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In what direction can product designers grow?
The designer's role is changing rapidly. Just looking at the job titles in the job postings, I had a variety of names in a short period of time, such as web designer, UI/UX designer, and product designer. Because of the rapid change, it is difficult to know which path I can walk according to my situation and who I will follow.
Several companies unify the title of product designer. There may be a purpose to refer to it as a competency rather than a career, but this does not mean that everyone's competency and growth direction are the same. This is because there will be countless product designers depending on the circumstances and capabilities of companies and individuals. In this article, based on my personal experience, I have summarized the career path of a startup product designer and the role of each stage.
It refers to the person who is directly involved in the design outcome. This is the beginning of a designer's career, and if you want to immerse yourself in production and create the highest quality, you become a lead designer in a specific design area. It's possible.
Solve design problems with single design elements or small areas. I mainly compose the layout of digital products and design the GUI flow. You need to have the ability to design visual experiences, follow your organization's design language conventions, learn from and apply good practices. Logically explain your design, accept various feedbacks such as success/failure retrospectives or peer opinions, and grow.
We solve problems by designing experiences for digital products. We design the entire user product experience and participate in the entire area from inception to retrospective. We understand your project goals, user context, and business goals, and find solutions that will make the most impact. You have the freedom to manipulate your organization's design language and make it better. To achieve project goals, we give and receive feedback with other departments and inspire the same team members.
Create first-class product experiences. Think user-centered, understand and implement various methodologies to deliver a better experience. We raise the visual experience or design system to a high level and lead the project by collaborating with various related departments so that it can be applied to actual products. It sets the design strategy and direction of the assigned area and presents good examples to solve problems. I usually coach 1 or 2 sub-designers. Depending on the situation, you will become the Principal Designer with responsibility for specific areas of design production.
Manage people and teams. With an understanding of design practices, we find ways to create greater outcomes as a team. Define the required competencies for your team and grow or recruit new team members. Set a broad direction such as work style and culture, and communicate with various departments. Mediates and resolves conflicts between team members or teams. Persuading companies to come up with what they need to make a bigger impact with their design.
Combines lead product designer and manager roles. It seems to be the most common form in Korean startups. It has the advantage of being able to manage the team while meeting the pleasure of creating while working and sympathizing with the team members' point of view. (Of course, there is a lot of work!) This is possible when the size of the organization is small, and it is not easy to work in parallel when there are more than 5 to 6 people. As the size of the team grows, parallelism becomes impossible, so there are many cases in which a senior product designer is in charge of practical work + 2-3 junior management tasks, and a team managing person is assigned separately.
Every Tuesday morning, a designer with 16 years of experience curated Collect design trends.
