You don't have to be a unicorn

The year is 2025. What began as the omnipresent and utilitarian role of “Webmaster” is now a multitude of disciplines, spanning the separate-yet-related digital worlds of design, product, and user experience. This by itself isn’t a problem, but one unforeseen outcome we’ve observed is the industry making a mess of its own changing language, a game where no one wins.

Words – specifically words that communicate job roles and expertise – are now too frequently used without a full awareness for what they mean. Many companies advertise roles like UX/UI Designer or Product Designer only for the lucky hire to spend their days generating cost-per-click banners and A/B-test button copy. Some organisations have even gone so far as to do away with these distinctions altogether, for better or worse.

We want to clear up what all those job titles mean. Naturally, we can only speak for what they mean at Humaan, since other companies have their own internal terminology (you won’t find Disney “fungineers” here). But it might help to know we base our interpretations on:

• literal, common-sense meanings of terms like “designer” and “user interface”;

• the individual disciplines and their variations we’ve seen emerge across the industry since its inception; and

• what skills and qualifications are required to do well in a particular role.

What UX, UI and Product mean

User Experience (UX)

UX centers its efforts around research, exploration, usability and utility. It focuses on user context, experience and expectations; obstacles in the journey itself (both online and off); and finds the most intuitive and friction-free path to achieving an outcome.

In isolation, UX jobs sit along a spectrum, ranging from complex roles encompassing a range of UX sub-disciplines (eg. UX research, UX strategy, UX design) or deep-dive roles honing in on just one area of this domain.

Succeeding in a UX role: Empathy and objectivity are high on the list of required UX skills. Your work history should demonstrate your approach to problem identification and resolution, and show how your decisions stem from concrete evidence and research. Assumptions are the enemy in this field, since others will be relying on your conclusions in order to deliver a working result.

User Interface (UI)

A role labelled “UI” means you can expect to own the craft of the interface itself, and direct how coherently the design language and system come together. “UI design” differs from “UX design” in that UI covers what users see and interact with – it’s more wireframes than workflows, more aesthetics than architecture, and more usability than strategy.

Though still grounded in objective design and usability principles, designing for engagement is a subjective and creative discipline. UI design in a digital context is deeply connected to user interactivity – you’re not designing for a frozen moment in time (eg. a printed brochure), but a dynamic environment, experienced by people over time.

Succeeding in a UI role: Your work history needs to show your creative and visual design ability, and how you’ve pushed design boundaries beyond the basic ‘boxes for everything’ design pattern employed by interface design novices. It should also show design thinking and an awareness of how your work gets implemented by developers, particularly if your potential employer builds digital products more complex than static landing pages.

Product

Product roles are broadly concerned with rationalising the features of a product and the problems they address. They align customer needs with business goals, ensuring the right solution is built for the right audience to maximise product impact.

Frustratingly, the term “product” is susceptible to semantic drift, since it can refer to a specific remit (a website, an app) or an abstract concept (the branded entity delivered to a customer). As a result, what we often see are skilled product strategists incorrectly applying for UX Lead roles, or design professionals mistakenly applying for Product Owner roles, with all parties walking away unsatisfied.

Succeeding in a Product role: Product applicants need to demonstrate good planning, commercial acumen, feature and function prioritisation, and realistic decision-making within constraints and compromise. A good dose of cognitive flexibility and organisation goes a long way here, since you will ultimately be the accountable stakeholder in the eyes of the client.

What “unicorn” (ie. generalist) roles entail

Some teams genuinely need a generalist (aka. “unicorn”), so it helps to understand the reality of what’s involved to determine if this position is for you. Where UX, UI and Product overlap is just as important as where they diverge:

UX and UI

UX and UI are the most conflated disciplines, mainly due to UI being a facet of UX (but it’s a big enough facet to deserve its own category of experience and study), and what concerns one usually in some way concerns the other. UX and UI, for example, are both interested in layout and presentation of interface functions, since poor UI design work will negatively impact UX outcomes.

A combined UX/UI role will need you to be people oriented as well as technically savvy, think big as well as small, and switch frequently between left-brained and right-brained tasks on any given day.

UX and Product

UX and Product tend to overlap on problem definition and resolution, identifying key issues faced by users, and determining viable paths to success for both organisation and customer.

A combined UX/Product role is almost always strategic and organisational, with high research and planning needs, lots of face time with the people involved in a project, and little to no hands on tools.

UI and Product

UI and Product share concerns around design feasibility and impact, as UI design work is the last milestone before technical implementation.

A combined UI/Product role means you’re the bearer of heavy-handed reality checks, ensuring that a beautiful and aspirational design can actually be built and will hold up over time.

What generalists and specialists should keep in mind

• UI Designers should proceed with caution if no one asks to see a portfolio. The potential employer in question is unlikely to be wanting you for your design skills, and may not offer the kind of work or conditions that keep you interested for long.

• UX work presented without evidence or rationale is opinion masquerading as fact. Polished design is not a substitute for well-founded planning. Representing an appreciation for this in UX job applications will get you ahead of the pack.

• Product Manager is not the same as Project Manager. While the two roles are related, product management is about realising value, while project management is about coordinating project delivery. Understanding the jobs you’re applying for will ensure you’re a better fit for the job you land.

• Good design is different from a good user experience, and usability should set the constraints for UI Designers (and never the other way around). In the words of veteran designer Mike Monteiro, “We need to fear the consequences of our work more than we love the cleverness of our ideas.”

• Entry level UX, UI or Product professionals should consider the “generalist” tag a red flag. Even with a natural inclination to generalist work, the overwhelming expectations of a multidisciplinary role is a fast-track to burnout for juniors. The one exception would be if you’re transitioning from a related field or industry (eg. a developer transitioning to UI design) – depending on the nature of your experience, you may have demonstrated enough capability to hit the ground running in your new career.

Legends in the real world

You’ll hear a lot about “what companies are looking for”, but in reality both generalists and specialists bring legitimate value to digital work. Industry juniors, frustrated jobseekers, and employers alike would get better results from understanding the terminology and honing their criteria for a good fit.

Fundamentally, Humaan see the UX, UI and Product capacities as quite different, and while we have people in our team who work capably across multiple roles, we remain aware of the distinct capabilities required in each lane.

Humaan values specialist depth with a willingness to collaborate with other specialists, but we recognise a generalist with deep expertise across many disciplines when we see one 🦄

And when we don’t see one, we hope instead to find someone who knows their strengths and can be honest about their weaknesses – a sure sign of a good hire in the making.