Boagworld – Web & Digital Advice | Paul Boag

A user experience designer is not the same as a user interface designer. Their tools are collaboration, research and design thinking. Not Sketch or Photoshop.

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What is your job title? Is it representative of what you actually do? When I set up Boagworks I had to decide what to call myself. After much agonising I decided to go with the title of UX (User Experience) designer. But it turns out that this is a job title with a lot of confusion attached to it. How ironic is that!

User experience designer is a confusing title

For a start you often see UI (User Interface) designer and UX designer referred to as the same thing. But in my mind at least, they are different roles.

Also, every single word in the title carry confusing connotations.

• User. What is a user? How do they differ from customers? Is user experience and customer experience the same thing?
• Experience. Is it actually possible to design an experience? Where does the experience start and stop? How much control do we really have over the entire experience?
• Designer. In most people’s mind a designer is somebody who produces an interface or visual of some kind. Yet most of my work does not involve Sketch, Photoshop or some other graphics application. I don’t even spend that much time creating prototypes or wireframes.

Of course the answers to these questions are subjective. But I wanted to share with you my interpretation and why I chose to call myself a user experience designer.

My definition of user experience

I have built my view of the role on two simple observations:

• The experience of users does not stop at the edge of the screen.
• Users are customers who use digital tools to interact with your organisation.

If you start from this definition of UX, the difference between this and UI design is obvious. A UI designer is a specialist in improving the user interface. This contributes to the experience, but is not the whole thing. Therefore a UI designer is less concerned with the broader elements of the experience.

This definition also helps to explain the difference between UX and customer experience. User experience is a specialism within customer experience. A specialism that focuses on customers who choose to use digital touch points. Of course, today this describes the majority of customers. This means the line between these two disciplines is blurring.

Understanding the relationship between customer experience, user experience and user interface is important.

Being a designer is not what you think

This provides some clarity to user experience. But we are still left with the role of designer. What does it mean to design a user experience? Is this even possible?

The answer to these questions depends on your definition of designer. If, as I said before, a designer is somebody who produces visuals, then you cannot design an experience. But I have a different definition of what a designer is.

To my mind a designer is somebody who applies design thinking to business challenges. Design thinking refers to a set of practices and methodologies. Practices that range from rapid iteration and prototyping to user research. In short, design thinking is a problem-solving approach.

This means you can apply design thinking to almost any business problem. From the creation of a user interface to products or even entire companies.

What does a user experience designer do?

Based on this definition of the user experience and role of designer, what does a UX designer actually do?

There is no single answer to this question. But in all cases it will involve a degree of user research. Before you can design a user experience, you must first understand the user. From there you can identify problems and pain points in the existing experience.

It is at this point that things become more complicated. Depending on where weaknesses exist, the UX designer could be doing many things.

He could be working with a UI designer or developer to improve a digital touch point such as a website. Or he could be working with a marketer to improve the social media experience.

A UX designer seek to reduce friction in how companies interact with their connected customers.

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But a UX designer is as likely to be working with senior management on company strategy and policy. He might be working with HR to encourage cross departmental collaboration. Or speaking to finance about improving the payment experience.

Finally, a user experience designer is there to represent the user. To educate colleagues about user needs. To encourage everybody to work together to create a better experience.

In short, he will work on any touchpoint the user has with an organisation. Or any system that support those touchpoints. There is rarely a part of the business that they will not talk to because they all contribute to the experience.

A generalist looking at things from the users perspective

Being a user experience designer is a wide-ranging and collaborative role. UX designers are generalists who work with specialists in different fields. But in everything they have a single aim. They seek to reduce friction in how companies interact with their connected customers.

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