UX Designer: Who They Are, What They Do and How to Start a Career in UI/UX Interface Design

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A UX designer is the person who makes sure sites and apps don’t annoy you but work the way they should. It’s the UX designer who decides what you see first, where you click next and how quickly you get to the action you need. In this article, we’ll explain in simple terms what UX and UI/UX design are, what an interface designer actually does, which skills you need and how to enter this profession from zero.

Who Is a UX Designer and How Are They Different From a UI Specialist

A modern UX designer works with how a person feels inside a digital product – on a website, in a mobile app, in a payment service or in a personal account. Their job is to make the user’s path logical, intuitive and predictable, so they can finish what they need to do without long searches.

If you open a banking app and in a few seconds understand where to top up your card or pay a bill, that’s the result of a UX designer’s work. Everything you can click on online has gone through the hands of UX and UI specialists in one way or another. UI and UX are two different but closely connected parts of interface design:

• UX (User Experience) is about the experience, logic and user scenarios – which steps a person takes, where they go next, what happens after they click a button.
• UI (User Interface) is about the visual side – colors, fonts, button sizes and shapes, icons, spacing, animations.

A simple comparison: the UX designer thinks about how the “steering wheel” of the product should work, while the UI designer decides how it will look on the screen.

In many companies these roles are combined, and one person works as both UX and UI designer. This kind of specialist designs the structure of the interface, plans user flows and at the same time draws the visual screens.

Even a universal UI/UX designer still needs to understand where the responsibility for user experience ends and the work with graphics and brand identity begins. This helps avoid “dropping the ball” on either part of the product – it has to be both convenient to use and visually consistent.

What a UX Designer Does: Typical Tasks and Workflow

A UX designer’s day doesn’t start with colors and buttons, but with understanding the business task and the user’s needs. First, the specialist figures out who the product is for, which problem it should solve and which actions a person needs to perform in the interface. The main goal of a UX designer is to make the path from the user’s request to the result as short, clear and simple as possible.

If an interface makes you hunt for the “Pay” button or doesn’t make it clear what happened after you clicked, that’s a sign the UX is weak. A typical UX design process includes several stages:

• researching the target audience – interviews, surveys, behavior analysis
• analyzing competitors and existing solutions on the market
• defining user tasks and scenarios (user flows)
• building the information architecture and product structure
• creating wireframes – “black-and-white” screen layouts without decoration
• testing prototypes with real or test users
• making changes and retesting until the scenario becomes comfortable

Along the way, the UX designer keeps going back, changing things, simplifying flows and merging several steps into one. That’s a normal part of the job, not a “mistake”. The key principle is to back up decisions with data rather than gut feeling – research results, analytics, user feedback. A strong UX designer doesn’t just draw prototypes – they can explain each decision in terms of benefits for the user and impact on business goals.

The Role of a UI Designer and Why Companies Often Look for a UI/UX Specialist

A UI designer works with how the interface looks and behaves on the screen. They get the structure, user scenarios and set of screens from the UX designer and turn all that into visual design. They’re responsible for fonts, colors, icon style, button sizes and states, sliders, hints and micro-animations. The UI designer’s goal is to make the interface visually clear, accessible and consistent with the brand style.

A UI specialist’s job is not just “make it pretty”:

• Colors and contrast influence whether a person with vision problems can actually read the text.
• The size of interactive elements affects how easy it is to tap buttons on a phone.
• Animations help users understand what is happening in the system right now.

Successful products like the Duolingo app constantly run UI experiments – they tweak icon sizes, button shapes, character expressions and many small interface details.

That’s why companies often look for a universal UI/UX designer who understands both experience and visuals. This kind of specialist:

• analyzes user behavior and creates scenarios
• builds and tests prototypes
• develops the visual style of the interface within the brand
• assembles a design system – a library of buttons, headings, fields, spacing
• works closely with developers, product managers and marketers

When UX and UI work together, the product ends up both easy to use and stylistically consistent, and the user doesn’t get lost in the screens and knows what to do next. If you ignore one part, you get either a “beautiful but frustrating” interface or a clear product that looks weak and unpolished.

What Skills a UX Designer Needs: Hard and Soft Skills

To start a career as a UX designer, you don’t have to be an academic artist or write code. It’s more important to have a set of specific skills that help you create working interfaces. Hard skills for a UI/UX designer include:

• basics of composition, typography and color theory
• ability to build a product’s information architecture
• creating wireframes and prototypes
• researching the target audience and analyzing competitors
• understanding business metrics and how design affects conversions
• working with graphic editors and prototyping tools

Soft skills are just as important, because without them it’s hard for a UX designer to work in a team and grow. These include:

• motivation and readiness to learn a lot, especially at the start
• communication – being able to listen to stakeholders, ask clarifying questions and explain your decisions
• attention to detail – noticing small errors in layouts, text and implementation
• problem-solving thinking – seeing not just “beauty” but the problem the interface should solve
• ability to learn – looking for information, using resources, asking questions to colleagues and mentors

For a UX designer, it’s crucial to know how to find and process sources – articles, research, case studies, talks by practitioners, tool tutorials. The more access you have to professional content, the faster those basic seeds of knowledge grow into real expertise. A strong UX designer constantly reads, watches, analyzes, asks questions and tests ideas in practice instead of relying only on one course or one local community.

Tools a UX Designer Uses Every Day

Most of the time, a modern UX designer works in dedicated interface design tools. The main working environment is often Figma – an online editor where you can create website and app layouts, build prototypes, collaborate with a team and hand off work to developers. Knowing Figma is basically a must-have today for any UX designer who wants commercial projects.

At the same time, designers also use Adobe products:

• Photoshop – for working with photos and raster images
• Illustrator – for icons and vector graphics
• Adobe XD – for prototyping and interface testing

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For prototyping and collaboration, tools like InVision, Balsamiq, Framer and others can be used. For task management and communication, people often use Notion, Trello, Jira, Slack. It’s not about how many tools you know, but how well you can build interface logic and explain it to the team, using tools as a means to an end, not the goal itself.

At the start, it’s enough to learn one main editor well (most often Figma) and have basic knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator. Later, your tool stack expands based on specific tasks and the company or project type. Most programs have free versions or trial periods, so you can test different approaches without big investments.

Where a UX Designer Can Work: Freelance, Studio or Product Company

Once you have basic skills, you can choose between several paths as a UX designer. The first option is freelance. Here you find clients yourself, negotiate budgets and deadlines and set up all your processes. The upside is freedom in schedule and project choice; the downside is responsibility for communication, payments, taxes and legal issues. On freelance, you often need not only to design interfaces but also sometimes to code or assemble simple websites.

The second option is working in a design studio or agency. In this case, a UX designer takes part in projects of different sizes and from different markets. Legal issues, sales and part of the client communication are handled by account managers. The plus is having a team lead or art director who gives feedback, helps you grow and shapes the design culture inside the team. This is a good format for the first years in the profession.

The third path is a product company. Here a UX designer works on one or several products long term, constantly improving and updating them. It might be a service, a mobile app, a marketplace or an internal system. Over time you get deeper into analytics, product metrics and close collaboration with product managers. Creativity matters here too, but it is limited by business strategy and the need to keep the interface stable for millions of users.

Each format has its pros and cons:

• freelance – more freedom but also more risk and responsibility
• studio – varied projects and mentorship but tighter deadlines
• product company – stability and deep focus but less variety in interface types

A UX designer can try all three at different times and then choose the format that fits their current goals and lifestyle.

How to Become a UX Designer From Scratch: Learning, Portfolio and Community

On average, it takes about 5–6 months of active work to go from the start of learning to the point where you can apply for your first UX jobs. Some people choose self-education – they read articles, watch videos and analyze case studies on platforms like Awwwards, Behance or Dribbble. Others pick structured courses from schools like DAN.IT education or Projector Institute, where you have practicing mentors, homework reviews and real cases.

No matter how you learn, the main outcome for a UX designer is not a certificate but a portfolio. That’s what shows how you think, which tasks you can solve and how you present your decisions. For a start, you only need a few well-structured case studies that cover:

• the business task and user problem
• research – what you studied and what conclusions you made
• the design process – wireframes, user flows, key decisions
• the final result – screen layouts and short analytics

Community is also a big part of the journey. Design Telegram channels, course alumni chats and local communities on social media help you get feedback, avoid feeling stuck and understand what’s happening on the market. A UX designer who regularly shows their work, listens to criticism and knows how to filter it grows faster than someone who works “in silence”.

UX Designer Career and Salary: How You Can Grow and How Much You Can Earn

The market needs UX designers, but competition is growing too. At the start, you usually come in as a Junior – you have basic skills but little commercial experience. Later you can grow into a Middle and then a Senior, and eventually into a Team Lead or Head of Design. In parallel, a UX designer can shift toward product design, management or more technical roles.

Real income for a UX designer depends on:

• level (Junior, Middle, Senior)
• work format (office, remote, freelance)
• company type (outsourcing, product, studio)
• portfolio quality and how well you present your case studies

Possible career paths for a UX designer:

• grow into leadership roles and become a Head of Design
• move into product management and be responsible not only for the interface but the product as a whole
• go deeper into development and become a UI developer
• specialize in niches – mobile app design, VR, game interfaces, complex dashboards
• build a personal brand on freelance, raise your rates and work with international clients

The UX designer profession requires constant learning, but in return it offers flexibility, many growth paths and the option to work fully remotely. That’s why many people see UI/UX design as a good way to enter IT.

Should You Become a UX Designer Today

A UX designer works where design, analytics, psychology and business meet. They help people use digital products without extra effort and help companies reach their goals with convenient interfaces. If you’re interested in logic, user behavior and you enjoy finding simple solutions to complex problems, UX design can be a good fit.

It’s not “easy creativity”, but work with data, testing, revisions and responsibility for results. In return, it gives you the ability to work from anywhere, choose different career tracks and constantly expand your skill set. It’s important to honestly assess whether you’re ready to learn a lot, accept criticism and not be afraid of change – if yes, UI/UX design can become not just a job but a long-term path for growth.

Answers to Common Questions About the UX Designer Profession