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How to think strategically as a designer and understand product vision
3 critical skills to learn to make yourself a stronger design job candidate
I've been reflecting on the field of Design recently, as many great Designers I know have suddenly found themselves out of a job.
People have stated that UX Design, as a field, is dead. I don't necessarily agree with that, but there's a shift coming that many Junior UX Designers need to be aware of. Tactical designers are on the decline, while Strategic designers are on the rise.
I'm not the only one who thinks this; many recruiters also voice similar concerns.
To understand what this means, we first need to discuss what these concepts mean.
Most Designers start as Tactical Designers
Designers, whether they realize it or not, often align themselves in one of two ways when they first start working:
- They align themselves with the Product team
- They align themselves with the Engineering team
What's more is that most Designers align themselves with Engineering. What does that mean?
The Product team may develop a backlog of features to build and ask you to build a feature. So, Design works closely with Engineering to build that feature, with prototypes and actual code.
What's wrong with that approach? Did anyone consult with Product about "Why should we build this feature?" or ask about the user's wants and needs? If not, you might have just built a feature users didn't want, wasting time and effort.
Do too much of this, and you may be in a feature factory. A feature factory is where product teams churn out numerous features based on a nebulous list of priorities rather than user interest.
While User research can help mitigate some problems with this, it's often aimed at solving lower-level…
