What does a lead user experience designer do?
Lead User Experience Designers are responsible for providing strategy and direction in designing a user's experience for a digital product or service. They work with cross-functional teams such as user researchers, product design teams, and project managers to deliver a specified timeline. Their duties include developing information architecture, designing wireframes, prototyping, creating content, and performing usability testing of system interaction. Lead user experience designers must know Adobe Suites and specialist wireframing and prototyping design tools such as Axure, Marvel, Invision to translate the design to product. They also liaise with clients regularly to ensure the design meets the business goal.
Lead user experience designer responsibilities
Here are examples of responsibilities from real lead user experience designer resumes:
- Lead agile scrum meetings with design and development teams, arbitrating design and integration strategies.
- Work with the Java developers/programs to achieve timely development and review of assignments to assure on--time project completion.
- Create HTML, CSS, and JavaScript assets for implementation into a broader MVC framework.
- Code in W3C-compliant XHTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
- Create clickable prototypes in Axure and Invision to present the stakeholders.
- Develop end-to-end design and help developers to integrate HTML, CSS code into Microsoft SharePoint server.
- Provide stake-holders and developers with pixel perfect comps, CSS, HTML, prototypes and all digital assets.
- Plan, analyze, and create visual solutions for WordPress development.
- Design, prototyped (in CSS) back-end reporting and monitoring system.
- Prepare the coding side for both desktop and mobile version using HTML/HTML5, CSS, bootstrap and media queries.
- Define business objectives, user goals, strategies, interaction model, user task flow, scenarios and UI specification.
- Generate clean and artful design, demonstrate superior UI skills, and translate high-level requirements into interaction flows and artifacts.
- Design dashboards for many products, using data visualization techniques for departments such as operations, marketing, and sales.
- Develop AngularJS services for reusable functionality.
- Understand designing for fully responsive, mobile-ready WordPress websites.
Lead user experience designer skills and personality traits
We calculated that 17% of Lead User Experience Designers are proficient in Sketch, User Experience, and UI. They’re also known for soft skills such as Artistic ability, Computer skills, and Time-management skills.
We break down the percentage of Lead User Experience Designers that have these skills listed on their resume here:
- Sketch, 17%
Created clickable prototypes using Sketch 3, InVision App and Principle.
- User Experience, 7%
Coordinate and participate in specification reviews, design reviews, and other quality assurance best practices ensuring user experience integrity.
- UI, 6%
Focus: Research, Planning (Architecture, Content, Design), Concept + UI, Visual Design, Product Strategy
- User Research, 4%
Lead qualitative user research to understand users behaviors and attitudes.
- Human Centered Design, 4%
Designed user experience using human centered design principles for children users
- XD, 4%
Hired designers and lead team-building creative workshops for Experience Design (xD) team.
Common skills that a lead user experience designer uses to do their job include "sketch," "user experience," and "ui." You can find details on the most important lead user experience designer responsibilities below.
Artistic ability. One of the key soft skills for a lead user experience designer to have is artistic ability. You can see how this relates to what lead user experience designers do because "graphic designers must be able to create designs that are artistically interesting and appealing to clients and consumers." Additionally, a lead user experience designer resume shows how lead user experience designers use artistic ability: "helped to curate and manage old ui elements, to change them as the game changed artistic and ux direction. "
Computer skills. Another soft skill that's essential for fulfilling lead user experience designer duties is computer skills. The role rewards competence in this skill because "most graphic designers use specialized graphic design software to prepare their designs." According to a lead user experience designer resume, here's how lead user experience designers can utilize computer skills in their job responsibilities: "supported team of 30 developers in all aspects of ux design for start-up company specializing in computer vulnerability assessment and remediation. "
Time-management skills. This is an important skill for lead user experience designers to perform their duties. For an example of how lead user experience designer responsibilities depend on this skill, consider that "graphic designers often work simultaneously on multiple projects, each with a different deadline." This excerpt from a resume also shows how vital it is to everyday roles and responsibilities of a lead user experience designer: "delivered a high-quality product design, under an extremely tight deadline. ".
Analytical skills. A big part of what lead user experience designers do relies on "analytical skills." You can see how essential it is to lead user experience designer responsibilities because "graphic designers must be able to perceive their work from their consumers’ point of view to ensure that the designs convey the client’s message." Here's an example of how this skill is used from a resume that represents typical lead user experience designer tasks: "present exceptional design in data visualization, sketching and complex information. "
Communication skills. Another crucial skill for a lead user experience designer to carry out their responsibilities is "communication skills." A big part of what lead user experience designers relies on this skill, since "graphic designers must communicate with clients, customers, and other designers to ensure that their designs accurately and effectively convey information." How this skill relates to lead user experience designer duties can be seen in an example from a lead user experience designer resume snippet: "managed the design process and communication among internal development team, ceo, cto, early target customers. "
Creativity. Another skill commonly found on lead user experience designer job descriptions is "creativity." It can come up quite often in lead user experience designer duties, since "graphic designers must be able to think of new approaches to communicating ideas to consumers." Here's an example from a resume of how this skill fits into day-to-day lead user experience designer responsibilities: "deliver exceptional, mobile friendly, responsive web designs within a fast-paced, deadline-driven environment with accountability for high creative standards. "
The three companies that hire the most lead user experience designers are:
- Deloitte58 lead user experience designers jobs
- The PNC Financial Services Group55 lead user experience designers jobs
- KPMG LLP37 lead user experience designers jobs
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Compare different lead user experience designers
Lead user experience designer vs. Graphic artist
A graphic artist is either an illustrator or an animator who creates art work that will be used in graphic projects such as advertisements, posters, or even book covers. Although a graphic artist has his/her own style of artwork, he/she may be often commissioned to create art specifically for a particular project. A graphic artist may work with a graphic designer in order to convey the overall message of a project. The portfolio of a graphic artist includes cartoons, illustrations, and graphic novels.
There are some key differences in the responsibilities of each position. For example, lead user experience designer responsibilities require skills like "sketch," "user experience," "ui," and "user research." Meanwhile a typical graphic artist has skills in areas such as "adobe illustrator," "art direction," "photography," and "brochures." This difference in skills reveals the differences in what each career does.
Graphic artists tend to make the most money working in the non profits industry, where they earn an average salary of $68,382. In contrast, lead user experience designers make the biggest average salary, $121,975, in the manufacturing industry.The education levels that graphic artists earn slightly differ from lead user experience designers. In particular, graphic artists are 17.2% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree than a lead user experience designer. Additionally, they're 0.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.Lead user experience designer vs. Design internship
As the name entails, graphic design interns learn about the career in graphic design in a hands-on setting. They have varied tasks and duties, including taking part in every meeting of the design team, conducting client research, assisting with social media and design projects, and working closely with experienced designers. They are often paid little or nothing at all for their service, but the experience that they acquire from their field can be dispensable.
Each career also uses different skills, according to real lead user experience designer resumes. While lead user experience designer responsibilities can utilize skills like "interaction design," "visual design," "personas," and "ux," design interns use skills like "design intern," "adobe indesign," "auto cad," and "adobe illustrator."
Design interns earn a lower average salary than lead user experience designers. But design interns earn the highest pay in the technology industry, with an average salary of $54,174. Additionally, lead user experience designers earn the highest salaries in the manufacturing with average pay of $121,975 annually.design interns earn lower levels of education than lead user experience designers in general. They're 12.8% less likely to graduate with a Master's Degree and 0.3% less likely to earn a Doctoral Degree.What technology do you think will become more important and prevalent for lead user experience designers in the next 3-5 years?
Michelle Lockwood
Associate Professor, Graphic Design Art, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania
Lead user experience designer vs. Designer
A designer is someone who creates a master plan of the look or workings of something before it will be made. It could be tangible or intangible objects, products, procedures, laws, events, games, graphics, services, and even experiences. Designers are creative thinkers with a great eye to configure the skeletal and structural properties of the targeted output. They work in several fields, such as fashion, architecture, web graphics, and user experience. In spite of the variety of professionals in the design industry, all of them are artistic, passionate, inspiring, and emotionally connected to their projects and brands.
There are many key differences between these two careers, including some of the skills required to perform responsibilities within each role. For example, a lead user experience designer is likely to be skilled in "ui," "user research," "interaction design," and "visual design," while a typical designer is skilled in "customer service," "revit," "project management," and "adobe illustrator."
Designers earn the best pay in the technology industry, where they command an average salary of $87,754. Lead user experience designers earn the highest pay from the manufacturing industry, with an average salary of $121,975.When it comes to education, designers tend to earn lower degree levels compared to lead user experience designers. In fact, they're 13.7% less likely to earn a Master's Degree, and 0.2% less likely to graduate with a Doctoral Degree.Lead user experience designer vs. Visual designer
A visual designer is someone who creates designs for a variety of platforms such as Internet and intranet sites, games, and wearables. The duties of visual designers depend on the specific project or industry in which they are working. Duties include creating user-centered interaction models, working with information technology and business teams to resolve complex issues, and designing logos, icons, and infographics. The qualifications to become a visual designer include possessing strong problem-solving, communication, and negotiation skills and obtaining a bachelor's degree in design.
Types of lead user experience designer
Updated January 8, 2025
