#57 Generalist vs Specialist - The Future of the UX Unicorn
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Hello friends and welcome back to the Future of UX podcast, your number one resource when it comes to future tech, design and new technologies. My name is Patricia Reiners, I'm your host for this podcast and yeah, I'm working as an innovation designer and UX designer consultant for different companies all around innovation and future projects.

So in this podcast episode, we want to dive a little bit into the topic of skill sets and especially focus on the big question, what is better for the future, being a generalist or being a specialist? And what is it that you want to do?

Our process will be to first really have an understanding of what a generalist or being a specialist really means. Then we will have a look at the current trends, the situation that the design industry is at the moment, what is the best at the moment. After that, we will also have a look at AI and what AI or what is the impact of AI, especially on skill sets.

But before we are diving into those three topics, I want to share a little bit about my own life. So at the moment it's 2024 and I can say the last year, you know, 2023 has been the year of generative AI. And for me personally, it definitely has been one of the best years.

It has been the year of generative AI, I already mentioned that, and 2024 is probably shaping up in just a very impactful, a very similar way, I assume. So I'm working as a freelance innovation and UX consultant. I am owning my own little design studio. I'm working for a variety of clients. And alongside this, I also run a successful newsletter filled with tech and design updates. I produce this podcast. I...

run several social media accounts. And even though I have support, I do plan and execute a lot of the work myself. So 2023 has been the first year for me as a designer and in my freelancing career where I truly could automate many, many tasks.

streamlining my workflow easily and really saving up I would say around 50% of my time without any hassle and this has been a huge game changer. I mean I'm hearing or I'm seeing the word game changer everywhere but for me it definitely has been a game changer so it really deserves the word and I personally consider myself a little bit more as a generalist or a tea-shaped professional

Meaning that my specialization really lies in future tech and innovation, but I also possess a broad range of knowledge in design and branding and storytelling and workshops, marketing, research, testing, interface design, etc. And all of this is, or marketing actually not so much, but everything design related I also offer to my clients at some degree.

And for example, marketing, that is like the least of my expertise, I would say, which is really like the far, farthest from my core skills. AI has been incredibly helpful for creating ads for my webinars, my courses, helping me with content analysis, really preparing marketing materials. And in this field, I am really not an expert. No, I need to be. It's

I just need to know my desired outcomes and take the necessary steps. And in this episode, we were also going to explore what really is better for you, for everyone, or is there actually a better way? What is the preferred skill set? But I would say before we are diving deeper into the content, let's take one step back and first redefine what does a generalist and what does a specialist really is.

So a generalist is someone who has a broad range of skills and knowledge across multiple fields of disciplines. These people are usually adaptable and can work on a variety of tasks, understanding and connecting the dots between different areas of expertise. Generalists are often valued for their versatility, able to tackle diverse problems, applying a wide lens and integrating insights from various domains. They are not

an expert in any of these topics, but they have a good understanding of the whole landscape. A specialist compared to that, or on the other hand, as someone who has a deep understanding and high level of expertise in a very specific field or niche.

Specialists really dedicate their focus to becoming experts in their area, often possessing advanced skills, knowledge and abilities that allow them to solve complex problems within their specialty. They are thought after for their detailed and extensive knowledge, providing depth and precision where it's needed. And in the UX field,

era area there's also a term pretty well known which is the UX unicorn and UX generalists are often called unicorns and this meaning that they are having this right range of skills in UX including interface design front-end development maybe user research interaction design

So this has, this used to be very rare, but more and more people are being these unicorns. So having all these different skills. Now that we defined what a generalist, what a specialist is, let's have a look at the current landscape. And what we need to say is we are still in some kind of a tech recession. There has been a lot of layoffs.

And what we are seeing when we look at the layoffs is especially specialists are often the first to be let go of, as we've noticed in the recent layoffs.

This is not only in the design industry, but in basically every industry the case. So specialists are the ones who are to be let go first. And generalists usually say, of course, it depends on your role and your company. But for a generalist in crisis or in difficult times, it's much, much easier to adapt to many different roles. The reason behind it is very simple.

A specialist can only do a certain job or focus on a certain problem or a task, while a generalist can also adapt. So even when the position the generalist is fulfilling at the moment is not necessary and at the moment they can just like jump between different roles or take over different roles, right? By just like overseeing them. And what we are also seeing is the first roles who are being filled after a recession are also generalists.

And now let's focus on AI, AI and its impact. And what we are also seeing is that AI is now enabling generalists to really bridge the skill gap effectively. I read an interesting article by Jacob Nielsen, which I'm also going to link in the show notes so you can check it out. And this really mirrors my own experience.

Although I do have support, I still handle various tasks in the design process from research and synthesis to workshops, design, testing, presentations. And AI really assists me daily in almost everything. And it took some time to really find the perfect way to utilize AI tools effectively. But AI really narrows the skill gap and helps especially generalists to dive deep into certain specialist roles.

By the way, I've also noticed this in my AI for Designer course that is running at the moment, where we dive really deep into how to use AI tools and integrate them into our workflow, learn about AI, how to use it, and then also look into the future.

And for me, it's amazing to see how everyone's really coming up with their results, their own AI project. So it's super fascinating to see how people are integrating AI in their workflows and becoming much, much more productive. And if you're interested in joining the next AI for a Designer cohort, you can just sign up for the waiting list for the next cohort. I'm just going to link it in the show notes.

So for me, I would say it really greatly depends on your personality and your interests. There will always be people who are based on their skill set, based on their personality, are rather specialists. They like to deep down, they like to really focus on one specific topic and don't like to look left and right. This is totally fine.

Because some people really have this deep interest in a very specific era and dive, really dive deep with full focus. And this is totally fine. Don't worry about it. But most people or most designers are a little bit more of a generalist type. And there is the important term called T-shape. And as you can imagine it as a T, you have some kind of like a specialty or an era of expertise, which is the, you know, like the line of the T.

But you also have a broad set of skills, which is the upper line of the T. And this is an amazing approach for designers because with AI, it's becoming increasingly important to see the big picture, think and act strategically, which requires exploring and understanding other disciplines and fields. So it's necessary to have this upper line of the T where you look left and right.

But having an era of specialty, it could also be two, which is then a P-shaped design or a P-shaped level of expertise. We have different parts of expertise. One could be, for example, usability UX design. One could be ethical design, right? So like building your own different eras of specialty, but still have this broad knowledge.

What are you? Are you a specialist or are you a generalist or are you a T-shaped designer? I am really curious. Please vote in the show notes. I'm super curious. And if you haven't signed up for my newsletter and you don't want to miss out on amazing resources, on information, on tech updates, feel free to sign up. It's free and you get updates every two weeks.

Thank you so much for listening and hear you in the future.