What I've learned about UX/UI: conversation with TJ Harrop, Strategic Designer

I recently had the pleasure to catch up with TJ Harrop, an exceptional Service Designer and Strategic Designer within the digital space that I recruit for. Not coming from a User Experience background, it can be quite challenging to learn about the industry due to its varying language, processes and tools. . However, an opportunity to speak with  specialists like this is a great way for me to learn more about the industry that I recruit for.

It doesn’t take just a day to learn all the core things about UX/UI at an in-depth level. There is a great amount of depth, history and practices to UX/UI that one needs to learn to achieve the best understanding of the industry. Therefore, in this catch-up, I aimed to cover some areas that would be most beneficial to me as a recruiter to get a better general overview on  the industry.

I had always found it difficult to identify the difference between Service Design and UX Design. TJ used his experience on a Digital Driver License project as an example to explain this to me. His views were:

• UX Design looks at the touch points of when you are already on the website to apply for the license and how you are going to navigate the website to apply. 
• Meanwhile, Service Design looks at anything from how much the organisation should charge the user for this digital driver licence, why that price, how the organisations are going to process these applications, if they are processing them quickly enough or why they are not processing them quickly enough, etc.

In my view, if I was to describe it in a simpler version, Service Design is the iceberg and UX Design is a tip of it.

I also found it strange that a lot of my clients hire User Researcher, Service Designer, User Experience Designer roles in separate capacities. I always thought that it would make more sense for the one person to be able to perform all these tasks instead of having a multidisciplinary team of User Researcher, Interaction Designer, Service Designer. TJ pointed to me that it is not uncommon to have one specialist perform all these tasks but there could be a gap between these skills. That is the reason why multidisciplinary teams are created so that each specialist could focus on an area that they are strongest in. 

As a recruiter, I have spoken to several candidates who are looking to make a move from their industry to UX/UI and a great portion of those candidates are Business Analysts. I brought this up during our chat and TJ believed that Business Analysts are in a great position to move into UX/UI since there are a lot of transferable skills between the 2 roles. I do agree with TJ but I would also like to emphasize that you need to be willing to take a step back when transitioning from an industry to UX/UI. For example, being a senior BA doesn’t qualify you to be a senior Service Designer straightaway. ‘Transferable’ isn’t equal to ‘having’ the skills. Transferable simply means that existing skills will place you in a position of advantage to pick up the new skills that you don’t currently have. For example, as a Business Analyst, you would have developed your communication skills when engaging with stakeholders. Having good communication skills is one of the key requirements in a User Experience role. This is also something that I’ve always tried to get across candidates without being disrespectful. 

I am always open to having more conversations about this space to find the most suitable candidates for my clients and also find the right job for my candidates. Do you agree or disagree with what I have said in this post? Also, I would love to get your views on these:

- Do you think the industry needs divided specialisation, or can all roles be performed by one specialist?

- Do you think having transferable skills means you are ready to jump into one of these roles, or do they need additional training?

The best thing about working remotely is that it is so easy to catch up with people now so please feel free to get in touch and we can have a virtual coffee if you like!