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Senior user experience designer vs visual designer

The differences between senior user experience designers and visual designers can be seen in a few details. Each job has different responsibilities and duties. It typically takes 6-12 months to become both a senior user experience designer and a visual designer. Additionally, a senior user experience designer has an average salary of $111,933, which is higher than the $86,495 average annual salary of a visual designer.

The top three skills for a senior user experience designer include sketch, user experience and user research. The most important skills for a visual designer are sketch, visual design, and graphic design.

Senior user experience designer vs visual designer overview

Senior User Experience DesignerVisual Designer
Yearly salary$111,933$86,495
Hourly rate$53.81$41.58
Growth rate3%3%
Number of jobs52,58246,815
Job satisfaction--
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 69%Bachelor's Degree, 75%
Average age3838
Years of experience1212

What does a senior user experience designer do?

A Senior User Experience Designer is responsible for creating a friendly and intuitive user experience architecture. They collaborate with designers, product managers, and product engineers.

What does a visual designer do?

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.

Senior user experience designer vs visual designer salary

Senior user experience designers and visual designers have different pay scales, as shown below.

Senior User Experience DesignerVisual Designer
Average salary$111,933$86,495
Salary rangeBetween $81,000 And $153,000Between $51,000 And $143,000
Highest paying CitySan Francisco, CASan Bruno, CA
Highest paying stateWashingtonCalifornia
Best paying companyNetflixByteDance
Best paying industryManufacturingStart-up

Differences between senior user experience designer and visual designer education

There are a few differences between a senior user experience designer and a visual designer in terms of educational background:

Senior User Experience DesignerVisual Designer
Most common degreeBachelor's Degree, 69%Bachelor's Degree, 75%
Most common majorGraphic DesignGraphic Design
Most common collegeUniversity of PennsylvaniaUniversity of Pennsylvania

Senior user experience designer vs visual designer demographics

Here are the differences between senior user experience designers' and visual designers' demographics:

Senior User Experience DesignerVisual Designer
Average age3838
Gender ratioMale, 72.5% Female, 27.5%Male, 53.1% Female, 46.9%
Race ratioBlack or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 10.4% White, 70.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%Black or African American, 3.4% Unknown, 5.0% Hispanic or Latino, 10.6% Asian, 10.4% White, 70.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 0.4%
LGBT Percentage13%13%

Differences between senior user experience designer and visual designer duties and responsibilities

Senior user experience designer example responsibilities.

  • Lead brainstorming sessions with stakeholders to explore feathers and better understand their audience.
  • Lead a cross-discipline innovation team focuse on rapidly prototyping new products.
  • Support the development teams with front end HTML and CSS production for all projects.
  • Design business applications using web technologies like HTML, XHTML, and CSS base on the W3C standards.
  • Redesign and maintain existing internal web application utilizing HTML5, CSS3, JavaScript, JQUERY, Angular.JS, and D3 JavaScript.
  • Complete user testing and usability analysis with wire-framing and prototyping tools such as InVision.
  • Show more

Visual designer example responsibilities.

  • Design, project manage, and build retail stores from sketch to completion.
  • Manage website redesign including copywriting and updating all website content.
  • Produce and deliver HTML5, CSS3 and graphical items.
  • Design team brand and logo for organization.
  • Provide approved design in HTML5 to web developer for publishing.
  • Utilize expertise in Photoshop CS6, HTML5/CSS, Squarespace, and JavaScript.
  • Show more

Senior user experience designer vs visual designer skills

Common senior user experience designer skills
  • Sketch, 17%
  • User Experience, 8%
  • User Research, 7%
  • UI, 7%
  • Visual Design, 4%
  • Interaction Design, 4%
Common visual designer skills
  • Sketch, 19%
  • Visual Design, 8%
  • Graphic Design, 5%
  • UI, 5%
  • User Experience, 4%
  • Visualization, 4%

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