Top 8 soft skills in UI/UX design

In this article I would like to discuss importance of the skills/abilities that I have learned are necessary to grow and progress yourself as UI/UX designer. First thing first, let’s discuss what they are and what’s the difference between “soft” and “hard” skills.

Hard Skills VS Soft Skills

Essentially, “hard skills” are often considered as technical skills, so when it comes to UI/UX design your hard skills would be: your visual design skills, ability to use particular software, abbilities to create wireframes, mockups, interactive prototypes etc. So, in a nutshell — your abbilities to produce a digital product.

On the other hand “soft skills” are often related to you character and personality. Soft skills are also very often considered as secondary or additional skills of ui/ux designer toolkit — unfortunately very often neglected especially by junior designers — this is huge mistake as very often soft skills dictate the way people perceive you as professional. That’s the reason I do highly recommend you to constantly work on both type of skills in order to to become a lot more valuable as designer. Having said I would like to point out my top 8 soft-skills that every UI/UX should have in own toolkit.

First and foremost, design is about solving problems — that skill is also one of the most valuable and desired skills in UI/UX design. As UI/UX designer you would have to test different ideas and solutions, iterate, test them over and over again and finally based on feedback: choose the “winner”.

“Great design is not just a solution, it is the elimination of the problem.”

— M. Cobanli

As UI/UX designer you need to be able to break-down business requirements, briefs and translate them into concepts, sketches, wireframes, mockups etc. Once you’ve got deeper understanding of the problem you’re trying to solve you can design appropriate solution for it.

As I’ve mentioned above — problem solving is a very desired skill that will develop overtime with your experience — The more you do it — the better you’ll get it!

Empathy is the ability to understand other people’s feelings. Very often you would need to “put yourself in your users shoes” in order to gain deeper understanding of their thoughts, emotions, needs, motivations. A good understanding of users would allow you to produce much better, user centered products. Ability to empathise with users is an essential part of a UI/UX designers toolkit.

“True empathy requires that you step outside your own emotions to view things entirely from the perspective of the other person.”

— Dan Saffer

There are many different empathy methods that would you help get deeper understanding about your users. Below I’ve listed just few of them:

• User interviews
• Surveys
• Usability tests
• Through observation: Photographing or recording target users
• Journey maps

If you would like to learn more about different empathy methods I do highly recommend reading IDF article

As designer you need to learn how to talk about your designs, concepts, ideas and explain the logic/thinking behind them — sometimes in different ways depending who the audience is. You need to be able to present your own work and explain how your design would solve business problem. You can’t simply hope that your clients/users would “understand design”- instead present them and explain in detail the logic behind your concepts. Explain how your proposed solutions would lead to produce a successful end product.

This skills is essential as the way how you communicate and present your work really changes the way people perceive you as professional.

And that leads us to our next soft skill —ability to accept constructive criticism.

We designers are very often considered perfectionist — working very hard, for long hours to make our designs look “pixel perfect” and very often not 100% satisfied with final result. In UX design world there’s always room for growth and there’s always something that could be improved — it’s interative process and our job as designers is literelly never done! Remember though, you do not design for yourself you design for the users/customers to solve a particular problem/problems — I do believe that’s the main reason that differentiates us: designers from the artists. With that being said — when someone gives you constructive critique do not fell bad or offended because of it — it’s not about you, so do not take it personally. Critques given my more experienced peoples is the gold! You need to learn to accept constructive feedback, because that’s going to enable you how to improve your design work and become better, more skilled designer.

Accepting constructive criticism is one of the hardest, but also on of the most valuable skills that you might learn in your professional career to become a better designer.

As I’ve mentioned above: first and foremost you design for the peoples — to solve their problems and accomplish their needs. It’s all about helping others, delivering great service and value. Of course you need to love what you do and be passionate about it — but that shouldn’t be your main focus in your career — you need deliver a value to others because by providing a value to others you will become more valuable as designer. You can’t be reactive — take the initiative, always try to push yourself and bring something new and innovative to the table that can create more value for the organisation/peoples you work with. Always try to take a step further, because that’s something would differentiate you from all of the other designers.

“You will get all you want in life, if you help enough other people get what they want.”

— Zig Ziglar

Having that said: help others, provide value and be that person that others would love to work with — that leads us to our next soft skill — become a great team player

Individual can’t produce a successful product on their own. Creating great products it’s always a team effort, collaboration between multiple teams — designers, developers, product owners, stakeholders, customers — Essentially, Every person involved in building product is responsible for the overall User Experience of the final/end product — that’s the reason you need to become a great team player and collaborator who engages in discussions with various teams.

“Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team of people..”

— Steve Jobs

Adaptability means being able to adapt either to like a project changes, new environment, new ideas, new requirements or even people you work with. In my opinion: being adaptable also means looking and particular problem from slightly different angle/perspective — being open-minded. Every new project is different and brings new challenges, so being adaptable is crucial and very valuable skill of every successful UI/UX designer.

“Adaptability is being able to adjust to any situation at any given time.”

— John Wooden

UX design as iterative process requires from you as designer constantly tweaking/improving your designs, communicating with the other teams, awaiting feedback from your users… Our job as UI/UX designers is literally never done as there is always that could be improved and done better! Being a successful UI/UX designer requires a tremendous amount of patience.

“Work hard. And have patience. Because no matter who you are, you’re going to get hurt in your career and you have to be patient to get through the injuries.”

— Randy Johnson

Conclusion

Of course, there are many many more soft skills than those I’ve discussed, however I hope you’ve found this article useful, informative and you’ve learned something. In order to become more valuable as UI/UX designer you have to work and develop both: hard and soft skills, because that’s something would differentiate you from all of the others and would make you more valuable as designer.

What other soft skills not mentioned in this article you’ve found useful and helped you growth, progress in your career? Let’s discuss in the comments below.

If you have any questions please feel free to email me — always happy to help. You can also find me at: Dribbble, Behance, Instagram, Uplabs, Facebook, LinkedIn. Download my free design resources from sketchappsources.com