UX Designer: what he does and how much he earns

UX Designer: what do you do?

The job of the UX Designer is to ensure that the user has an optimal browsing experience on a company or organization’s web page. Unclear and non-flowing navigation increases the likelihood that the user will abandon the page and, consequently, decreases the likelihood of page conversions.

The User Experience Designer is primarily concerned with research. To provide the user with a positive browsing experience, the UX Designer must know what the user is looking for. It needs to know his behavior, his needs, and what makes him land on the specific web pages. All of this information can be acquired through analysis and particular insights received, for example, through surveys, user interviews, focus groups, and forums.

Based on the data collected in the research phase, the UX Designer creates thearchitecture of the site or application. By “architecture” we mean structure, or what allows the user to understand where they are within the site and how they can locate the information they are looking for on the page.

Once the architecture and navigation scheme have been designed, the practitioner proceeds with the design of wireframes, or architectural models that represent the skeleton underlying the interface.

This is followed by the prototyping phase with a specific design, which the UX Designer can present to the client or business management and which-being clickable-serves as also to test its operation.

The final phase is precisely the testing phase: the user is asked to interact with the prototype so that he or she can analyze its accessibility, usability, and intuitiveness. Once the test is passed, the website or application is brought online.

Thus, there are many aspects that the UX Designer is concerned with:

competitor analysis;

user research;

site architecture/app;

content development;

prototyping and wireframing;

test;

Coordination with the UI Designer (the one who designs the interface of a site or application) and developers.

Whether designing new sites or apps, adding new features or making user experience optimizations to existing platforms, the main goal of UX Design always remains to build a useful and functional navigation flow for the user.

At the same time, the UX Designer has to make sure that the product meets the company’s needs, is in line with its vision, and can help increase revenue and consumer loyalty.

What to study to become a UX Designer?

In Italy, to date, a degree in UX Design does not exist. Often those who choose to do this work have a background in Digital Marketing,Computer Science or Design, but they also have humanities backgrounds in Psychology, Semiotics or Cognitive Ergonomics.

Indeed, his is a person-oriented approach, which is why empathy is among the soft skills he must have.

To become a UX Designer, it is essential to have technical knowledge (from data analysis to wireframe design), but also precise soft skills: adaptability, communication, empathy, problem-solving and teamwork skills.

What is the salary of the UX designer? In Italy, the compensation of an entry-level UX Designer is about 24,000 euros gross per year, while more experienced professionals can exceed even 60,000 euros in RAL.