Looking for a well-paying and sought-after design career?
Here are a few UI/UX occupations you might want to look into.
For most designers seeking a challenge, specialization is the next step after learning UI/UX fundamentals. However, selecting a specialist area can be difficult for many designers, just as selecting the appropriate tech sector.
Furthermore, significant expertise in a variety of design domains is necessary to advance your career in the right way. You will then be well-equipped to select the career path for UI/UX that is suitable for you. In light of this, this post goes through some of the best UI/UX occupations you may choose from and what they entail.
Designer of products
You might wonder how UI/UX design differs from product design because the two terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Although they are comparable, a product designer’s duties are much more extensive.
Several elements and tactics need to be used in order to properly build a product. These plans are created by product designers, who also supervise all phases of a product’s development, from concept to branding to presentation.
Naturally, this also involves its appearance and usability, but unlike UI/UX designers, a product designer ensures the success of the product on all fronts. You may produce extraordinary products that satisfy consumer, organizational, and market needs by fusing product design with essential UI/UX skills.
Along with UI/UX expertise, product design necessitates project management knowledge and market insight to forecast consumer behavior. You must be able to explain how your product functions and have solid technical knowledge of how it operates.
According to ZipRecruiter, these demanding prerequisites are necessary to receive a salary that is commensurate with the average yearly wage in the United States, which is $138,874. Remember that your geography, employer, and experience—which is most important—all affect these numbers.
Designing Interactions
Have you ever used an app or website that left you speechless and amazed? An interface designer’s duty is to elicit this response from any user, so if you appreciate creating for the user experience in particular, think about applying for this position.
By concentrating on creating an immersive, highly interactive product, interaction designers enhance the user experience of digital products. Working in this industry entails maximizing the product’s usefulness and feedback by utilizing features like animation and haptics to fully engage the consumer.
Impressive micro-interaction features require a great deal of attention to detail. Additionally, a thorough understanding of user flow and user-centered design is required. Let’s now discuss your anticipated income. According to ZipRecruiter, the average yearly salary for interface designers in the US is $105,510.
A data architect
Regardless of the caliber of its graphics, a good design must communicate information effectively or its goal will be unsuccessful. Information architects make sure that a design’s message is clear and succinct and that there is no redundant information or distracting aspects.
Because the average user has a limited attention span, information architects organize content such that important information is presented first, followed by less important information. In order to maximize customer pleasure, you will also choose the arrangement of all visual elements and the sequence in which information is displayed on a product. Every information architect needs to be proficient in content hierarchy.
Basically, this position requires skill in taxonomy, labeling, and information organizing. You’ll also need strong teamwork abilities to cooperate effectively with the UI designer. According to ZipRecruiter, this position pays an average of $119,368 a year in the US, with experts earning up to $175,000.
Interaction Designer
If you enjoy the creative design process, this is the most well-known aspect of UI/UX design and is the ideal option for you. The software’s graphics and look are planned and created by these experts, also known as user interface (UI) designers. It entails utilizing color theory, typography, and other design components to create visually pleasant websites, just like with basic UI/UX design.
So what distinguishes you from UI designers at the entry-level and mid-level? Your duties as a professional interface designer go beyond creating layouts since you must also take usability and user preferences into account.
Additionally, it’s your responsibility to make sure that the inputs from the interaction designer and UX analyst flow seamlessly into your final design.
The average US interface designer makes about $106,351 a year, according to ZipRecruiter. In any case, you can always strive for IT conglomerates because they pay significantly more.
UX Author
Many landing pages use clear, persuading content to provide you with a quick overview of the digital goods. The information architects are primarily responsible for organizing these texts, but the UX writer is in charge of creating them.
All written material as well as product interface warnings are the responsibility of UX writers. UX writers carefully select content for headers, copy, and descriptions in order to improve comprehension and communication without detracting from the aesthetic of the product. This position requires content and copywriting, unlike other design specializations, thus improving your writing abilities is crucial.
The average salary for this position in the US is $80,647 per year, according to ZipRecruiter. However, with better value and location, you may command up to $138,000.
UX Strategist
A product that is designed without paying close attention to the people and anticipating their needs is likely to fall flat with them. So who defends the business’s interests while also speaking for the user? Here, the UX strategist enters the picture.
If you specialize in UX strategy, your primary responsibility is doing user research and serving as a liaison between the user and the designer. In this case, you carefully examine potential product consumers, highlighting their issues and recommending adopting your product as a solution.
Before, we learned how product strategists create product designs, raising the query, “Are these roles similar?” The quick response is no. UX strategists just concentrate on improving the user experience, unlike product designers who are primarily concerned with the complete product. According to ZipRecruiter, this position brings in an average salary of $136,412 a year.
UX Specialist
Although a beautiful interface and an unusual interaction design may catch users’ attention for a short while, the usability of the product ultimately wins them over. A product that people find challenging to operate typically frustrates them and eventually becomes outdated.
A UX analyst’s job is to stop this from happening. With the usability strategist’s suggestions and notes in hand, this expert guarantees their application and user-friendliness. Additionally, if you accept this position, you’ll be in charge of soliciting and putting into practice criticism.
You’ll need to hone your iteration, usability testing tool, and empathy skills to handle these duties. Finally, according to ZipRecruiter, the average yearly salary for UX analysts in the US is $111,497.
A strategist for accessibility
Disabled individuals should also have simple access to software and digital items thanks to certain provisions. You ensure that persons with impairments have a great user experience as an accessibility strategist.
Accessibility strategists routinely solicit feedback and iterate the product, much like UX analysts, but with a laser-like emphasis on making it suitable for persons with disabilities. More significantly, you must strictly abide by all existing rules and regulations pertaining to disabilities.
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) ratio are two examples. Accessibility strategist salaries in the US range from roughly $72,577 to $112,500 yearly, according to ZipRecruiter.
UI/UX Career Advancement Through Specialization
A fantastic method to improve your knowledge, UI/UX skills, and income is to specialize in one of the aforementioned professions. However, before entering any of these sectors, be sure to strengthen your grounding in fundamental UI/UX design and gain the necessary technical proficiency. If you don’t, you’ll end up squeezing air out of a hole and extending the time it takes to specialize.
