Traditional education offers many valuable lessons, particularly in design, where it emphasizes visual communication, creativity, and technical skills. However, there are other abilities that contribute to a successful design career—skills that aren’t often highlighted in the classroom.
I recently spoke with my dear colleague, Product Designer Tisa Bastijanić. We’ve transitioned from working together in a marketing team to collaborating on cross-functional projects. Tisa has done it all—graphic design and UX/UI design—and is now a product designer. I’ve learned a great deal from her, particularly about being concise when writing for the web and truly stepping into the user’s shoes to understand what they’re looking for and what catches their eye when they first visit a website.
Considering her design school background, I sat down with Tisa and we had a chat about the most important UI UX designer skills that aren't typically taught in school but are incredibly valuable in the professional world.
1. Developing critical thinking skills
While design schools may teach you the technical skills necessary to create visually appealing interfaces, they often overlook the importance of questioning assumptions and digging deeper into user needs. Critical thinking is about more than just solving the problem at hand; it's about understanding the problem in the first place.
This may involve things like analyzing user behavior, identifying user pain points, and anticipating challenges before they arise.
For a UX designer, developing strong critical thinking skills will help you in creating design solutions that are both functional and user-centered. When conducting user research or usability testing, critical thinking allows you to sift through data and feedback to uncover the real issues behind user interactions. It helps you prioritize user needs and design with the user's perspective in mind, ensuring that the final product truly meets the expectations of those who will use it.
Critical thinking plays an important role in the early stage, where user flows, information architecture, and wireframes are being developed. It will allow you to select the most effective solution.
Critical thinking also directly ties into other skills, such as problem-solving skills and analytical skills. These are all cognitive skills that complement interpersonal skills.
These skills enable you to break down complex user interactions into manageable components, identify patterns, and make informed design decisions that enhance the user experience.
The best tip for developing these skills is continuous learning and practice. It’s about adopting a mindset that embraces curiosity and is willing to challenge existing assumptions.
2. Effective collaboration with developers
Collaboration skills between designers and developers are crucial for the success of any project. However, this area often receives little attention in design schools. While you may be well-versed in creating wireframes, interactive prototypes, and visually appealing interfaces, working effectively with developers requires a different set of skills—particularly strong communication skills and a basic understanding of technical knowledge.
One key design challenge is ensuring that your design vision is accurately translated into the final product. This requires clear and effective communication between you and the development team. UX designers must be able to articulate their design solutions in a way that developers can understand and implement.
This includes familiarity with the technical constraints and possibilities within development frameworks, allowing for more realistic and practical design choices.
Remember that meme where architects envision fantastical designs like flying houses, only for the builders to respond with a firm, "That’s not possible"? The same dynamic often occurs between designers and developers.
When working in cross-functional teams, it's essential to consider perspectives beyond your own. There will be times when you need to adjust your design to accommodate technical limitations, but it's equally important to have enough technical knowledge to know when to advocate for your vision. Understanding when to compromise and when to push for your design’s details to be implemented as envisioned is a key skill in successful collaboration.
This involves sharing your design ideas and being open to feedback and adjustments based on the project's technical realities.
3. Managing client expectations and requirements
Managing client expectations is a critical aspect of being a successful UX designer, yet it’s often an area that design schools fail to address adequately. While you might be taught how to conduct user research, gather feedback, and create user-centered designs, dealing with clients—who may have their own fixed ideas and expectations—requires a unique set of communication and project management skills.
You can divide it like this:
Understand your client's needs
Understand user needs
This sounds great, but you are the one who needs to balance these goals with the principles of UI and UX design. You need to align the client with user needs. This can be challenging, especially when clients request features or design elements that may not align with best practices in user interaction or usability testing.
One of the essential skills for designers in this context is the ability to negotiate and set realistic expectations. This is where strong communication skills come into play—being able to articulate the rationale behind your design choices in a way that resonates with the client can help manage their expectations and avoid scope creep.
If your client doesn’t fully grasp the rationale behind your design decisions, you can use user feedback to create actionable insights that guide the project’s direction. By involving clients in the user testing process and demonstrating how your design choices are based on real user behavior and feedback, you can build a stronger case for your design solutions. This approach helps clients see the tangible value of your decisions, making them more likely to support your vision.
Finally, handling difficult conversations with clients—especially when their ideas conflict with user-centered design principles—requires both patience and tact. It’s important to maintain a balance between advocating for the user’s needs and respecting the client’s vision.
4. Justifying your design decisions when clients have very opinionated ideas
One of the most challenging aspects of working as a designer is justifying your design decisions when clients already have ideas on their own. Clients often have strong opinions about what they want, which may not always align with best practices in design. To navigate this, it’s crucial to present your design choices clearly and persuasively.
Using data-driven insights from user research, usability testing, and industry standards can help you build a strong case. Explain how your design aligns with user needs and business goals, focusing on how it enhances the user experience.
Effective communication skills are key here—framing your design choices in terms of benefits and outcomes can help clients see the value in your approach. It's all about guiding the clients toward what is best for everyone.
5. Navigating stakeholder dynamics
Stakeholders, including product managers, developers, and business executives, each bring their own perspectives and priorities to a project. As a designer, your role is to balance these interests while maintaining a focus on user-centered design.
Don't forget that it's important to build strong communication channels, it will help you gather valuable input and ensure that everyone is aligned on the project’s goals. It’s important to listen to their concerns and incorporate their feedback while also advocating for the user’s needs.
Being able to diplomatically manage conflicting viewpoints is a critical skill. In business in general, you need to learn to "walk a fine line".
6. Understanding business metrics and their impact on design
Design doesn’t happen in a vacuum—understanding the business metrics that drive a project is crucial for creating user-friendly and commercially viable designs. Metrics like conversion rates, user retention, and ROI often indicate a design’s success.
For example, imagine you’ve created a beautiful, aesthetically pleasing app—at least, in your eyes—but users are struggling to navigate it. Will you ignore the high bounce rates, or will you put your ego aside, analyze the data, and ask yourself, "How can I make this more user-friendly?"
Another often overlooked aspect is product discovery. Before diving into development, it’s crucial to ask whether the product you're working on is even necessary. This is where your user research skills are invaluable. At Devōt, our Product designer, Tisa, collaborates closely with our Business Analyst and Product Owner, Sandro Bujan, who leads the product discovery process. This collaboration ensures that our design decisions are aligned with the user needs and the broader business goals of our clients.
By aligning your design choices with these business objectives, you can demonstrate the tangible impact of your work, ensuring that both the user experience and business metrics are optimized.
7. Mastering time management and prioritization
When we learn something in school, it's often in a "perfect environment." You have enough time for everything; you don’t need to worry about soft skills, teamwork, or balancing stakeholder demands, and there’s little chaos to disrupt your focus. Design schools tend to emphasize creativity and technical skills, but they may not prepare you for managing the real-world challenges of workload and time constraints. In this ideal setting, everything runs smoothly—but the reality of working in the fast-paced IT world is quite different.
While it might seem easier (if a bit dull) to work in such a controlled environment, the real world of design is anything but slow. Mastering time management and prioritization is crucial for juggling multiple projects and meeting tight deadlines.
As a designer, you’ll frequently juggle tasks like user research, creating wireframes, and collaborating with developers. Prioritizing these tasks based on project goals and deadlines is key to maintaining productivity without compromising on quality. Utilizing project management tools and setting clear, realistic timelines can help you stay organized and ensure that each aspect of the design process receives the attention it deserves.
Effective time management is a skill that requires ongoing development. However, it’s important to recognize that even the best time management won’t always prevent disruptions—sometimes, unexpected changes from a client can throw off your plans. The key is to know what to prioritize and when. While quality might temporarily take a hit in one area, focus on delivering your best work where it matters most.
And remember, not all is lost if something doesn’t turn out perfectly the first time. You can always revisit and refine your work later, improving the quality once the immediate pressures have eased.
8. How to communicate the value of design to non-design stakeholders
Communicating the value of design to non-design stakeholders, such as business executives, is an often underestimated skill in design.
To effectively communicate with them, focus on how your design choices impact key business metrics like user retention, conversion rates, or customer satisfaction. Use clear, non-technical language to explain how specific design elements contribute to the overall business strategy.
Presenting case studies, user feedback, and data (people love data) from usability testing can also help demonstrate the tangible benefits of your design work. With this, you can ensure that your work is valued and supported at all levels of the organization.
Constantly expanding your UI UX designer skills
UI/UX design is a relatively new field, much like the rapidly evolving world of software development. As our designer, Tisa, continues to grow in her career, we know she will keep expanding her skills in visual design and beyond.
What is the best advice for this career? Leave your ego at the door. Be ready to receive feedback, especially when it tells you that you didn’t do something as well as you thought. However, it’s equally important to develop a deep understanding of when to filter that feedback. Sometimes, you need to stand by your work and ideas, knowing when you're right and when others are.
Approach every challenge with a growth mindset, and you’ll continually refine the important skills necessary for success in this field.
