Do You REALLY Want to Be a Product Designer?

I am inconsistent as hell.

Seriously guys, I have been so busy with product design at work, so booked up with mentoring and coaching. I’m out here putting rubber to the road and my podcast and posts keep falling by the wayside. All I can do is help people the way I know how.

Whiteboard Challenges

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not necessarily best at doing whiteboard challenges myself. Not terrible, but not the best. But you know what I am good at? Coaching other people to do successful whiteboard challenges.

Sometimes coaches don’t make the best players, you know what I’m saying? And I’ve been getting in some good whiteboard challenge practice sessions with UXers. If you need help, I’m here for that! Not everyone is naturally talented at these challenges, but even if you think you are, practice can’t hurt.

UX Design vs. Product Design

Since I’m doing product design in my new workplace, let’s talk a little about the difference between UX designers and product designers.

I know I’ve said this before, but understanding the job title is a huge deal. I’m no mixer and matcher, like you see with some of these UI/UX Product Research Designers floating around on LinkedIn. I am not about that confusion!

So… what’s the difference between UX design and product design? I found an interesting article on this that I’m going to use for reference here, so check that out if you’re interested in digging deeper.

What a UX Designer Does

UX design is like a waterfall experience, and it’s not particularly agile. You gather your requirements, you do your research, you pull your data all for the purpose of designing good UX.

A UX designer is typically thinking about things like how to mitigate risk, how to make sure the real problems are being defined and addressed. It’s not about creating something completely new, it’s about gathering the requirements so you can make the right decisions.

It’s very upfront, because it has to be.

What a Product Designer Does

Product designers have to be way more agile than that, because you’re typically making a lot of small changes as quickly as you can. You’re basically taking whatever has already been created and trying to improve it.

So it’s still related to UX, but the stage that you come in at and the way that you’re implementing are very different and agile compared to UX design. You’re adjusting a predetermined product and experience.

My Experience So Far

So far, I can see it both ways. On the one hand, product design at a startup feels a lot like UX design in a lot of ways. It feels exactly the same sometimes.

One the other hand, I understand that the distinction matters. When there’s a product already in place, you’re going to get some qualitative and some quantitative data, and you’re going to use both to find a “why” behind the data. And the two different roles work on different things because of the different stages that product is in.

That said, this is a lot less cut and dry than the difference between UI and UX!

A Ride on the Struggle Bus

No matter how you slice it, this work can be tough. Product design isn’t just about product design. There can be office politics in play, stakeholders’ preferences can affect outcomes. Sometimes you have to fight for what you think will best serve the user, and sometimes you can’t get through even with the best data and the best reasons.

In other words, being a product designer buys you a nice subscription to the struggle bus.

There are moments in just about every job where you can’t do the job you were hired to do, right? Where some other factor means you aren’t actually supposed to do the thing that you’re   “supposed to do.” I’m not saying it makes sense, but it happens.

Even when people do try to put their opinions on the sidelines, there are days when you can talk until you're blue in the face about data and user analytics, but the person across from you just wants you to make the thing their way.

Maybe they’ve had a personal experience that’s coloring their perception, or they had an emotional response to an edgecase. Or maybe it’s nothing personal at all, just a trickle-down effect from something weird that a completely different department is dealing with.

Maybe that’s a good and bad thing about this job: anyone can learn to do this. And anyone who can learn to do this also has their own quirks and egos to deal with. So the sky’s the limit, but really people are the limit.

Why I Keep It Real

I’m not saying any of this to complain, but to hopefully open your eyes to the realities of actually working in this field. Bootcamps and courses won’t tell you the nitty-gritty, but I like to keep it real.

You can come into this field from just about any background, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good idea on an individual level! So you have to ask yourself the questions beforehand:

• Do you have relevant skills or a strong motivation to learn them?

• Are you a people person, and not just when they’re people who agree with you?

• Are you comfortable presenting and being persuasive?

• Can you keep processes on track so that you have deliverables ready on time?

• Can you make data-driven arguments?

I don’t want to just be a mockup monkey, which means I had to look for opportunities that gave me face-time with people, creative and hands-on time, plus that drive to advocate for the user. I’m comfortable with what that takes, and you have to be if you want that kind of work.

The flow, the micro-interactions, the information architecture… It's so much more than picking a color for buttons and calling it a day.

Motivation and Burnout

A word of advice: don’t get into product design for the money. Don’t get into product design just because you’re bored at your old job. And whatever you do, don’t get into product design if you’re an introvert!

Being a product designer means being resilient, and being able to take feelings out of the equation to find the objective best choice. You can’t get married to your design or its components. If your motivation is really product design and not ego-stroking, this is a lot easier to handle.

People burn out over all kinds of things these days, but you want to know my theory on burnout? I think that a lot of people burn out because they’re given a job but then basically told not to do the job. Kind of like “thus far, but no further.”

You have to guard against stressing out over those kinds of roadblocks. Instead of pulling your hair out over it, you have to do what you can.

Don’t Be a Bottleneck

Remember when I asked you earlier about if you can follow processes and make data-driven arguments? Here’s the dirty secret: sometimes you just don’t have time for any of that. Especially at startups.

Sometimes you have to go full-speed ahead so you don’t bog down someone else’s process, even if that means skipping data collection, and jumping around different steps in the “wrong” order. That’s just how it is. You have to avoid being a bottleneck.

In those situations, find out everything you can about the “why” so that you understand the motivation for jumping forward. The “why” can be your motivation even if the “how” sucks. In other words, understanding the why is what will help you avoid feeling like a low-level grunt worker stuck changing button colors because someone else said so.

Jiu-Jitsu Unicorns

I’m not a rainbow and butterflies kind of guy, okay? So I think of a lot of these issues from a fighting perspective. From a jiu-jitsu perspective. Maybe I’m a jiu-jitsu unicorn!

Anyway, when you fight you have to pick the best move for the moment. Maybe it’s not the most graceful thing, sometimes it might feel stupid. But you work with what you’ve got, on and off the mat.

So if you want to be a product designer, and hopefully an ugly unicorn:

• Stay calm when you can’t do core UX

• Avoid being a bottleneck

• Balance bad “how” with the best “why” that you can

And really, think long and hard about these concepts before you get into UX and product design.  It’s not all glitz and glamor. Sometimes even unicorns have a bad day. So make sure you really want this.