Becoming a Product designer: requirements

Becoming a Product designer: requirements
From my personal point of view - Alex Muench

  • Strong visual design skills, being able to create aesthetically pleasing interfaces
  • Crafting experiences – understanding user needs, how to translate them into product design decisions
  • Attention to detail in everything you do
  • Iterative design and development process: The temporary solution might be the permanent one: Knowing when to make compromises and making thought through decisions that benefit the business and the user
  • You understand how to identify a problem and know how to solve it with a designed solution
  • Being able to create product roadmaps
  • Knowing when to respect platform conventions, when to design something new
  • Knowing how to apply given styles to a product to keep the experience, look and feel and brand familiar on the platform but also consistent between platforms
  • Visual design and Editorial design knowledge: How to apply typography, building layouts, visual hierarchy, the use of color
  • Ability to be able to form, prototype and confidently present ideas
  • Always interested in ways to help others make their work easier – solution oriented mindset
  • Knowing the worth of UX copy and how it can be applied
  • Being able to work with UX copy writers, guide them into the right direction of what your design needs that is concise and reaching the goal
  • Knowing the use of illustration, collaborating within a design team: Encouraging others, supporting their ideas, moving forward as a team
  • Experience in marketing design (branding, web design, how to marketing a product or feature and present it on various channels)
  • End to end user flow thinking: You don’t create screens and a simple user flow, you need to know the whole context, where the user is coming from, their emotional state, what tasks they want to accomplish and how they should get there in an intuitive manner
  • Know the worth of transitions, animations, tap targets, tap/click/hover states: For engaging experiences
  • Get familiar with user research practices like user interviews, how to filter out needs and turn these into design solutions
  • Accessibility knowledge: What is important when using colors in a product, how do people navigate through a product (keyboard shortcuts?), How does contrast work?, who is using your product? (including color blind people?)
  • Knowing how to give specific and productive feedback and design critiques – good resource: http://howtocrit.com
  • Being able to work inside a team, because you will always have to communicate your designs to a developer who brings your work to life
  • Basic understanding of other disciplines in the field
  • Knowing how to prioritize your work and communicate your deisgn reasonings and decisions
  • Be kind, thoughtful, communicative and show empathy.

Bonus:
  • Icon work knowledge: More associated to visual designers, but a plus if available
  • Knowledge of HTML, CSS and GIT to emphasize with the work of developers, it will help you and them to find the best solutions
  • Leadership qualities: How to communicate between different teams, following up, guiding them to the goals, setting deadlines, leading large-scale projects
  • Experience 3D design, coding, people management, the whole business