Product Designer VS UX Designer：Which One You Prefer To Be?

So, to clear the air, in principle — yes, UX Designer and Product Manager could be the same person, as long as he or she has the right skill set, experience and time for the two roles. You need to make clear a problem first. What degree do you need to be a product designer? UX Designer Focus on Two Aspects. Focus on users’ needs and use the data they collect to design a product. Find the solution to all problems while having in mind both business objectives and the users’ needs. As we mentioned before, UX designers’ main concern is to elaborate on the users’ feelings towards the product. And, thus, the evolution of designers’ roles following the ecosystem. The most successful projects use the following model: create a product — get feedback from users — make improvements based on the feedback received. A product designer is indispensable for the projects focused on the highest quality.

I personally have been dragged into projects whereas as a UX Designer I was put in the role of a Product Manager in less than a week, “Now-you-lead-the-product” kind of situation. It seems that in the last few years Product Manager and UX Designer have become interchangeable roles in many organizations and start-ups. While a product designer must also focus on the needs of the business, a UX designer’s primary focus is making users happy. They must take into consideration the needs of both the business and the consumer. Product Designers must have knowledge of multiple disciplines and diverse experience in both UX design and User Interfaces (UI) design. A lot of them are similar, like Interaction and UI design, Visual design, UX design, user research, and user testing; but the different approach each of role use requires some different range of the skills and tools, so let’s focus on them. You can freely switch interface design and prototype interaction. Take part in or supervise the prototype design of new products. There is a thin line between UX Design vs. Concerning the tools, they both apply, there are plenty of similarities as they use the same design software and prototyping tools but some of them are still different.

Which are the different tools and skills they apply? As product designers are decision-makers during the design process, they need skills such as user research, research/data analysis. If you wish to choose either of them as your career, the salary is one of the key factors you need to think about. According to Glassdoor, the national average base salary for a product designer is $106,766. Product Manager vs UX Designer — what’s the difference? What’s the difference between product designers and UX designers? You might wonder then what does a Product Designer do? Product Designer VS UX designer: What Are Their Focus? If you have a design team, the product designer will work closely with them over the whole history of the product. The answers to this question will define the impact of their design efforts. Being able to write code, solve problems efficiently, and manage a team will also give you a competitive edge in the job market.

To be completely honest, I believe that for early-stage startups the product manager role could easily be split between the founder and the UXer, each of them being responsible for specific parts of the project. Imagine we split a product development process into 2 main parts — user and business, then the UX designer is dealing more with the user, while the product manager is dealing more with the business part, BUT they always meet in between and sometimes even overlap. I believe that in reality, this could only happen if this person is entirely dedicated to the product, they perfectly understand the business objectives, the market, the end-user, the rest of the team, and at the same time, they have a deep UX knowledge and experience. In my experience of job hunting, job descriptions of design roles, and research about the design field, the minimum educational qualification of a product designer is a Master’s degree or higher.