Samuel Fabayo argues that UX designers need visual design skills, not just UI designers. Tech companies now hire designers who can do research, information architecture, and visual design together. Strong visuals directly impact how users experience your work.
A lot of beginner UX designers feel like they don't need to be good at visual design because that is for UI designers. They think that they can just improve their UX design skills while the visual design skills suffer. Well, I hate to break it to you, but to be a good UX designer, you need to be able to design visually appealing design solutions as well. Also, the way a lot of design team structures are set up is different now. When UX design started getting really popular, we had UX designers and then we had UI designers. UX designers thought about the flow holistically. They thought about all the information architecture. They do— they conduct all the user research and the UI designers put all the fancy screens together. But right now, because of the competition that we have in the tech space and the UX space, we have hiring managers looking for designers that can do both efficiently. So don't underestimate the impact of strong visual design skills in your UX design toolbox.
