Being a UX designer is a challenging job. In fact being a designer of any kind is challenging. Sometimes I ask myself why I didn’t just pick something less complicated, less demanding (many designers have felt this way at some point, but here we all are). There are many skills which we need to master and the list is always growing. Competition is fierce and so many talented people are transitioning into the field of UX design.

So how do you set yourself apart? Being competent in Figma and knowing how to do user research are examples of hard skills required for a UX designer, and with practice anyone can become better at these. Having worked as a designer for ten years now (as an architect and a UX designer), I’ve worked with lots of different people from different cultures, backgrounds and at different phases in their career. Those who set themselves apart and were good at their job often had skills in addition to those required of them in order to be competent at their job.

The list below is of soft skills that I’ve noted in other people who have inspired me, and which I’ve tried to emulate and improve upon in my own career. They might all seem obvious, but it’s surprising how many people lack some of these soft skills or are just not very good at practicing them.

1. Listening

As UX designers, we need to figure out what our users need, what would make their lives easier. This means actually listening, and listening out for the things they don’t say too. A lot of the time, and I’ve been guilty of this too, while someone is talking I tend to think of how to respond or what my next question will be. But this means I’m not fully focusing on what the person is saying. I have to make a conscious effort to bring myself back into the moment rather than thinking ahead.

Good listeners give you their full attention and make you feel like you’re been heard; they are not distracted by other things such as what’s on their screen or the environment around them. They ask follow up question to what you said, and the conversation feels more natural.

2. Take notes of everything

I have a terrible short-term memory. I often forget things said to me just a few minutes ago, not because I wasn’t listening at the time, but because I struggle to recall all the details. That’s why over years of working, I’ve made it a habit to take notes of important points in all meetings. In my early career I was responsible for taking minutes of meetings, so this meant I often recorded the meeting because all talking points and decisions had to be noted and it is impossible to write down every word, especially when there are several people at the meeting.

User testing and usability testing sessions often require us to record the session, because we need to go back and analyse what was said and how people responded. But you’re obviously not going to record every standup meeting you have; that’s why note taking should become a habit. It’s saved me a few times when I’ve jotted down a decision which was made and I can refer to it later, or I can remind someone of what was said in a particular meeting if they want to change their mind later (which often happens).

It’s good practice to take notes and have a record of important decisions. This will make you seem organised and will help to keep track of everything. Sharing your notes is also a good idea, for example if you just had a design discussion with a team mate, include comments in your design file so that there is a record of it, or share the individual note file with the people who were in the meeting.

3. Be a better collaborator

Everyone can say they work well as part of a team; it’s a requirement for every role and so people will say that they’re good at working as part of a team. While this should be a given, I’ve worked in teams where we all worked really well together and met our goals, but I’ve also worked in teams where the collaboration wasn’t so good. So what sets the two apart?

In most cases, it wasn’t how friendly or close we were, it was whether we all agreed on the same goals.

In the team which worked really well, we all knew exactly what the goal was and what everyone’s role was going to be; we supported each other and made sure that if one person had too much to do, then the others would pitch in and help.

In the case where the team couldn’t work together, the overarching problem was that everyone had a different idea about what the goal was and what their roles and responsibilities were. The distribution of work was not even, which meant that some people had an unrealistic amount of work to do while others did not have enough. This caused tension between team members, and communication went out the window. Needless to say the goals were not met and people blamed each other, they blamed the person managing the team; but no one held themselves responsible.

Being a team player doesn’t mean you have to be friends with your team members. Building friendships and having a good camaraderie at work is a great bonus and I’ve met some of my closest friends at work; but there have also been times when I haven’t seen eye-to-eye with a colleague or have disagreed with their behaviour at work. Handling this in a professional way means keeping emotion and ego at bay. You won’t get along with everyone and sometimes they’ll disagree with your ideas, and that’s ok. At the end of the day you have a job to do together and that is something that you have in common.

4. Be humble and assume that you don’t know everything

When I began working as a UX designer, I was new to the field, so I just assumed that my team mates knew more than I did because they’d been working in their roles for several years. I therefore listened to their advice, asked questions (even if I was sure to sound stupid) and tried to learn as quickly as I could. This strategy worked for me and after some time I felt like while I still didn’t know everything I should, I did bring value to the team and my team mates trusted me.

The good thing about being new to a field or being a junior is that you are always motivated to learn (at least you should be.) You make an effort to understand things and you question things too. Maybe you even find a better way to do something. It’s been my experience that people who call themselves experts in a field or topic tend to be set in their ways. They had success in the past with something and so they try to replicate that, but maybe there’s a better way or times have simply changed.

Things move fast in tech, so there’s always something new to learn. This means that whether you have 6 months of experience or 16 years, you always have to adapt and learn new ways of doing things. Which brings me to the next point on this list.

5. Be flexible and open to learning new things

Joining a start-up meant not only doubling up as the UX and UI designer, but also doing tasks which weren’t part of what I understood to be my job description. While I feel confident enough to say when I don’t feel comfortable taking on a task because it is not something that is within my skillset (for example, designing a new logo — I’ll be the first to admit that I’m hopeless at this), there are other tasks which even though I felt like were not in my job description, it could be something that I learn and maybe even enjoy doing. Two examples are:

• One such skill I’ve recently started working on is to create 3D illustrations and animations for our designs at work. While this would be a nice addition, I also found myself really enjoying it and it felt familiar because in my previous job as an architect, I often had to do 3D models. It was only a matter of doing some research and finding the right software to use (of which there are plenty of good options, which didn’t exist a few years ago).
• Another such skill is coding; this wasn’t something that was required of me at work, but rather something that I felt I should know more about in order to collaborate better with developers. With so many resources online to teach yourself, it became a fun challenge to take up and keep working on.

If you approach it with an open mind and willingness to learn, it can be meaningful but also fun to learn new skills, and will definitely look good on your resume.

6. Ask more questions

Ask more questions of your users, your team, question assumptions, about why you’re doing something or if there is a better way to do it. I don’t know how many times I’ve asked a question and begun with the term

“This might be a stupid question, but…”

I actively try not to say this anymore, because a lot of the time it’s led to the realisation that the people in the room also had the same question but didn’t want to ask because they also thought they might look stupid. Asking questions shows engagement and that you’re actively trying to understand something. It’s better to sound stupid (which you won’t) than it is to walk away and not know what to do or what the expectation is.

Sometimes it can be viewed as negative if you don’t ask any questions at all. such as when a candidate in an interview doesn’t ask any follow-up questions to get to know more about the company; or if I hand over a design to the developers and they don’t ask any questions, it either means that I’ve done my job so perfectly and I’ve covered everything there possibly is to cover (which never happens, although I always strive for this scenario) or they just haven’t looked into it enough yet. They always come back with questions and I’ve learnt so much from follow-up questions to my designs.

7. Learn from constructive criticism

As designers, getting feedback about our designs is a crucial part of our process. Getting feedback from users is a must, but often your team and stakeholders will also give you feedback, which can sometimes feel like a criticism. The trick is to differentiate between constructive criticism and subjective opinions.

When criticism is constructive, it is aimed at providing a more positive outcome for the project and making it better for the users, rather than being about changing things to appeal more to one individual. For example, if someone says:

“I don’t like this shade of blue you’ve used”

That’s subjective; but if they say:

“I think this shade of blue may be too low in contrast against the white background, so maybe we should use a darker shade”

That is actually constructive. Especially more so if more than one person shares the same feedback.

This might all seem obvious, but I’ve worked with several people who couldn’t handle negative feedback. They got defensive and argumentative, which tends to look unprofessional. In the beginning of my career I had a situation where my boss took me aside and told me that while my work was satisfactory, more effort was required on my part. My first internal reaction was to get defensive and feel like quitting, but once I got over the initial feeling I was more determined than ever to do better. My work visibly improved and I never got another negative review.

Remember that criticism about something you design is not criticism about you; it’s easy to take any criticism about your work as a sign that you’re being criticised personally and immediately get defensive. That is also not to say that you shouldn’t defend your decisions when someone disagrees or challenges you, but do so with research and data to show where your decisions are coming from; this makes your work way more compelling and convincing.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! This topic has been written about extensively, so I’ve tried to relate it to my own experiences.