What Is a UX Designer?

Have you ever clicked away from a website that wasn’t responsive enough? Maybe it was disorganized or visually overwhelming, or perhaps it wasn’t optimized for your mobile device. Regardless of the reason you found the site difficult to use, you probably won’t want to return to it anytime soon.

User experience (UX) designers take the struggle out of websites and digital products. They’re responsible for ensuring the end result is streamlined, user-friendly, and polished. 

If you’ve got an eye for detail, enjoy problem-solving, and have a strong sense of empathy and curiosity for the needs and experiences of others, a career in UX design might be what you’re looking for.

What Does a UX Designer Do?

UX designers create digital experiences that provide user-friendly interactions and help users effectively solve their problems. Their work centers on making interactions simple, intuitive, and tailored to meet users’ needs. As a UX designer, you might:

• Craft user-centric strategy. Designers ensure that user needs and business goals work together seamlessly to inform a holistic strategy and create the most impactful product solutions.
• Conduct user and competitive research. Research is essential for identifying and understanding user needs, behaviors, and how competitors address similar challenges. This can involve data analysis, as well as interactive methods like surveys and interviews with end users.
• Build wireframes. Wireframes are simple website mockups. They set the framework for the website’s outline and functionality to allow for testing.
• Create interactive prototypes. Interactive prototypes allow further testing and experimentation with potential designs.
• Collaborate with product partners, engineers, and a variety of other stakeholders. UX designers work with several key team members to ensure the end site is functional, accurate, and effective.

Although UX designers create visually appealing designs and bring products to life, their role goes much deeper. They play an active part in strategic planning, lead brainstorming sessions, facilitate workshops, and work closely with stakeholders to ensure design decisions align with both user needs and business objectives.

As fulfilling as this career can be, it’s not always easy. UX designers face several common challenges that can bring their progress to a grinding halt, including:

• Needing to balance user experience with business goals during the design process
• Working under tight turnaround times, technical constraints, and within scope requirements
• Having limited access to valuable or useful data before beginning a project
• Communicating and defending design decisions to non-designer audiences
• Manage stakeholders and work across teams with varying priorities to help uncover and clarify the underlying problems

Check out our top-rated UX design courses today. 

Essential Skills for a UX Designer

Successful UX designers need an impressive collection of skills to set themselves apart from the competition. Fortunately, many of these skills can be developed with time, practice, and training. If you’re interested in a career as a UX designer, you need competence in:

• Empathetic thinking. Because UX designers ensure a site is usable, they need to understand what users want.
• Proficiency in design tools and digital platforms. UX designers routinely use tools such as Figma, Sketch, and Adobe XD in tandem with developers. They need to have some proficiency in the programs used on their projects. They also must have familiarity with a variety of digital platforms including apps, websites, emails, wearable devices, etc.
• Understanding interaction design. While UX designers don’t typically code and develop websites from the ground up, they play a key role in the design and interface. They need to understand interaction design, which emphasizes how users interact with the website.
• Usability testing and research skills. Usability testing allows UX designers to improve website iterations by seeing how average users interact. It reveals areas that are intuitive — and those that aren’t. Through research and testing, UX designers can strengthen the usability of a website.
• Understanding information architecture and content hierarchies. Information architecture involves organizing and structuring a website’s content so it’s logical and easy to navigate. Effective digital experiences use clear content hierarchies and systems thinking to help users find what they need quickly, often in just a few clicks.
• Strong systems thinking. Systems thinking helps designers understand how different parts of a product or organization interact, enabling them to create scalable and feasible solutions that work well within the larger ecosystem. This approach ensures designs can grow and adapt without causing unintended issues.
• Soft skills. Key soft skills include collaboration, facilitation, communication, and creative problem-solving as a team. 

Git offers several UX design courses centered around creating intuitive digital products and websites.

How to Become a UX Designer

While becoming a UX designer requires dedication and the right skill set, a degree isn’t necessary to land a position. You don’t even need to know how to code. Degrees and coding experience can be helpful, but many successful UX designers have taken nontraditional paths.

Follow these tips to get started:

• Take foundational courses in UX principles: Self-study through foundational courses can help you develop the skills and understanding of UX principles you need to succeed in this field. Our User Experience Design Fundamentals course provides a crash course in everything you need to know.
• Build a strong portfolio: Start by using projects created in courses and expand upon your portfolio as you start landing real-world experience. You could also take on a project to see if you can do it. Some people redesign popular websites or apps. Ensure your portfolio features a diverse range of projects that showcase all your relevant skills, from wireframing and prototypes to the final product.
• Gain design experience: Internships, freelancing, and design challenges offer real-world experience. They also provide opportunities to pad your resume and portfolio.
• Become an experienced user. Pay close attention to the apps and products you use daily in your everyday interactions to learn what delivers a good experience and what falls short.
• Network and seek mentorship: Connect with other UX designers through social media or in-person design conferences. If possible, find someone experienced and seek their mentorship.

UX Designer Career Path

Your career in UX design depends on your experience level and any specialities you develop. 

Entry-level Roles

Entry-level UX design positions include:

• UX intern. UX interns support UX designers in their roles temporarily. They typically develop basic skills in research, wireframing, and other design tasks. These roles are to gain experience and do not usually turn into fulltime positions.
• Junior UX designer. Junior UX designers play a supportive role that helps them hone their skills. Typically, this position requires a basic understanding of design tools, such as Figma and Sketch. 
• Production designer. A production designer focuses on visual execution and asset creation. Typically this is a  more execution-focused role, rather than a comprehensive UX position. 

Mid-level Roles

Once you gain some experience, you may be able to work as a:

• UX designer. These professionals fine-tune websites, apps, and digital products to ensure they’re as user-friendly as possible.

Senior Roles

Senior roles in UX design include:

• Product designer. These professionals focus on creating user-friendly interfaces. They utilize user research and personas to ensure all design decisions support a project’s goals.
• Systems designer. These designers focus on the macro-level structure of a product, service, or organization. Rather than designing individual screens or features, they architect the larger interconnected systems, patterns, and frameworks that ensure consistency, scalability, and cohesion across the entire user experience. 

Leadership

If you work in a leadership role, you might work as a:

• Lead UX designer. This role works with partners to set strategic direction on a project and guide it to fruition.
• UX manager. A UX manager helps set team priorities and strategic direction, ensuring their team can be successful and move work forward.
• Director of UX. This role oversees all UX strategy and projects for an organization. 
• Head of design. The head of design manages the UX team to ensure all products align with the company’s goals and services.

Potential Career Pivots

A background in UX design can serve as a launching pad for several career pivots, including:

• Product management. Product managers are responsible for the entire lifecycle of a product’s development. They ensure every step is defined and planned while managing the teams and departments collaborating on the product.
• Design ops. This field oversees design teams, ensuring their processes and tools are efficient. They help streamline the environment for designers.
• UX researcher. UX researchers focus on user research. They gather and analyze data to identify user wants, needs, and behaviors to support the design choices UX designers make. While UX designers may conduct some user research, becoming a UX researcher typically requires additional, dedicated training in research methodologies, data analysis, and human behavior.

UX Designer Career Outlook and Salary Potential

As long as businesses prioritize creating user-centric digital experiences, the demand for UX designers will continue to grow. From 2023 to 2033, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that demand for web developers and digital designers, including UX roles, will grow by 17%, which is much faster than national averages for most other industries.

Companies in the finance, health care, e-commerce, and government sectors invest heavily in UX, which helps them enhance user satisfaction and accessibility.

Competitive Salary Potential

The potential for a lucrative salary attracts many individuals to the UX design field. While salary expectations vary based on the market, many UX designers earn an average of:

• Entry-level: $55,000 to $80,000 per year
• Mid-level (3 to 5 years of experience): $80,000 to $115,000 per year
• Senior-level (6 or more years of experience): $115,000 to $170,000 or more per year

Those in hot markets, such as Seattle or San Francisco, can earn even more — with bonuses and stock options, annual UX designer salaries in these regions can exceed $170,000.

Top-Paying Industries

The industry in which a UX designer works also affects their salary. Some fields have a higher demand for intuitive, user-friendly digital products, making the pay particularly lucrative. Top-paying sectors include:

• Technology: $75,000 to $160,000+ annually
• Finance: $85,000 to $170,000+ annually
• Health care: $70,000 to $140,000 annually
• E-commerce: $70,000 to $150,000 annually

Future of UX: How AI Is Impacting UX Designers

The UX/UI field is expected to continue growing, according to the World Economic Forum. In its Future of Jobs 2025 report, it ranked UX design as the eighth fastest-growing profession between 2025 and 2030. The need to match pace with rapidly growing digital transformation fuels demand for skilled UX designers. 

AI and UX design work in tandem to facilitate a more streamlined workflow. However, it’s unlikely that AI will replace the human input and creativity necessary in the field any time soon. 

Using AI to Enhance UX Workflows

Rather than replacing human workers, AI offers a way to enhance UX workflows. It’s a powerful tool that enables UX designers to improve efficiency and eliminate tedious tasks. By harnessing AI, UX designers can:

• Ideate and brainstorm solutions. AI-powered tools like Uizard and Galileo AI can accelerate early-stage ideation by acting as a kind of digital sketchbook. Instead of jumping straight into polished prototypes, designers can use these tools to quickly explore, iterate, and visualize rough concepts—helping teams brainstorm and communicate potential solutions more efficiently.
• Speed up user research with sentiment analysis, voice-of-customer tools, and data clustering. AI supports this process by performing near-instant data analysis to identify trends, needs, and demand. UX designers can upload a series of user interview transcripts to tools such as ChatGPT and ask them to summarize common themes and insights.

Is AI Replacing UX Designers? Not Exactly

AI may transform how UX design teams work, but it can’t replace the human touch that real people provide. Its widespread adoption means UX designers need to be AI-literate to remain competitive and utilize up-and-coming tools. However, UX requires human empathy, ethical design thinking, and contextual decision-making, which are still far outside the reach of today’s AI programs. 

Rather than seeing AI as a threat to the industry, look at it as a tool to handle time-consuming, repetitive tasks. It frees up UX designers to focus on strategy, creativity, and empathetic problem-solving.

What This Means for Job Demand

AI won’t completely replace UX designers, but it can enhance how we work. Instead of automating creativity or strategy, AI tools are proving most useful in streamlining workflows, accelerating tasks like wireframing, content generation, and pattern recognition. This frees up time for designers to focus on the work AI can’t do: deep user understanding, strategic thinking, and complex problem solving. As AI becomes more integrated into the product development process, designers who know how to thoughtfully apply these tools will be able to move faster, iterate more, and stay focused on delivering meaningful, human-centered experiences.

Rather than shying away from AI, embrace it. Upskill in AI-related UX areas to open up new career paths and give yourself a competitive edge in the job market. 

How Git Can Help You Launch a UX Career

Git can help you launch your UX career, regardless of your experience level. Our affordable courses are available on demand and taught by industry professionals. You can explore project-based learning to develop UX skills from the ground up while building a practical portfolio.

Covered topics include UX fundamentals, Figma, design systems, and more. Since these online courses can adapt to new methodologies, skills, and tools quickly, you get an up-to-date education rather than waiting for a traditional school’s syllabus to catch up. Discover the range of UX courses on Git today and take the first step toward a new, rewarding career path.