No, as a designer, you don’t have to learn coding, business, or the rest of it
It can all get a little bit much for the modern designer. Our job is often poorly defined, frequently misunderstood, undervalued, and constantly changing. One day, you might be an Information Architect, a User Experience Designer, a Customer Experience Consultant, a Design Strategist, or a Product Designer. Design titles and their definitions change so frequently, that it literally has become a joke.
With the lack of clearly defined skills profiles, and consequently equally blurry education pathways, views on just what a designer needs to be able to do diverge greatly. They can also be very opinionated. My Google Now feed is frequently populated with posts telling me which ten crucial skills I am missing to be successful, which six characteristics a true designer should exhibit, and what the number one mistake is designers make when building their careers. Today, just today, I was presented with an article on why designers need to be able to code, why they need to complete basic data science training, and why they should consider getting that MBA after all (Note: I am not linking to these articles, because I didn't want to call anyone out in particular, but just google "A designer should know..." and see what I mean.).
Sure, it helps to share a bit of language with those you collaborate with. The thing is though, that's someone else for many of us. Sometimes, it's nobody. Sometimes you work with a researcher, or you have to gather your own insights, or you join a project where the product has already been defined, or the business has no idea about customer experience and need some advocacy from that corner, or they have an absolute star of a design leader who sorted that part out.
It is impossible to follow all the advice on skills you should master, and it won't be useful either. If you tried, your creative identity crisis will even grow worse and you will fail in developing a personal brand since, if you try to be everything for everybody, you end up being nothing for anyone. And I speak from experience here. I genuinely had a final round interview once where the Head of Something told me I was great, but they weren't sure what department to stick me into.
Maybe I'm alone with this, but I'm not finding all this advice on skills one should learn very helpful. For those who don't tick all of these boxes, it only compounds the ever-nagging feeling of being a fraud, the imposter syndrome. Those voices take something wonderfully ambiguous, and try to force it into a framework for others to understand and, stick a label on, and put into a drawer.
Wait, did he just say "wonderfully ambiguous"? Yes, I did. For the very reason I am choosing to be a designer is the rich diversity of problems I get to work on, and the different tools and skills I can take advantage of and grow along the way.
I can learn over time which activities, industries, types of problems, sizes of companies, and problem solving techniques align most with my personality and nature, and I can develop all those things in a strength based way by looking at what works for me, and doubling down on it.
“Build a brand somebody will hate.”
To be valued by some, we must build a brand others will hate and celebrate what makes us unique. I believe we get there by reflecting on ourselves and growing the combination of skills that makes us noteworthy and stand out. If we blindly follow generic advice on how to change to match industry demand, we will end up as just that: generic, and interchangeable.
In my humble and very personal view, this means that a good designer only needs to be able to do three things: Solve (the right) problems in a human-centred way, be adaptable to the requirements of a chosen job - or in other words, learn - and apply some strategic problem solving to ones own career development.
If you are a designer, maybe early in your career or long-time confused and insecure, let me tell you this: You don't have to fit a certain single mould. You're a designer. You can be whatever you want, do whatever you're good at, learn whatever you're interested in. Others aren't so lucky. Be proud of it, and communicate it clearly. Then, you will do just fine.
