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Are you an artist or a scientist UX designer?
Imagine that you’ve just been assigned to a brand new project as the lead UX designer. You have a rough idea of what the project is, and what is potentially involved. Where do you start?
In my entire designing career, I’ve been searching for answers to this question. Because I know the beginning is the hardest part of everything. Once you know what to do, it’s just a matter of doing it. Figuring out and prioritizing what to do, is more difficult than it sounds. You want to make sure you’re going to spend energy on what matters and deliver the best outcome. If I can come up with some kind of magic formula I can re-use every time I start a new project, wouldn’t it be nice?
As you probably have already guessed, I don’t have a single magic formula. Because what I learned over the years, is that every project is different. No matter how you try to define a seemingly perfect UX process, draw pretty diagrams like this one, you will find reality doesn’t always allow you to stay on track, in fact, it almost never does. The project scope changes, someone on your team leaves, some other priorities want to compete with your project, someone is having a tough day, the list goes on and on.
However, I did discover something interesting about the working styles of UX designers who come from different training backgrounds. That is, there is the Artist UX Designer, and the Scientist UX Designer.
Are you an Artist UX Designer?
- You have stationeries nearby
- You prefer writing and sketching on physical papers than creating on computers
- You agree that visual appealingness is a big part of quality UX design
- You received an Arts & Humanities education
- When you’re faced with a new design challenge, you like to start with sketches or some visual inspirations and evolve from there
If 3 or more bullets apply to you, you are an Artist UX Designer.
