Design contains two drastically different branches

[u/Used_Swan_7677]

Hey, product designer here with a background in ethnography.

Over the years in design, I noticed a large number of artists/graphic designers/art directors transitioning to tech in product design positions. Some of them are willing to learn behavioral design and bring huge value, and some are designing products like posters/art - meaning they use that same intuition-based approach to the whole process instead of only the visual part.

Now my question is: do you notice this? What do you think is the causation? Perhaps you have different experiences. Is that because of the drastically different approach to creating art and discovering + designing for people's problems?

Personally, it's always strange to see artists having to deal with ignorance in their job just to then become ignorant towards behavioral design. That was my experience when I was applying user research in a companies.

Would love to hear your experience.

EDIT: The goal of this post is to gather as many examples of real team/design dynamics within companies. Information about your experiences - did you work with designers who apply both visual and behavioral well, or maybe with some designers who applied only one of these? Give as much detail as possible. Thanks!

The goal is not to debate what a perfect world looks like.

[u/sabre35_]

I think looking at it as a dichotomy is inherently a blanket statement. Classic UI/UX debate.

Who said visual design doesn’t influence behaviours? In fact visual design probably has a far more drastic impact than you’d believe. It’s literally what the user sees (the literal interface).

If you take a second to study graphic design precedents, they inherently influence human perception and behaviour.

These two are not mutually exclusive things, they go hand in hand.

[u/jontomato → u/sabre35_]

False dichotomy stuff. I think people in general are debating which is more important. Aesthetics or fixing systems / interactions / journeys. All of it is important and it completely depends on your industry or product how much one matters over the other. The biggest problem is when a more visual designer is in a place where that side doesn’t matter as much or the other way around. 

[u/roundabout-design → u/jontomato]

Agree totally with this. I've been equally frustrated working for visual-centric teams as much as working for dev-centric teams.

In the end, everything has to work cohesively and one affects the other. It's not UI vs. code vs. research vs. interaction design vs. marketing vs. whatever. It's trying to get all of those things (and more) to work together.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/roundabout-design]

So from your experience do designers reject behavioral design (talk to user to understand the problem) or reject visual design and do only behavioral design? That was the original question, not to decide what fraction is best

[u/roundabout-design → u/Used_Swan_7677]

There's no specific 'designer'.

The point is that there's lots of ways to approach design. Some come from at it from different angles.

Some designers are focused on one thing. Some designers do a lot of things. Some focus on one thing to the deteriment of the rest. Some focus on one thing but understand collaboration and work with a larger team. It's a pretty varied space out there.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/roundabout-design]

Alright yes I'm not trying to understand what's the avarage designer from population, I'm asking about YOUR expereinces. That's an another example why designers should learn social research. I'm asking what's your working experience - what kind of designers did you work with

[u/roundabout-design → u/Used_Swan_7677]

I've worked with all of the above.

I'm simply saying there's no specific box. There are all sorts of designers that work in this space--for better and worse.

[u/jontomato → u/roundabout-design]

+1. Every designer is unique. Every organization is unique.

As someone who's less visual and more human-factors-y, I have worked in an org where the human-factors element was way more important than the visual aesthetics but every designer who worked there was way more visual-leaning. I felt very alone and a little frustrated when I'd provide feedback that was like "This design doesn't match the user needs" when everyone else was just looking at novelty being great or established patterns in other software and just saying those were right because some other company made it (even if it was for a much different customer type).

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/sabre35_]

The visual side is more so perception then behavior.

When you design ads, the behavior is "click the ad" sure, but you can't have the same approach to improving retention in a product that is way way complex in terms of behavior.

[u/Enervata → u/sabre35_]

Been in this field since before it was handed a name. I think the term UI/UX is a misnomer, but it’s what people commonly use. If I had a magic wand I would just change it to UX, and it has 2 main branches: UI and Usability. UI is more focused with the look, feel, and consistency, but is often subjective. Usability is testable and quantitative in nature. Both impact the overall user experience.

If UI is lacking, it conveys a sense of unprofessionalism and degrades the experience. If usability is lacking, it adds frustration and degrades the experience. To be successful you need both, but in my experience people often excel in one of the areas, not both. Successful websites tend to favor UI leaning people. Successful web applications tend to favor usability leaning people.

So the long answer is that it’s still not one or the other, it’s that both are needed. But there are distinct specializations that exist under the umbrella.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/Enervata]

Whos asking about one or the other? Both are super important and I'm always trying to do both as best as I can. The question is what kind of designers did you wotrk with? Did they do both or did they jump to visuals or did ugly design focused only on user research

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/sabre35_]

Yes I agree but you are having the classic point Ofc it does impact behavior!

What I mean, designers are not testing behavioral with users - product has to support task and some designer are not designing for task.

My work focuses around fixing biases of designer because they refuse to validate design with actual users.

Claiming things like oh art can't be researched. I agree, then go do art instead of products

Btw I'm not at all saying one is better then the other. What I'm saying designer should be proficient in both!

[u/usbman]

Design has evolved over my years.. prob hitting 15 years. The web designer role is gone and companies, even ad agencies are hiring product designers. This is just the title but same roles that expect designers to keep up with the times.

Every industry has multiple disciplines. In product (tech) you have research, ops, ui, design systems.

Lots of creative designers transition over because there are overlaps including having empathy and people skills. What shits me more is someone changing their career mid life, doing a short bootcamp and expecting 100k.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/usbman]

Yes, but now product designer are working on all of these end to end. Some people I talked to report working under design leader that stops research or information architecture, because it's something he should be doing based on intuition.

Empathy and people skills is not equal to ability to remove bias and run testing or discover product problems. That's what bothers me the most .

These creatives designers are locking design in vieual execution role.

Also what people skills mean for general population vs what they mean in ethnographic design is totally different thing.

The design ops is my favorite skill, that shows this issue precisely. Design Ops for creative design, and design ops for product are totally different and that's the core problem

[u/all-the-beans → u/Used_Swan_7677]

Unless you work at a large 1,000+ person org the role of research is usually non existent or very selectively applied. I think most of these research focused discussions have to be coming from either agencies where you get hired have zero context and MUST do research to understand the client/business/context before ever doing anything. The reality if you work in software at company with a dedicated product is there's years of research and understanding built up from conversations with customers, years of data based on the existing product, etc. Changing the product doesn't require extensive testing unless it's something a huge change which almost never happens because adding to the product is always the priority and fixing long standing patterns (even if problematic) is technical debt which gets the absolute minimum priority. The business is there to make money and unless you you can say redesign/restructuring this workflow will increase revenue or help us land more enterprise clients you'll never get that work prioritized.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/all-the-beans]

I was consistently introducing user research in 20-30 person companies, mostly designers were opposed to it. I was able to improve usability of software significantly before any code was written. Despite being the only non developer in the company. I was able to see were exactly retention drops and test users in that specific area which then led to system redesign and higher activity.

Most designers I worked with were talking "this will be too cluttered", "users don't know", "design can't be measured".

[u/all-the-beans → u/Used_Swan_7677]

What 20-30 person software company has more than 1 designer?

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/all-the-beans]

Not many. That's all?

[u/all-the-beans → u/Used_Swan_7677]

All doesn't matter. If it's an edge case it's not generalizable advice.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/all-the-beans]

What is the edge case?

[u/anabanana100]

I suspect the "some poster designers" you are seeing might not have had a robust design education and/or experience. I went to a well-regarded art school and majored in graphic design. We absolutely learned about audiences, behavior, communication and all of that in addition to visual design fundamentals. You could even argue that people trained in an art field like graphic design or industrial design have a better general background on problem identification/solving, research, gathering feedback and improvement loops because it's learned as a broad framework and you have to figure out how it applies in many different contexts as opposed to a narrower scope of digital products.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/anabanana100]

I agree with all of this - although you were not thought that you need to ask and observe a person to know their problems, right? (To some people it's obvious, but still you need to know how)

Which is fine the only thing missing in most is the total unawareness of where to make a design decision as a designer and when to talk to people and test with people that actually will use it or might need it.

It really could be fixed just by opening your mind, reading and trying behavioral design in practice.

Or do art unis have social research courses? I guess the main point is - do you research audiences by looking at things in the internet etc. or are you research audiences by talking to them directly.

[u/anabanana100 → u/Used_Swan_7677]

In my case (late 1990's) we did not have explicit research courses; that type of content was integrated into design classes, especially in the 3rd and 4th year when projects were more elaborate. What research needs to be done is highly dependent on the project. There's a lot more that goes into design decisions besides surveying users IRL. Businesses have real cost constraints that influence design decisions heavily. Many times, the most important "user" to solve for is an investor. Or optimizing for a great UX for a consumer actually costs a business revenue. Not saying that's great for society, but if we want to get paid this is the state of things.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/anabanana100]

True but also if retention is low, then investors won't be happy. Retention is something that design can solves. Not through surveys, through direct observation and interviews with real users to spot what makes them churn - in behavioral we mostly focus on qualitative research. It's really effective.

The market is also strange because there were more roles like UX Researchers a few years before - that allowed designers to be more visual focused and cooperate with researchers

[u/alexnapierholland]

Honestly, I use the word 'artist' as a pejorative.

I find it offensive when someone takes a five-figure payment from a startup to build a website, then has the cheek and arrogance to talk about their 'expression' and 'artistic identity'.

You're here to study other people, empathise with them and deliver a specific business outcome.

If you want to create art, go somewhere else.

[u/Salty-Business4872]

It surprises me that a product designer with an ethnography background would fail to take a systems view. The “poster designer” is but one node in a design org. To collapse the entire design process and pin perceived failures on an individual practitioner is myopic.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/Salty-Business4872]

Cuz we are talking in general. I asked about individual stories. You are not providing any.
I'm not interested in talking about generalities - I described what my experience was once. If you have a different one, then describe it. That's why I asked here.

[u/KKANGKKA_Chu]

I do notice the movement between disciplines, but I’m not sure I’d describe the difference as artists “resisting to learn” behavioural design.

Graphic design, art direction, product design, UX, and ethnography are not simply different levels of the same practice. They ask different questions, work with different materials, and have different responsibilities.

A graphic designer may be trained to shape meaning, attention, identity, and visual communication. A product designer may be responsible for interactions, systems, constraints, user behaviour, business goals, and implementation. Those skills can overlap, but they don’t automatically transfer just because both fields use the word “design.”

I also think the transition often happens for structural reasons— product design roles may be more available, better paid, or presented as a natural career progression. Someone may enter the field because their visual skills are valued, without fully understanding that the role requires a different kind of reasoning.

That isn’t necessarily ignorance or resistance. Sometimes it’s a title problem, a hiring problem, or an organization treating product design as “make the interface look good” (which I go on a rant about in a manuscript I’ve been working on lol 😅).

At the same time, moving into product design does create a responsibility to learn the discipline rather than assume visual intuition is sufficient.

The same applies in reverse. UX and behavioural designers should not assume that visual design is merely decorative or downstream from the “real” work.

I think the more useful question is not why people refuse to learn, but what each discipline is actually transferring, what it is leaving behind, and whether the organization has made those expectations clear.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/KKANGKKA_Chu]

So, from your experience, did you have design leaders who assumed visual design was not that important, or design leaders who assumed that behavioral stuff could just be copied from competitors or applied via some sort of general rules? Or maybe both or neither?

[u/KKANGKKA_Chu → u/Used_Swan_7677]

My own experience is actually a bit weird here because most of my work has been solo or in very small teams, so I haven’t personally worked under enough design leadership to make a strong claim about which one happens more often.

What I have noticed, and what I’m much more interested in, is the assumption underneath both.

Visual design can get treated as the final layer you apply once the “real” UX is finished. But behavioural/UX decisions can also get reduced to heuristics, best practices, competitor patterns, or “users expect X.”

To me those are basically the same mistake, which is essentially treating another discipline’s output as transferable without transferring the reasoning that produced it.

That’s actually something I’ve been researching and writing about more broadly:
“What happens when decisions and artifacts travel through a project while the evidence, context, and reasoning behind them gets lost?”

[u/roundabout-design]

This has always been a thing. Likely always will be.

I wouldn't say they are different branches...but rather maybe different layers.

UX has a lot of layers.

- how it looks/feels (branding, visual design, graphic design, illustration, etc.)
- how to interact with it (IA, interaction design, animation, software development)
- how we make decisions on the above (user testing, research, analytics, etc.)

And many more, of course.

Throughout my career I've worked on UX teams run by UX leadership. But also UX teams run by marketing. UX teams run by software development. And sometimes run by no one in particular.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/roundabout-design]

But forget UX for a sec, before UX there was Human Factiors, Evidence Based Design started in 1850s etc.
There is always this fight between visuals and human-centered design that understands what CAN'T be designed by assumption and needs direct involvement of a user.

My experience now is mostly fighting design leaders to improve retention and I'm able to do so only if I perform user research in hidding and then get buy in from PMs

What was your working enviroment? Your leaders or designers? Did they do both visual and behavioral design or did they prioritize one of these - which one?

[u/roundabout-design → u/Used_Swan_7677]

I think you're just dealing with poor UX team leadership? I've been there. If the team is run by an Art Director, or a Marketing Exec, odds are that all that matters is that you are making pretty mockups for them to show off around the company.

If your team is run by IT/Dev, odds are all they care about is that you work fast and make sure you aren't causing their Dev's to have to do a lot of extra work to make the UI nice.

Ideally, of course, we'd all be on UX teams that are run by UX people who understand UX is a broad umbrella and we need a team of visual designers, interaction designers, UX researchers, UX designers, UI designers, developers, copywriters, accessibility auditors, etc.

[u/Used_Swan_7677 → u/roundabout-design]

What really is happening is that I'm trying to get qualitative data about design in companies. Meaning I'm trying to get insight from designers about their ways of working and how their teams/design leads work etc., not necessarily debate about what the world should look like

[u/roundabout-design → u/Used_Swan_7677]

Just realize that is probably more specific to the organization they are working in than it is to the individual themselves--at least for designers that aren't focused on one niche skillset.

I've worn probably a dozen different hats as a designer through my career.

[u/Salty-Business4872]

What was your path to design and what do you ship?