Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Lorenzo Bellucci

I know that huge organizations have a Marketing team filled with skilled Public Relations practitioners who tell designers what to write in their works. This is why this story talks about the job that a UX Designer should do in a StartUp.

I worked for few months in a startup called Thingthing. They were based in Barcelona and luckly I went there while the company were facing a good period. They were working on a big acquisition — Fleksy — and I had the opportunity to collaborate to this great project.

To give you an overview of what were my main tasks over there:

I worked on the UI of a keyboard app by studying flows and use cases.
I was involved in the UX analysis and creation.
I created Visuals for communication and marketing purposes.

Focusing on the very last bullet point, it’s quite simple to figure out why marketing and communication rules are fundamental for a Designer as well.

Anyway, here it comes my main thought regarding why a good UX designer should firstly be an excellent communicator:

Those who do not know what the role of a Public Relation practitioner is within an organization should understand that Public Relations is about reputation — the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.
Public Relations practice is the discipline which looks after the reputation with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behavior. It has to contribute directly to business success.

If the company has a good reputation the evidence is that people are more likely to:

try its new products;
buy its shares;
believe its advertising;
want to work for it;
do business with it when all other things are equal;
support it in difficult times;
give it higher financial value;

Communication is intelligence.

The job of a UX Designer should also be to communicate and build relationships with all the organization’s publics. Being able to represent the views of the external publics and their likely reactions to decisions is a vital perspective that UX Designers can bring to strategic planning.
Indeed, being able to make sense of the environment, UX Designers not only provide intelligence to the strategic development process but contribute to the general decision-making within organizations.

As you can see I described the role of a UX Designer as similar to the Public Relations professional. In fact, in a StartUp environment, a good UX Designer should firstly be an excellent communicator having Public Relations skills.

Communication skills.

At a tactical level, the role of public relations practitioner is to manage appropriate communication between an organization and its stakeholders and vice versa by ensuring that both the content and the technique are suitable and timely.

The importance of communication.

The communication is designed to influence behavior.
The publics are responsible for the destiny of the organization for good and ill. As a result of this, good communication enhances the opportunities that are presented to organizations by both identifying them early and facilitating the actions that are required to capitalize on them.

UX Designers in startups.

A user experience designer will design a product keeping a user-centered mentality. He or she will keep in mind the needs of the user in order to create not only a product which is easy to use but which people love to use. Usually the Design Team in a Startup is formed by one CDO and few UI/UX designers who will shadow their leader and help him/her during each step of the design process. Having someone who is able to understand the needs of the users as well as the public needs of the company (we already talked about good/bad communication) will grant the Design Team a better workflow, avoiding constant fightings between them and the Marketing team.

Overall, this is a simple example of how a Startup Team formed by people who are multi-skilled in different subjects is a great way to both boost productivity and create better interactions between team members.

What after?

If you want a great book to deeper understand this topic feel free to check out: “Planning and Managing Public Relations Campaigns” by Anne Gregory. Together with my past experience, this book was one of the main sources of this story.

Have a great holiday time Medium! ❤

Why a good UX Designer must be an excellent Communicator. was originally published in Prototypr on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Why a good UX Designer must be an excellent Communicator.

Cool stuff, every week

More Articles