A matrix to help you self-evaluate on 18 different skills a UX designer needs

Understanding where you need to strengthen your skills.

I have recently been working with upskilling some of my UX teams and at the same time recruiting new senior UX designers. This has lead me to start looking at what skills we require as user experience professionals. I have had lots of people reach out to me from various pathways wanting to become a UX designer, I needed a way to help them gauge what skills they already have and see where their weakness may lie.

I have spoken before about the UX design spectrum, from researcher through to visual designer and where you might sit. This more detailed design matrix helps you dig deeper into that.

I have put together a UX skills matrix to help self evaluate your essential skills and also to understand what you should focus on. You can see an example below. On the right is my one filled in. Feel free to grab the one at the end of this article to use as your own.

Firstly, I am not the first person to do this. I found some great articles where people and teams have approached this in a…