What are the key traits that a User Experience Designer should have to remain competitive in the market?

Tags: designer, jobs, user

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UX designer should be a good negotiator for win-win, good sales skills to be able to sell the design to product and IT teams and a good facilitator to get input from all the stake holders

I look for the following when hiring UX roles:

- Empathy: the ability to relate to not only users but also business stakeholders and engineers on the team.
- Curiosity: our field is always changing, so I seek those with an insatiable desire to keep learning and growing.
- Aesthetics: if you can't make pretty deliverables, no one will listen to what you have to say. Seems shallow, but it is a serious reality of our field.
- Communication Skills: being able to bring a team to consensus, record decisions and document product direction is absolutely essential for a great UX designer.

Key Traits:

  • Communicator-Listener: Being able to talk the talk with designers, developers, product guys, project managers, Sales, customer support, IA, UX, IT guys, higher management, project boards,....
  • Stand strong for your project: you will induce change => be prepared for resistance (from a lot of sides if it's a big project). Don't give in (and if you do give in on things, give only in on minor things), get a focus for your project and go for that goal.
  • Don't be afraid to fail: If you are prepared to lose you are a lot stronger.
  • Seek counsel for things you are not good at
  • Build a strong team of people eager to learn and getting forward

Totally agree with all these traits.  I'd also add some more practical ones such as:  experience with a wide set of of prototyping tools, familiarity with various design/development processes (rapid prototyping, design-usability-test alternations, etc.), and a solid portfolio. :)

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