A conversation on future-proofing UX design: Essential skills, scaling impact, and embracing AI
I shared insights on key skills for future-proofing design careers.
Recently, my colleague Kirill invited me to share tips for our design community in his design career podcast series internally in my company. As a senior UX designer with a computer science background working in a highly technical environment, here’s a summary of my key insights:
Key skills for future-proofing your design career:
User empathy: Ability to think from the user's perspective and advocate for user needs, especially crucial in technical environments where system capabilities often overshadow user needs.
Research skills: Leverage modern tools and methods to gather user insights - from testing platforms to field studies. The key is finding creative ways to understand your users.
Communication & collaboration: Learn to work effectively with large technical teams, build trust by learning their language, and find ways to scale your impact through frameworks and tools.
Pro tip: Embrace AI as a creativity enhancer rather than a threat. Use it to simulate stakeholder perspectives, refine frameworks, and handle repetitive tasks - allowing you to focus on more strategic work.
I like what Kirill said about designers vs. AI: Designers won't be replaced by AI, but by designers who know how to use AI effectively.
I got Kirill’s permission to adapt the podcast content in my blog. Here’s the full transcript with confidential information anonymized/generalized:
Kirill: What would you say are the top three skills that a designer should know? Especially thinking from the point of view of future-proofing ourselves - with all the new technology, what are these foundational skills that would benefit everyone?
Me: Here are some fundamental skills I can think of that are required for a designer to set yourself up for future success.
First, as a designer, you need to have user empathy and be able to think from the user's perspective. This is especially useful when working with a team of engineers, especially in a very engineering-focused culture, very technical area where I’m currently a part of. Often when people think about problems, they think about what the system will do, what the backend will do. But as a designer, you need to think about what the user wants to do. There's a phrase called "jobs to be done" - basically what task the user came to accomplish, why they "hired" your product. As designers, we stand for the user and bring this perspective to the team. That's what makes a designer valuable, especially in technical teams.
The second skill is research. In the early days, this was harder, but nowadays there are many tools. For example, usertesting.com can be used for testing prototypes or A/B tests, creating questionnaires for external or internal users, or conducting shadow studies. In my last company, we did "follow me home" studies where we followed business users to their offices to see how they communicate with customers. You'll learn there are many ways to do research and gather insights for your design process.
The third crucial skill is collaboration and communication. In my current team, at its peak, we had around 60 engineers, Software Development Managers, and Product Managers. As the only designer, I needed to figure out how to communicate efficiently with them. When I joined, I had a large-scope that needed to launch in six months, in an area I knew nothing about. I spent lots of time learning from my team, conducting workshops where people could share their knowledge, which I then consolidated into user journeys. I had to be proactive in communication, arrange time efficiently, and learn their technical language to build trust.
Kirill: Yeah, all the points completely resonate - empathy, research skills, and effective communication/collaboration. I really like your point about methods of scaling yourself and finding ways to scale your knowledge to make it self-serve. Because quite often you wouldn't be able to help with every single request, right?
Me: Yes, and communication can be challenging - it very much depends on the team. I think as long as you keep in mind that we're all here to drive a successful project, that generally pushes you in the right direction. I once had a team member whom I initially thought wasn't doing their work well and was blocking me. Later, I learned that their way of working was just different from my previous experience. Instead of fighting, I worked with my manager to find different ways to get the information I needed.
Sometimes as designers, we do more than just design - we put on project manager and product manager hats to unblock ourselves and move forward. For new designers especially, it can be harder to find solutions. But if we can recognize these situations and escalate to management or leadership for support, many managers want to help by finding different processes or solutions.
Kirill: Can you share any specific mechanisms, pro tips, or life hacks that have worked well for you?
Me: Yes, I can share how I managed to scale with those 60 engineers. Often people think UX designers only work on user interfaces, but there are different interfaces - APIs (Application Program Interface), CLI (Command Line Interface), and even JSON configuration experiences. In my team, many engineers work on backend configurations and workflows that still require user experience consideration.
I developed a framework based on ISO usability standards of effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction. I created scales for things like error-proneness, compatibility with existing workflows, and cognitive load. This is where AI can come in to help refine the framework and evaluate it from different perspectives. You can ask AI to roleplay as different stakeholders (product manager, engineer) to get feedback on your artifacts.
I share these frameworks in team meetings, get feedback, and offer office hours for questions. This helps scale my impact across multiple projects.
Kirill: That's an interesting tip about using AI to simulate different stakeholders. What AI tools do you use?
Me: Now we have internal AI tools to use for business purposes. For personal use, I like Claude AI. OpenAI's ChatGPT is probably the most popular tool. Just be careful not to include confidential information when using external AI tools - use internal tools for work-related tasks.
Kirill: Any final thoughts?
Me: My last tip for designers is about AI. While many people are scared of AI, I've found it triggers more creativity in me. This emphasizes the importance of being a lifelong learner. As AI takes over repetitive, laborious tasks, we as humans need to advance and get ahead. As designers representing the creativity side, we especially need to stay ahead and leverage AI as a tool to enable us to do more.
Kirill: I agree. I like the saying I saw online that designers won't be replaced by AI, they'll be replaced by another designer who uses AI. We can't ignore these tools - we need to learn how to use them to increase our efficiency and focus on more strategic work that AI cannot replace yet.
Me: I totally agree.
Kirill: Thank you. This was an amazing conversation. I loved all your insights and advice for our community. Thanks again for coming and wish you a wonderful day.
Me: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.