimmer. Special thank you to our guests, Anna Cayley, Maria Rosala, Tanner Kohler, Rachel Krause, Kim Salazar, and Catherine Joyce. That's it for today's episode. Until next time, remember, keep it simple.