Farewell UX Designer: Introducing the UX Analyst

Why we need to start thinking differently about the roles we play in User Experience.

- or - It’s time to educate the world on what is actually meant by UX Design.

I’ve been increasingly concerned about the number of references I have seen for the ‘role’ of UI/UX Designer.

Let’s be clear, this is not one role. The UI Designer designs interfaces: the UX Designer designs experiences (which includes interfaces).

Lumping these two together represents a lack of understanding of the disciplines and a desire for employers to get a 2 for 1 deal. However, doing so cheapens the skills required for these different, but complementary disciplines. Anyone who really understands UX Design knows that UI Design is just the tip of the iceberg, with so much more that goes on beneath the surface. Human-centric systems cannot be effectively achieved without the foundational? research and analysis BEFORE launching into the creative design and development of the user interface.

“A common misconception by many on what UX?means still baffles me to this day. UX is not just UI?design, it’s every part of your product that interacts?with your users. It’s anything that incites an emotive?reaction or feeling towards something.”

Don Norman , Neilson Norman Group, Father of User Experience

Can one individual do both?

Within professional circles, UI Design is commonly understood to be a subset of UX Design, a discipline that is truly multi-faceted, covering visual design, research, content writing, human psychology, cognitive science, user advocacy and presentation skills - to name a few. So one individual can take on several roles, but in much the same way as an entrepreneur needs to do sales and marketing as well as business management and accounting, we would never expect them to continue wearing these hats as the business grows. It’s a tall order, and you’d better be prepared to pay for it or suffer the consequences of burned out employees, sub-standard results, or both.

Where there are two hats, let’s fully understand which one is being worn, and not try them on both at the same time.

Why the confusion?

I have come to realize that there are a few reasons why these roles get lumped together:

• Overloaded use of the title ‘Designer’
• Ignorance of the full scope of UX Design as a discipline
• Laziness, or at best, a lack of clear definition

Remember when we did Analysis and Design?

Let me take you back to the days before UX was a thing. We used to refer to Analysis AND Design as the early stage of system development. It was clear that there were two activities involved:

• Analysis was the discovery, requirements gathering and high level design of the system.
• Design was the process of form design and interaction flows, as well as the underlying data structures and systems.

Analysis was arguably more insular and less research focused than it is now, and Design was less creative and intentional than it often is now. Mostly because systems were driven by the data models and structures and established process flows. As the focus has changed to external-facing, prototype-driven applications, I feel that the delineation has become blurred since we removed ourselves away from the underlying technicalities and became wowed with slick user interfaces. But sometimes we are tempted to undermine the groundwork necessary for true user-focused success.

UXD, User Experience Design, is, or should be, the new Systems Analysis phase. In advanced maturity environments we should be replacing Systems Analysts and Business Analysts with User Experience professionals. And we should be replacing graphic designers with User Interface Designers, and not asking designers to be analysts.

In this analogy, Business Analysts are easily mapped to Product Designers. (Who are NOT the same as UX Designers, see this article: https://bootcamp.uxdesign.cc/ux-design-vs-product-design-whats-the-difference-and-why-it-matters-c2ed99f088b8)

Following that line of thought, if we were to evolve a Systems Analyst into the role of UX Designer, it would not make sense to bring in someone who is principally a creative designer. It is clearly not a design role in that sense.

The Solution: Rebranding

So rather than UX Designer, let’s see what happens if we rebrand the role as UX Analyst. The Analyst does the up-front work to prepare the product for detailed design, working with the UI Designer to produce human-centered, well researched, aesthetically pleasing designs with the goal of creating a delightful user experience.

Clear Delineation of Roles

The UX Analyst Role:

• Receives direction from the Product Designer/Manager to understand the design constraints of the desired solution, in the areas of Usability, Viability, Feasibility and Value.
• Works with Product Designer to understand the Value Proposition of the product to both the user and the business
• Human-centered
• Research focused
• Uses the scientific method to prove hypotheses
• Validates assumptions and discovers requirements through interviews and research
• Sketches out high level interaction flows & wireframes (when no interaction designer available)
• Understands user psychology
• Works with the UI Designer to ideate solutions and craft the user experience
• Tests Designs with users
• Feeds findings back into the system design

The UI Designer Role:

• Works with UX Analyst to develop wireframes and application flows
• Comes up with creative concepts
• Crafts user experience at the detail level*
• Empathy for user psychology when using an application
• Skilled in crafting user-friendly language (when no content writer is available)
• Crafts Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi prototypes under the direction of the UX Analyst
• Understands and implements responsive designs
• Integrates design systems and corporate branding
• Implements accessibility into the design
• Refines every detail of the system design
• Hands off mockups to development team

* see the excellent examples from ??Zander Whitehurst on how to improve UI design

Conclusion

Overloading the word ‘designer’, and combining the roles of UI/UX Designer, undermines the unique skill set of a UX Designer, to whom it is suggested is better referred to as a UX Analyst. UI Designer should be a separate job title.

If you do need someone to take on all the responsibilities of a UX Designer, ask for a UX Analyst/Designer (UX Analyst/UI Designer also works), or simply a UX Designer, to imply you’re looking for a UX generalist to fulfil all the multi-disciplinary responsibilities of User Experience Design. And understand that you’re asking for a multi-talented individual who is being asked to take on many different tasks, and do not expect them to tick all the boxes, nor to excel in all areas.

As organizations grow and mature, the workload of a UX Designer gets split. Some of these roles include Researcher, User Testing Specialist, Interaction Designer, Information Architect and Content Writer, as well as UI Designer. However, the main issue is that often the first role hired for is the Designer, not the Analyst. This often results in products being visually designed before they are properly researched, which is counter to the purpose of User-Centered Design.

And this is a situation you'd do well to avoid.

This is a hotly debated topic, often dictated by our own mental model and personal experience of how you do your job and your work environment. I'd like to thank Andrew Kucheriavy, UXMC for his insightful posts that got me thinking deeply about this.

What do you think? Do we need clarification and standardization of roles in UX? Do we need to educate the world about what we do? Or it is a futile exercise?

I'm genuinely interested in your opinion. Let me know in the comments.