Any insight into the trend of UX designer --> Product designer?
I see this transition in titles all over the place at big SF companies like Adobe, which is disheartening because now I'm expected to have a dribblesque visual/graphic design skill set (least interesting aspect of design imo) with less emphasis on design thinking, more on delivering assets, front-end code and letting UX researchers focus on generative (most interesting)/evaluative (mostly interesting) research to inform us designers on what visual assets to design for developers (so much for that HCI degree!).
I feel like a commodity more often than not when competing with generic 10-week General Assembly UX grads that can throw together a sleek graphic heavy portfolio while my HCI degree is collecting dust because no hiring manager is going to read the pages of user research that back up my design decisions and because I lack the flashy, material designed dribble UI polish that is largely an exercise in branding, typography, and basic color theory than actually understanding user needs through traditional UX methods based on best practices.
The exception is at larger companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google who appreciate HCI grads but their projects often relate to advertising or some obscure product platform I could care less about. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel? Maybe I'm burnt out working on the usability of legacy products and making it look nice with the latest material design trends on top.
I'm interested in working on/solving big, "wicked" problems through UX design like self driving cars or improving healthcare. Should I get a PhD in HCI and focus on something fulfilling rather than improving the UX of boring SaaS CRUD apps?
I see this transition in titles all over the place at big SF companies like Adobe, which is disheartening because now I'm expected to have a dribblesque visual/graphic design skill set (least interesting aspect of design imo) with less emphasis on design thinking, more on delivering assets, front-end code and letting UX researchers focus on generative (most interesting)/evaluative (mostly interesting) research to inform us designers on what visual assets to design for developers (so much for that HCI degree!).
I feel like a commodity more often than not when competing with generic 10-week General Assembly UX grads that can throw together a sleek graphic heavy portfolio while my HCI degree is collecting dust because no hiring manager is going to read the pages of user research that back up my design decisions and because I lack the flashy, material designed dribble UI polish that is largely an exercise in branding, typography, and basic color theory than actually understanding user needs through traditional UX methods based on best practices.
The exception is at larger companies like Amazon, Microsoft, and Google who appreciate HCI grads but their projects often relate to advertising or some obscure product platform I could care less about. Maybe it's time to throw in the towel? Maybe I'm burnt out working on the usability of legacy products and making it look nice with the latest material design trends on top.
I'm interested in working on/solving big, "wicked" problems through UX design like self driving cars or improving healthcare. Should I get a PhD in HCI and focus on something fulfilling rather than improving the UX of boring SaaS CRUD apps?