Table of Contents
- The difference between UX designer vs. Product designer
- What UX designers do?
- What product designers do?
- My first experience as a product designer:
- The biggest barriers for UX designers moving into product design
- How to master product design AMA with Filippos Protogeridis
- How to become product designers?
- 1. Master UI design fundamentals
- What you should focus on?
- 2. Learn to talk to real users
- How to conduct useful interviews?
- 3. Develop your product sense
- How to develop this?
- What separates good designer vs. amazing designer
- 1. Curiosity
- 2. Adaptability
- 1. Process adaptability
- 2. Role adaptability
- 3. Communication adaptability
- How to build influence in an organization
- 1. Always put the customer first
- How to wield this power:
- 2. Speak the language of business
- Choose your own adventure
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Read time: under 13 minutes
The difference between UX designer vs. Product designer
Ever been in a meeting where someone asks if UX and product designers are the same, and chaos erupts? Been there.
You're probably reading this because you're: A) a UX designer eyeing a product design role, B) a product designer annoyed by title swaps, or C) just plain confused.
I've been all three—sometimes in the same meeting. After years of watching these debates while our colleagues roll their eyes, let’s clear things up.
What UX designers do?
Traditional UX designers focus on making sure people can use products without wanting to throw their devices into the sea. They:
- Conduct user research to understand needs and pain points
- Create user flows and wireframes
- Test designs with users to validate solutions
- Ensure the product is usable and accessible
Think of UX designers as the architects who make sure the bathroom isn't accessible only through a trap door in the ceiling.
They're the voice in the room saying, "Maybe we shouldn't make users click 17 times to complete a simple task?"
What product designers do?
Product designers take a more holistic approach. They:
- Take the idea to final product. They're involved from initial concept to launch and beyond
- Wear many different hats. Researcher, strategist, visual designer, prototyper, occasionally therapist for frustrated developers
- Argue the business case. They understand and articulate how design decisions impact business metrics
- Zoom into tiny UI details. They sweat the small stuff that makes experiences delightful
- Zoom out to the system. They consider how individual features fit into the broader product ecosystem
Product designers are versatile generalists who adapt to their company's needs—making them highly in demand.
My first experience as a product designer:
When I worked at a consultancy without PMs, I wasn’t just taking client orders like a design waiter.
Instead, I’d ask, “Have you considered this crazy approach?” or “Here’s a user need you’ve missed while staring at spreadsheets all day.”
My job was to add depth. It was like a designer with PM superpowers (without the Slack pings and roadmap meetings).
The biggest barriers for UX designers moving into product design
If you're currently a UX or UI designer looking to evolve into product design, there's one major hurdle you need to clear: product sense and business thinking.
The biggest difference isn't technical skills or tools—it's being passionate and curious about what the business is trying to do. Product designers care deeply about:
- Is this something people actually want to use?
- Will this solve the business problem?
- Will this move business metrics?
If your current thought process is limited to “Is this usable?” without considering “Is this valuable to both users and the business?”, that's where you need to grow.
It's like being a chef who can make food taste good but has no idea how to run a restaurant.
How to master product design AMA with Filippos Protogeridis
How to become product designers?
So, you’re tired of being the “make it pop” person and want a real seat at the table?
Welcome to the dark side (aka product design), where you don’t just design screens, you help decide what even needs to be built in the first place.
If you want to make a leap, then these are three things you should focus on in the first 2 years:
1. Master UI design fundamentals
Here's a controversial opinion: UI design still matters enormously in your early career, even with AI tools promising to make us all obsolete.
Your first years will be heavily judged on what you produce visually because most people can't evaluate your "strategic thinking" but they sure can see if your buttons look professional.
What you should focus on?
- Following design systems. Create a personal cheat sheet of your company's color tokens and spacing rules. When reviewing designs, check that you've used the right components consistently.
- Creating clean interfaces. Use a 4px or 8px grid for everything. Take screenshots of your work, blur them, and check if the visual hierarchy still makes sense.
- Understanding basic visual design principles. Practice CRAP principles (contrast, repetition, alignment, proximity). Study how successful apps like Airbnb apply these fundamentals.
- Staying current with UI trends. Spend 15 minutes weekly on Dribbble or Mobbin. Notice pattern shifts (like how financial apps moved from tables to card layouts) without blindly copying them.
Create a "before and after" portfolio piece showing your UI improvement process.
2. Learn to talk to real users
If I could recommend just one research method to get really good at, it's user interviews. They're the bread and butter of design research for a reason:
- They jump in at the beginning to figure out what users actually need
- They're awesome for usability testing
- They build genuine empathy with your users
- They fit right in whether you're at a tiny startup or a massive enterprise
How to conduct useful interviews?
- Ask specific questions. Instead of "Would you use this?", say "Tell me about the last time you tried to book a flight." The first gets lies, the second gets stories.
- Create a reusable script template. Build a 5-7 question template with: Warm-up, Context, Task exploration, Reflection, and Next steps. Adapt this for each project rather than starting from scratch.
- Record (with permission) and take two-column notes. Don't trust memory. Note observations in one column, your interpretations in another. This separates what users actually said from what you think they meant.
- Practice active listening. When something interesting comes up, say "Tell me more about that." Slack's research team found their best insights came from follow-up questions, not their prepared script.
Analyze patterns after every three interviews to avoid data overload.
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3. Develop your product sense
Product sense is about developing an intuition for what makes products successful beyond just looking pretty.
This is the hardest skill to master, but it's what separates good designers from the ones who get paid obscene amounts of money.
How to develop this?
- Learn how PMs think (coffee bribes help). Find a senior designer or PM you admire and ask for a 30-minute "decision breakdown." Ask “What alternatives did you consider?” and “How did you measure success?”
- Reverse-engineer product decisions. Pick a feature you use daily (like Instagram Stories or Uber's surge pricing) and ask: “What problem was this solving? Why this approach over others?”
- Keep a product journal. Spend 10 minutes a week documenting product experiences. What frustrated you? What delighted you? What would you change? Compare your ideas to actual updates when they launch.
- Study failed products. Post-mortems of flops like Google Glass, Amazon Fire Phone, and Quibi reveal more than success stories. Understanding why they failed is a goldmine for product thinking.
- Run "How Might We" exercises. Take a successful product and challenge yourself: “How might we boost retention by 20%?” or “How might we expand to a new user group?” Then compare your ideas to what the company actually did.
- Track your design’s impact. For every project, identify one key metric your work should influence—engagement, conversion, retention. Thinking beyond aesthetics trains you to design for business outcomes.
My ex-manager once said: "A designer with great product sense and mediocre visual skills will outperform a visual genius with no product sense every time."
Which was either profound wisdom or his way of justifying his own mediocre visual skills—I'm still not sure.
What separates good designer vs. amazing designer
1. Curiosity
The best designer are the ones who ask one more question when everyone else is ready to move on.
They're like that kid in class who never stopped raising their hand, annoying to some, but always the one who found the most interesting answers.
- When stakeholders request a feature, you can ask:
Why is this important?
What problem are we solving?
Have we tried turning it off and on again?
- When users describe behavior, you can ask:
That's interesting, tell me more about that.
What happened next?
How did that make you feel?
- When data shows a pattern, you can ask:
What might explain this?
What if we looked at it from a different angle?
What if we're all just living in a simulation?
The best insights come from the second (or third) follow-up question. People rarely give you the full picture upfront. Dig deeper.
2. Adaptability
Not the kind where you pat yourself on the back for switching from Figma to Adobe XD, but the deep, career-defining flexibility that separates designers who thrive from those who burn out.
Three types of adaptability every designer needs:
1. Process adaptability
The double-diamond design process is beautiful in theory and almost never happens in practice. Sometimes you'll have months for research and discovery. Other times, you'll have 48 hours to ship something based on gut instinct.
A great product designer understands that different situations call for different approaches:
- Low confidence problems might need heavy research
- High-urgency situations might need rapid prototyping and testing
- Established products might need incremental, data-driven changes
The adaptable designer doesn't throw a tantrum when the process changes, they adjust their approach to fit the context.
2. Role adaptability
The lines between UX, UI, research, and even product management get blurrier every year.
Sometimes you'll need to be a specialist, diving deep into interaction patterns. Other times, you'll need to step up and fill gaps:
- Leading a user interview when your researcher is unavailable
- Creating a basic prototype when your visual designer is swamped
- Writing product requirements when your PM is on vacation
Your job description is just a suggestion, not a prison.
3. Communication adaptability
People judge you less by how well you follow a design process and more by:
- The outcomes you deliver
- The influence you have in the business
- The energy and positivity you bring
Personal experience:
I once worked with a designer who rigidly insisted on a "proper UX process" for every project. He was talented but inflexible. Know where he is now? I don't either, because nobody wanted to work with him again.
How to build influence in an organization
Influence isn't about fancy titles or how many people report to you. It's about having a voice that matters when decisions are being made.
What separates a product designer from "just a design person" is the ability to shape how the business approaches problems. And no, you don’t have to be a manager to do it.
At its core, influence boils down to two things:
1. Always put the customer first
You have a superpower: you can be the person who consistently brings the customer's perspective into every conversation.
How to wield this power:
When discussions get abstract or feature-focused, reset with: “Based on what we know about our customers at this stage of their journey, here's what they experience…”
Then back it up with evidence:
- Show videos of users struggling
- Share direct quotes that highlight pain points
- Present behavioral data that reveals patterns
Let’s say your team is arguing over a new navigation layout. Instead of sharing your opinion, share real data from usability tests:
❌ Weak argument: “I think we should use a tab bar instead of a hamburger menu.”
✅ Strong argument: “In our usability test, 4 out of 5 users instinctively tapped the bottom tab, while the hamburger menu was ignored. Here’s a clip.”
When you consistently bring customer insights to the table, people start looking to you when they need answers. And that’s real influence.
2. Speak the language of business
Here's where most designers crash and burn: they focus exclusively on the customer without connecting to business goals.
Start by understanding what the business actually cares about. Of the thousand possible metrics, which 5-10 keep your executives up at night?
Then, connect customer problems directly to those metrics. Here’s how:
- Tie design to business impact. Say, “This redesign could cut payment drop-off by 12%, adding $50K/month,” not just “It improves usability.”
- Show the cost of bad design. “We lose 60% of users in onboarding. Retaining half adds 1,200 users/month.”
- Align with company goals. Link your design work to quarterly objectives in presentations and docs.
❌ Weak argument: “We should revamp this checkout flow because it looks cluttered.”
✅ Strong argument: “Streamlining the checkout flow could reduce cart abandonment by 15%, based on our user research.”
See the difference? One sounds like a nice-to-have, and the other sounds like money on the table.
Business leaders want results. When you translate design changes into financial impact, you're not just a designer, you’re a key player in business strategy.
Choose your own adventure
If you're struggling with whether to call yourself a UX designer or a product designer, you might be focusing on the wrong question. Instead, ask yourself:
- What kinds of problems make me excited to get out of bed?
- Do I want to be involved in shaping what gets built, or am I happy making what others decide to build?
- Does thinking about business strategy energize me or not?
- Am I more passionate about usability & accessibility, or about product strategy and metrics?
There’s no wrong answer. The world needs both specialized UX designers and generalist product designers, just like it needs both brain surgeons and general practitioners.
Whether you stay in UX, shift to product design, or invent a new title (I’m personally pushing for Pixel Whisperer), what matters is expanding your understanding of how design creates value: for users, businesses, and your own sanity.
Now go forth and design great things, no matter what your business card says. And if someone asks you to explain UX vs. product design at a dinner party? Just change the subject 🫣
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