10 things that make a bad UX designer

What makes a good Experience Designer?

In every trade, you’ve got the good and the bad eggs. Many factors come into play, from soft skills to hard work, from a solid theoretical background to extensive experience and peer-recognition, and maybe even charisma.
While the question opens a realm of debates and considerations, here are 10 things you should avoid doing if you want to be relevant in the UX space:

1. You think you know better

Better than your team, better than your peers, and even sometimes better than the users. All the knowledge in the world cannot beat a humble approach based on empathy, observation and communication. Every time. Start listening again!

2. You apply the same recipes over and over

Products and technologies change, the users’ knowledge and behaviour evolve constantly. What worked in one context will not in the next. You cannot afford to settle down. Learn, be curious and take risks!

3. You stay in your box

While UXD is cross-discipline, you make it a silo by not paying attention to other fields (adjacent or not). Talk with developers, mingle with the marketing team, build bridges, try and understand others’ challenges and how to involve them in the design process. UX is everybody’s problem. Even if it’s your responsibility.

4. You want to keep it obscure

You try and make UX some blurry field of expertise rather than democratise it. Good UX has to be shared, taught and activated. Of course, it has complex intricacies, but for a design culture to be established, you need to stop saying “no one understands it”, and start getting everyone on board with it. There’s no hiding your game.

5. You agree with the loudest person in the room

Strong-headed and vocal doesn’t mean right. As a facilitator, your duty is to make everyone’s voice heard in the design process. There are various design thinking methods that can help you achieve that. When written on post-its, opinions are equalised and free from bias.

6. You base your work on unverified assumptions

You create personas from your own imagination, journeys from what you think make sense. Starting from an assumption is not a bad thing, but you need to validate it early. Hint: Talk to your users!

7. You go with the flow

Don’t just follow a process because you were asked to. It is your duty to question things. You have to constantly push back, asking yourself and everyone around you «why». Why do we need that feature? Do we actually? What value does it bring?

8. You refuse to compromise

Exactly the opposite of the previous point!

Teamwork means a certain level of compromise. For things to move forward you sometimes need to push some of your recommendations, ideas or designs aside. If you feel the decision-makers are making a mistake, express it clearly, but if they don’t listen to you, swallow your pride and keep working with the team towards a common goal.

9. You act before you think

You rush to wireframes, jump straight to prototyping, and it’s all the tight deadlines’ fault. Stop and rewind: Think, plan and collaborate. Producing output feels like getting stuff done, but being efficient means a lot of thinking before the doing takes place.

10. You like to be the center of attention

We all like to come up with the genius idea and save the day. But it’s not about us! It’s about the user, it’s about the project, it’s about the team. Take a step back. Make other people look good. Encourage, highlight, and get the best out of people around you.

What do you think? What are the other pitfalls of UX Designers? Use the comments section below to share your thoughts.