Anatomy of a User Experience (UX) Designer

Education

A formal education for UX design, such as the likes of degrees, is still quite unheard of. However, having a degree in one of the main aspects of UX design would prove to be fruitful, such as computer science, industrial design, psychology or even anthropology.

However, as UX design is a new field in the digital era, the educational requirements is not too high. UX designers, especially those who hail from related industries like web development or digital design,  may be self taught, thanks to the countless access of UX design and its tools and processes available. Another method of education would be short courses and bootcamps, which are more in-depth, structured and guided by instructors–just like our UX Design Immersive. 

Salary

UX design is a relatively new industry in the tech sphere, even more so in Malaysia. The average salary for a UX designer is RM50k+, with senior roles with more than 5 years of experience reaching over RM80k+ per year. As hiring demands for UX designers increase, so will the competition among employers–and with that, the incentives offered. 

Benefits

Being a UX designer is exciting–it’s a new role in the tech scene, it has high demand and there is a large room for growth coming from the field’s untapped potential. These traits of UX design are present across the industries it’s present in–which is diverse, to say the least. From traditional industries like healthcare and manufacturing to high-tech like big data and Internet of Things (IoT), UX designers are needed across different organisations to streamline the most important aspect–the experience–of its most important player–the users. 

Being a newly established role, UX design careers often comes with job benefits of the digital age, such as flexible working hours as well as the choice to conduct remote work.

Skills

The skillset of a UX designer is balanced between technical skills and collaborative ones. Within the technical facet alone, the repertoire of skills are wide and varied, but there are a few basic skills that most UX designs are equipped with. 

Wireframing and creating mockups is essential to any designer–it’s basically the first step to the UX process itself, while having an in-depth understanding of visual design also falls in the same circle of fundamental UX design skills. In the matter of gathering and compiling information, a UX designer should know how to conduct user research and understand the variety of methods used, and also have the understanding of organising content within an information architecture. 

An added skill would be the ability to write code. UX designers are often not expected to bring their product into the application development stage as this role usually falls under developers, but a UX designer that is equipped with a programming language like HTML or CSS would be in particularly high demand.

Responsibilities

A UX designer’s responsibility, essentially, is to streamline and make easy the experience of the product’s user. From websites and apps to retail stores and office spaces, UX designers are present in almost every experience and responsible for the users of each. 

Typically, a UX designer is responsible for creating the deliverables of the phase the development team are working on, keeping their work on time according to the project schedule, and presenting their work. They may need to present to the rest of the design team, internal stakeholders, or clients. Other responsibilities of a UX designer includes planning, executing and analysing user research, creating a content inventory, designing a style guide, conducting usability testing and analysing the results.

Career possibilities

73% of managers surveyed by adobe stated that they would double the hires of UX designers by 2022. So, in a nutshell, there are a lot of possibilities for a UX designer.

The UX designer role is a flexible one–even as a start into the career path, aspiring designers could come from any sort of background. At GA, we’ve had a psychology graduate, a music producer as well as a pilot are some of the learners who graduated from our UX Design Bootcamp and are now pursuing UX design journeys. 

The possibilities of a career in UX design is just as unlimited. For instance, a designer may choose to narrow down and focus on a specialty of UX, like research, for example, and offer services that are highly in-depth in that particular pillar. 

However, UX designers can also cast a wider net as an end-to-end expert on all things UX, whether in a company or in a specialised UX agency. Freelancing is also a viable option for UX designers, where they may function as project managers or consultants.  A role in management would be filled by a designer with 5+ years of experience–which is not commonly found for now, and so often fairly compensated. 

https://generalassemb.ly/blog/which-ux-career-is-right-for-you/

Ready to become a UX designer?