UX Designer Job Description Explained

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Alexander Georges
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Lydia Chamberlain
January 1, 2021

If you’re in the market for a new UX design job, or you’re a recruiter writing your first new-hire job description, then you’re probably looking for examples and details from around the internet. If that’s what brought you here, then you’re in luck! Because in this post, we go into detail on the common elements found in a UX designer job description.

Having been UI and UX designers for some years now, we know the UX designer job description very well. We’ve collectively worked at startups, mid-sized companies, and large corporations.

And if our experiences are telling of anything, it’s that the responsibilities of UX designers change according to the company’s size and UX maturity. That’s why we’ll talk about the meaning of UX from a company’s perspective too.

Lastly, we’ll be providing some real-life examples of past UX job descriptions.

So without further ado, let’s discuss user experience jobs and what they entitle.

“UX Designer” Means Different Things to Various Companies

Not every company sees “UX Design” as the same thing.

Some companies have a good understanding of what it means, but other companies confuse its meaning and, therefore, job description.

UX design is the process of creating an enjoyable, simple-to-use product for your users.

You can read a very clear breakdown of what UX design is in this post.

A UX designer is a professional that uses the UX design process to improve digital products, such as mobile apps and websites.

You can read details of what a UX designer does in this post.

However, hearing about how important UX is, some companies decide to jump on the bandwagon without really understanding what it’s about.

There will use a ton of buzzwords in their UX job descriptions but not give you clear instructions on how to integrate with the company because they don’t know how you’re supposed to actually operate from day-to-day.

However, UX designers can often sniff this from a mile away, especially at the face-to-face interview.

If you want to learn 7 common interview questions and how to answer them, then check out this post.

Specialist Roles inside “UX Designer” Job Descriptions

“UX designer” is a broad term that includes multiple disciplines within it. 

We’ll break down some of the most common ones here.

UI Designer

Goal

UI designers are responsible for making the visual design of a website appealing to users while following a business’s brand guidelines.

Responsibilities

UI designers need to follow a company’s style guide to design an interface that both pleases the user but also meets the business’ visual brand (i.e. they need to make it look consistent).

That means knowing the sizing of buttons, the colors used to highlight elements on a page, what graphics to use, which font types and sizes are needed, how the business uses icon assets, etc.

For more specifics on the UI designer role, check out this post.

Interaction Designer

Goal

Interaction designers make it their goal to make sure that any interactions a user has with a product are simple and smooth.

Responsibilities

The interfaces these designers create are logically thought out. All behaviors and actions are intentionally designed specifically so that the product is simple for the user to use. That means that the actions allowed by the product need to be intuitive and have a defined purpose. In other words, interaction designers design the flow through the application.

An interaction designer might also have the duties of a UI designer because designing the flow of a user interface, or UI, usually includes designing the UI itself as well.

For more specifics on the interaction designer role, check out this post.

IA Designer

Goal

Information architects make sure the product’s content is logically structured and organized.

Responsibilities

Information architects tend to be organized individuals. They need to make vast, complex information/content easy for users to navigate through. Basically, if the user is at sea, IA designers would be the compass.

That means being able to predict what a user might search for. IA designers often do this by doing an audit of an application. They will break down all the content on a website first, group similar information, create categories and subcategories, make hierarchies of information, and design menus. Organization and logic are key here.

For more specifics on the IA designer role, check out this post.

UX Designer

Goal

UX designers try to make the best experience possible for users that interact with their products.

 

Responsibilities

 

If you think the goal definition above is broad, you would be correct. A UX designer tends to be a combination of UI design, interaction design, and information architecture design. A good UX designer has a good understanding of research, design, and (a bit of) coding.

UX designers usually start with setting goals for the product and initially defining who the users are. They then look at what competitors are (or aren’t) doing, talk to users, and analyze existing data that could explain common user behaviors.

Much like interaction designers, they will create user flows and journey maps. Much like information architects, they will create site maps that show the hierarchy of information of the website.

After wireframing to create a skeleton version of the application, UX designers will create mockups, much like UI designers. These mockups are then turned into prototypes that are tested with users to make sure the product creates a good user experience (these tests are normally called usability tests). Then, the cycle of all the above starts all over again with the new information they’ve received. This iterating method is called agile.

For more specifics on the UX designer role, check out this post.

UX Designer Job Descriptions Broken Down

Let’s cover the common elements you’ll see in a UX job post’s description.

Responsibilities

Here are some responsibilities you’ll likely be asked to uphold:

  • Conduct user research
  • Plan new features and products
  • Deliver on a UX vision (which they might have or ask you to come up with)
  • Follow the company’s style guide
  • Perform usability tests and user interview
  • Create personas and user journey maps
  • Work closely with product managers and developers
  • Create mockups and prototypes
  • Work in an agile fashion, designing in iterations based on user feedback

Here is a sample:

Minimum Qualifications

Minimum qualifications can range depending on how many years of experience you have under your belt.

You should use this section to decide if you’re qualified enough to even apply for the job.

While it doesn’t hurt to apply anyways, you’ll likely get rejected if you don’t meet the basic things the company is looking for.

Here are some minimum qualifications you might find:

  • X number of years of experience
  • A portfolio of work to submit to the application (oftentimes a personal online portfolio URL)
  • A bachelor’s or master’s degree (unless an internship)
  • Proficiency in common UX tools (e.g. Sketch, InVision, Axure, Principle)
  • Ability to defend your design choices

Here is an example of minimum qualifications from Google:

Preferred Qualifications

Preferred qualifications are nice to have, but not necessary in order to apply.

The company knows that no one is perfect and, therefore, won’t likely fit everything in this section.

But if you meet some of these qualifications, you’ll stand out from other job applicants:

  • Expertise in design demonstrated through your portfolio of work
  • Experience in the industry (e.g. banking or e-Commerce)
  • Familiarity with coding, such as HTML and CSS
  • Experience working across organizational boundaries to collaborate and innovate
  • Ability to clearly communicate your designs and strategy to non-designers, such as  developers
  • The skill to present, analyze, and communicate effectively
  • An Ability to analyze both qualitative and quantitive data

Here is an example of preferred qualifications from Google:

Description

Anything that doesn’t fit into the previous sections often goes into the description section.

You will probably see it in sentence form rather than bullet points.

The description will likely talk about these things:

  • A brief overview of what the job entails
  • How their culture runs (e.g. We’re a large company that has a startup mindset…)
  • What ideal candidates are like (e.g. Are you naturally curious and ask lots of questions?)
  • Why your role important to the company (e.g. User experience is at the forefront of how we create intuitive, innovative, and beautiful products that people love...)

Here is a sample description from Amazon:

Description Example Image

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