What is a UX designer?
8:45 a.m., coffee in hand, you’re diving into user feedback. At 10, a workshop with the team to rethink a journey that’s causing friction. In the afternoon, you test a prototype and, with a smile, watch the user reach their goal in just a few clicks, without hesitation.
Being a UX designer means turning sometimes vague needs into clear and efficient user journeys. Qim info gives you the full picture of this essential profession: responsibilities, training, career paths… you’ll know it all.
Definition of UX design
UX design (short for User Experience design) is about creating products, services or interfaces with a strong focus on the person who will use them. User experience itself refers to the overall perceptions and reactions users may have when interacting with a product, system, service or interface.
The goal isn’t just to make a website or app look nice, but to make it useful, enjoyable to use, and tailored to real user needs. UX is about making an interface easy to use, accessible, pleasant, and above all, useful.
What’s the difference between UX and UI?
UX design and UI design are two complementary disciplines: one shapes the experience, the other brings it to life visually. Both aim for the same goal, making a product useful, usable, and appealing.
UX defines the journey and logic, while UI provides the form and visual identity.
Without UX, a product may look great but be unusable; without UI, it may work well but be visually off-putting.
| Aspect | UX Design (User Experience) | UI Design (User Interface) |
|---|---|---|
| Main objective | Define the logic, structure, and user journey of a product based on user needs. | Shape and highlight that logic through concrete visual elements (typography, colours, shapes, visual hierarchy). |
| Example: designing a CTA button | Why, where, when and how the button is useful: • placement • wording • timing | What it looks like and how it draws attention: • colour, size and shape • visual style • visual hierarchy |
| Timing | Comes in early stages. | Comes in later stages. |
| Methods focused on… | Research and experience design: • interviews • personas • wireframes • prototypes • user testing | Visual design: • graphic design • visual guidelines • design systems • high-fidelity mockups |
What are the role and responsibilities of a UX designer?
The role of a UX designer is to ensure that the product meets user needs and delivers a consistent experience.
To fulfil this role, their main responsibilities include:
1️⃣ Understanding users
- Conducting interviews, one-to-one sessions, focus groups, field surveys, and observations
- Analysing existing data such as support tickets or user feedback
- Identifying needs, motivations, and frustrations
2️⃣ Synthesising collected data
- Formalising personas
- Creating empathy maps, user stories, and user journey maps
- Defining key objectives to be achieved by both the user and the business
3️⃣ Designing the experience
- Organising content to facilitate navigation, reduce frustration, and improve understanding
- Defining user flows
- Creating wireframes (low-fidelity mockups)
- Designing high-fidelity mockups
4️⃣ Prototyping and testing
- Developing interactive prototypes
- Conducting user testing (pre-launch and post-launch)
- Making adjustments based on feedback
5️⃣ Collaborating with the product team
- Working with UI designers to ensure visual consistency
- Communicating with developers to check technical feasibility
- Coordinating with project managers to align the experience with business goals
6️⃣ Continuous improvement
- Analysing usage data (analytics, feedback)
- Identifying friction points and proposing optimisations
- Carrying out audits
What skills and qualities make a good UX designer?
Soft skills (interpersonal skills)
💡These are essential. Even with top technical abilities, you can’t be a successful UX designer without knowing how to work with others.
These skills allow the UX designer to act as a mediator within the team:
- Empathy: putting yourself in the user’s shoes to understand their needs
- Active listening: gathering and rephrasing expectations from stakeholders (clients, project managers, developers)
- Communication: clearly explaining design choices to align the team
- Team spirit: working closely with UI designers, developers, marketers, business analysts, project managers, product owners, and users
- Adaptability: dealing with technical, budgetary, and organisational constraints
- Curiosity: regularly keeping up with design trends
- Creativity and synthesis skills
Practical skills
These are the hands-on abilities:
- Interface design: creating wireframes and user journeys
- Interactive prototyping
- Information architecture: organising menus, navigation, and content
- Design tools: especially Figma (the current industry standard), along with alternatives like Sketch, Adobe XD, Whimsical, Miro…
Methodological and analytical skills
These relate to the designer’s approach and way of working:
- User research: identifying needs and frustrations
- Data analysis
- Co-creation methods: leading or participating in collaborative workshops (design thinking, design sprints)
- Agile methods: integrating into agile organisations and working in short cycles
How to become a UX designer?
There is no single standard path to becoming a UX designer. As we’ve seen in the list of required skills and qualities, UX design sits at the crossroads of several disciplines: IT, of course, but also sociology, the arts, and marketing.
That said, more and more degree programmes are now specifically focused on UX design.
In Switzerland, for example:
- The Bachelor’s degrees in Web and Application Development or Digital Marketing & Communication at CREA Geneva
- The Interactive Media Designer (CFC) training offered at EIKON (the vocational school for applied arts in the canton of Fribourg) or at ERACOM (École romande d’arts et de communication)
- The brand new Master’s in Digital Experience Design offered by ECAL (École cantonale d’art de Lausanne), starting in autumn 2025
- The “Become a UX Designer” course offered by Ifage
In France, examples include:
- The BTS in Multimedia and Internet Professions (2-year post-secondary diploma)
- The Professional Bachelor’s in IT Professions (3-year degree)
- The Professional Master’s in Multimedia and Internet Interface Design
- Diplomas and certifications from l’école des Gobelins
Don’t forget the various certifications available, such as the Google Career Certificate in UX Design.
These lists are not exhaustive!
Sarah is a UX/UI designer at Qim info.
She completed a BTS in Graphic Design, followed by a Master’s in Digital Art Direction at Sup de Pub in Lyon, while simultaneously training in key design software. It was while working for a Geneva-based design studio that she gained solid experience in UX/UI design.
You can find out more here.
The career of a UX designer
A growing sector
The Forrester 2024 US CX Index clearly shows that:
- Customer experience (CX) quality is at its lowest after three consecutive years of decline
- Only 3% of companies are considered customer-obsessed
- These companies see +41% revenue growth, +49% profit growth, and +51% customer retention compared to others
Customer experience is a true differentiator, even in the age of AI.
Salary
Salaries vary depending on experience, location, skills, and the type of company you work for.
Freelance or employee: which status to choose?
This choice mainly depends on:
- Your professional goals
- Your need for independence
- Your tolerance for risk
As an employee, you benefit from financial stability, social benefits, and a team environment that allows you to learn quickly. This is generally the preferred option for beginners.
As a freelancer, you gain freedom: you choose your projects, your rates, and your schedule. However, this status involves administrative management, potentially irregular income, and the need to find clients.
Career progression for a UX designer
At the start of their career, a UX designer can move into a senior role, where they handle more complex projects and advise teams.
With experience, they may become a specialist in a specific area—such as user research, accessibility, or design system creation—or take on a lead role, guiding the vision and ensuring the quality of the work.
Some choose the management path, becoming team leads or design directors, with a more strategic and coordination-focused role.
Others prefer to specialise further or move into related fields, such as product management, consulting, or entrepreneurship.
The most promising sectors for UX designers in Switzerland
As trainer Hélène Portier points out: “There’s currently a lot of demand on the market, whether it’s for interface design, web development, or application design.” (Full interview available here).
In other words, UX designers have plenty of options.
Looking at job offers on LinkedIn, most opportunities fall under the broad umbrella of IT (digital service companies, software publishers, tech platforms, cloud services).
However, on Welcome to the Jungle, the range of sectors is more diverse:
- Public and institutional sectors
- Luxury
- Finance / insurance / fintech
- E-commerce & retail
- Consulting & transformation
- Communication & marketing
💡 Qim info’s advice: build your portfolio to highlight the type of work you enjoy most.
Why choose Qim info for your UX design career
At Qim info, UX design is practised in an environment that combines freedom and collaboration.
And it’s our team members who say it best! Sarah, UX/UI designer in Geneva, appreciates the flexibility she has to organise her projects and the trust her managers place in her to carry out her work. She also highlights the supportive atmosphere, smooth communication, and the opportunity to contribute to varied and stimulating projects, both with clients and internally.
Joining Qim info means growing within a digital services company (ESN) where your UX design skills are truly valued:
- Long-term relationships: Since 2004, Qim info has relied on the expertise of over 600 professionals to support its clients with tailored solutions across French-speaking Switzerland and beyond. We offer each consultant an environment where their skills and aspirations are reflected in innovative projects.
- Trust: We believe in everyone’s potential and offer real autonomy in managing assignments. We encourage learning through trial and error, experience sharing, and team spirit to foster collective excellence.
- Transparency: It guides our decisions, processes, and social commitments. This transparency, combined with strong ethics, is the foundation of all our professional relationships.
- Proximity: We take the time to get to know our team members and partners to build unique and lasting relationships. Every interaction aims to have a positive and measurable impact for all stakeholders.
- Responsible commitments: As a signatory of the Swiss Diversity Charter, the Right to Disconnect Charter, and the Disability Charter, Qim info is committed to creating an inclusive environment.
We invite you to explore our job offers—you might just find the UX designer role you’ve been dreaming of.
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