What Makes You a Good UX Designer or Digital Product Designer?

I observed myself and my colleagues who are UX designers and recall the answers I talked to my interviewer when I got one of my UX designer jobs during my interview. Here are the answers.

I summarize the 4 key features that a good UX designer should have. I hope this article will help you if you are looking for the answer or preparing for your interview to get your first UX designer job.

1. Learner

The first trait will be a learner. Learner means that you love to learn and you enjoy learning new things, new technology, and even new industry knowledge. What I observe is that most of my UX teammates come from different backgrounds. For example, some of them were studying engineering, psychology, or project management. People who get into the UX industry are self-learning most of the time to learn about UX. A few years ago, not many UX courses were available. There was nothing like UX certification or tutorials. What I did was search on YouTube, looking for online articles or any resources we can learn by ourselves. I prefer to get an internship so that I can ask people who are already in the UX industry. Curiosity is the key for me, and for most of my designer friends to study more about UX and any new technology.

2. Logical and Organized

The second trait: UX designers need to be very logical and organized because most of the time I need to organize complicated and messy information. I need to draw user flows and also define information architecture for digital products like websites or applications. I know I am not creating artwork. Instead of creating artwork, what I need to do is solve problems. By structuring complicated elements and information, I believe I can help people work more efficiently.

3. Patient and Friendly

The third trait a UX designer needs to have is patience and being friendly as a good listener. I have to be patient because I take most of my time to do user interviews, focus groups, or some design thinking workshops. I meet a lot of people, meaning sometimes I listen more than I talk. I like to keep silent to create spaces for people to talk about their problems, to find out what they need and their pain points. Sometimes not all users are lucky. Some of them may be elderly, some of them may not listen well because of physical disabilities. They may talk a bit slow and not every user is good at communicating. What I need to do is to avoid jargon in our conversation. I need to be patient, be friendly, and be open to listening to their experiences to help them find out what the problem is. I think it's also the responsibility of designers to understand people's needs. Every time I talk to people, I feel like I learn a lot from their experiences. Maybe this is why it's called experience design. Experience is everything you can get or learn from a lot of people and create a better experience for the world.

4. Love to Share Knowledge

The last trait I would like to talk about is sharing knowledge. I always try to exchange what I have in mind, including a lot of resources, articles, references, or templates that I found with my teammates. They also did the same so we all learn. Of course, we often share our project experiences because all the projects are very unique. We have our learning from every project. And most of the time, what we did was very multidisciplinary. That means we are staying in different industries. It may be something like banking, insurance, or hospitality. When I am not familiar with a specific industry, I need to learn a lot and ask a lot of questions. The easiest way is to get in touch with an expert. When I have time, I summarize what I've learned and share it with other UX designers. From the internet, you can always find a lot of good sharing from other designers too. It forms a community for everyone to exchange their knowledge and experience.

If you find you're exactly the person, like what I just mentioned, congratulations 🎉! I think you are the type of person who will be a good fit as a UX designer. You can try to look for a job or prepare for an interview to get a UX designer job. Because now you know what kind of traits are important for being a UX designer.

I appreciate it if you can like this article; it'll take like two seconds, but that can help me understand people are interested in this kind of content. That's my sharing for today. Thank you so much, and please feel free to leave any comments if you want a discussion. 😊