Designer 2.0

As a designer and leader in the digital product space, I have firsthand witnessed how expanding skills into data analysis and coding can dramatically improve work and career prospects of a designer. In the beginning of my career, I too focused only on visual design. But as I progressed into leadership roles, I realised how understanding data and technology can help make better design decisions.

Specially when building a new product or service knowing to deal with data has been a game-changer. A recent example, for a D2C client we used heat maps and analysed user flow data to make design decisions that resulted in 30% improvement in conversions.

Best product designers I know are well versed with HTML, CSS, JS or Python. This coding knowledge has fostered a systems thinking approach in them that helps in building deeper understanding of not just how design looks but how it works. I feel it’s essential for young designers to learn these skills to understand technical constraints better (and to earn some extra respect from the engineers for your inputs 😊).

In today’s world, user experience is paramount, not just in the digital product space but also in physical products and in the service sector. With every click, scroll, login, purchase… interactions are generating valuable data points that can transform how we understand user behaviour. Every designer can leverage this to discover insights that might be previously invisible.

A designer can no longer just focus on expertise in a tool. A designer has to be the problem solver who can bridge the gap between design, data, and technology. (this is why I feel designers can go on to become great product leaders and founders). I can’t stress enough how crucial it is to embrace these overlapping skills to not just stay relevant but also to push the boundaries of innovation!