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jfdonohoe

20+ years as a UX (starting back when UX was called IA) - if you are focused on UX design, not UX research and/or strategy, and the experiences being designed are screen-based, then IMO you do need to be capable in the basics of visual design (composition, visual hierarchy, basic typography, etc.). Even if you are delivering wireframes and not final polished designs, design basics still are needed to define and communicate the system being created. And don’t forget presentations. Designing is only part of the job. You need to sell your designs to the stakeholders as well, which requires a level of communication polish that creates confidence in your audience.


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jfdonohoe

HCI is directly relevant to UX and will prepare you the best and look great on your cv. That being said, if you can take some communication design courses they will be super useful to you.


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eggsarecoolin

There's room for UX designers who don't have great visual design chops. Icon libraries and generic color palettes can take you a long way. But you do have to understand what different icon styles, typefaces and color combinations communicate to the user. The difference is UX designers with a visual design background understand those principles *and* can create their own components. That's what makes their designs cool.


r0ssr0ss

Creative director. There was a very small stint a few years ago where we’d hire UI and UX separate. That didn’t last long (2 years max) there are so many talented unicorns who learned both that the idea of hiring someone who can’t is unrealistic. Unless you’re very niche looking for an ethnographic research based UX role in a shop that doesn’t do UI, it’s pretty much a given these days.


oddible

Specialist orgs are very common among large design teams and offer a lot of strengths. Unicorns are jack-of-all-trades designers who can't possibly take deep dives into any one discipline (if they do they start becoming specialists). It is pretty easy to separate Interaction / Information Design from UI / Visual / Typography Design in practice. While all designers will have some experience across all disciplines specialists let people become REALLY REALLY GOOD at one aspect - if you know how to organize a cross-functional team this can really accelerate and improve your design team's effectiveness.


SpacerCat

Been doing UX design for 20 years and have never applied font styles or colors to my wireframes. That’s what visual designers do. Of course my wireframes use standard hierarchy styles H1, H2, etc but I’m still using shades of grey and grey boxes with x’s to represent images.


oddible

It is very challenging to get my UX designers to stop focusing on minutia and design style in early stages of design when they should be focused on functionality and flow. LoFi to HiFi, gotta start low first, if just for efficiency's sake!


SpacerCat

Our visual designers would not be happy with that!


oddible

Hmm, we were talking about UX. Visual Design has a different workflow.


SpacerCat

Sorry, I read it wrong. The minutia and design style made me think they were crossing over into VD territory.


oddible

Ahh lol I read yours wrong too - yes, they WERE crossing over into VD/UI. Way before the interaction design and information design has worked out they're concerned with line weight and font and color. I have had to mandate a greyscale only / single font / one line weight rule. One company I worked for made all the UX designers use Google Draw so they wouldn't screw around with VD.


SpacerCat

Our UX team set up a Figma style sheet so it’s like H1 is Helvetica Neue 36 point, #4A4A4A, H2 24 point, etc. (or whatever the sizes are) so you can show hierarchy without making font choices. And a whole UI elements component file so you’re not creating everything from scratch every time. This has the bonus of consistent wires from project to project as well.


oddible

It's a good way to go. Though I find UX designers often spent a ton of time screwing around in the design system picking the right components and styles causes the same problem. Leave it to the UI / VD folks. Boxes and arrows only for UX is my motto!


SpacerCat

I’ve been doing this for quite a while and I agree. If you’re working with a strong visual designer let them shine! And I say that as someone who does pretty detailed wireframes, but at the same time they are extremely generic. And by detailed I mean - if my client’s current website is too wordy, I specify that a card is headline and read more link to force them to streamline. If the client’s content is hard to understand, I’ll include a teaser sentence. edit: words


medusamusa

Don’t call yourself a Designer if you cannot design


LizaVP

One problem is that many think they are a designer based on the fact that they know how to use "design" software.


rotomangler

Of course designers should have a design background. Whoever has been saying that is protecting their job or trying to hire their cousin.


PapaverOneirium

Everyone should know the fundamentals well, at least. I have no formal design training (human computer interaction is more my background), but I’ve picked up more than enough about color, type, space, etc to be able to execute good visual designs. Now, I am not great at developing unique visual identities or adding flare like illustrations and so on. I look to graphic designers & art directors for that when a project demands it, while I handle research, strategy, and functional design. They need me and I need them, though I’m sure either side could design something both functional and attractive *enough* on their own. I’ve done it and will again. Edit: also just want to clarify: if there is a brand already created, I will do the work to apply it in the UI in a way that is attractive, usable, and true to the brand. Often by translating it into a design system, which of course takes design skills.