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UX designer, UI designer, product designer, and UX researcher: what’s the difference?
The real answer is: It depends
Whether you’re a beginner in the UX field or an experienced designer, there is definitely a lot of confusion revolving around the different UX disciplines and how companies choose to list roles.
I really don’t think I can count the number of arguments that I see online about the differences between these disciplines:
UX Designer
UI Designer
UX Researcher
Product Designer
There are even more UX job titles other than those four (Customer Experience Designer, UX Writer, Interaction Designer, and the list goes on) but I’m choosing to focus on these main four.
The disputes are endless, so I wanted to address this confusing topic for many people. So what is the difference between all of these job titles?
The real answer is: It depends.
Depends on what? Well… usually the company. Every company has different needs depending on size, customers, audience, methodology, values, etc.
Some companies don’t even know the difference themselves so they will just post a job called UX Designer when in reality the description might actually be for a Web Designer, or even a hybrid Designer/Developer role.
Each company is different in how they choose to separate and overlap these functions, and some are just downright uninformed.
If the company has only one product that is small-scale then there may not be a need for separate UX, UI, and research roles, and that’s okay.
The argument for these roles needing to be separated is definitely valid for larger corporations with a bigger UX need, but that’s not necessarily relevant for all companies.
For example in my full-time job, my title is Senior UX Designer, but I’m often doing the function of a UX Researcher, UX Designer, and UI Designer. My company doesn’t have that large amount of UX work to separate all these roles so it makes the most sense for me to take on all of these functions, and that is 100% okay.
