Kyle is funny.

Michael, I answered in your same fashion on another post. —verbatim. A front-end web dev makes 60-80k. Good luck getting a good UX designer for less than 140k. Hiring managers and recruiters are the least informed on this topic. Smart UX is all about research, service design and understanding user needs and how that equates to smart preferable experiences and futures. There are tons of frameworks and code stacks, as you said. Why stop at CSS and HTML? Why not get your UX designers to take out the trash and pick up your dry cleaning as well. Front-end dev is the production help and a stage of a web design project. Period. User experience spans muli-channels, devices, platforms and doesn’t just equate to product UI either. Sometimes I work on journeys and supply chains that actually change the business model. Sometimes I gather so much valuable data from primary and secondary that those user requirements turn into new, profitable models for the business side and expose weak offerings that are innefectual. That’s what experience means. Not code on a webpage.

I guess in these warped, delusional mindsets Frank Lloyd Wright should have spent more time on being a sheetrocker or a carpenter. Maybe a race-car driver should spend more time working on transmissions.

Michael, Ana, Luke all get it and have this right. After this article and some of these comments I think we should post some diagrams of human brain function and heatmaps of activity showing parts that are used for UX vs. Coding with straight linear logic. I do 30 different jobs and produce as many types of artifacts being a UX designer. Coding isn’t one of them. Good CTOs and Product managers know this and support this. Understanding how and why code works isn’t the same as writing it.

We should remember the old saying “Customers don’t want a drill, they want a hole”. Customers don’t care about the code. They care about getting a product that meets customer and business goals, and THAT is what an expert, focused UXer can deliver.

I think that many managers who hire a UX designer then expect them to spend time coding are simply pretending to do UXD. However, if you honestly don’t have enough UX work for a dedicated UXer, and you need to hire someone to fill multiple roles, why limit the secondary role to coding? Why not marketing, or technical writing, or graphic design for print?

Better yet, let that UXer help you evangelize to customers about the benefits of user-centered design, and soon you will have so much business that you need to hire ANOTHER dedicated UX designer!

It always good to involve developer into design process. Because after development some things may function different in real world environment than designer planned.

And then it comes back to design step. Design errors often doubles work and breakes deadlines.

Kyle, I’m very curious: which languages do you expect your coders to know? HTML / CSS? How about frameworks—Ember, React, or Angular? And do you prefer Swift or Objective C when designing iOS apps? I’m guessing you do Android in your shop, so the designers must also be versed in Java? Are you designing Windows apps? So, C#?

” I don’t know any UX managers in small sized to medium-large sized businesses who hire UXers who aren’t, at the very least, willing to do both.” Well, now you know one. Frankly, I like to hire people who are at the top of their game in their area of expertise, not generalists who are “okay” at many things.

And b/c of ignorant neanderthals with this belief I had to learn to code just to get a job. Thanks.

Unfortunately this is still the case in many companies and there are many misconceptions about what an UX Designer should actually do. While I can code, I’m not willing to take a front-end developer role disguised under ‘UX Designer’ job title simply because this is not what I want to focus on. If my focus was on development, then I’d apply for a developer role instead. UX on its own (even before we reach the Design stage) is already a large area, it’s not realistic enough to expect a single person to do UX Research, Design AND Development, and master all areas. When you hire an ‘UXer who has to code’ (there’s a difference between ‘can’ and ‘do’) you are in fact hiring a front end developer for your business.

The Architect – Builder metaphor that you mentioned was the basis for John Zachman to create a whole concept which is now known as Enterprise Architecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachman_Framework

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zachman_Framework#/media/File:Simplification_Zachman_Enterprise_Framework.jpg

Books, articles and consultancies have evolved from this simple but profound idea simply because Architecture & Construction has been around for thousands of years (ask the Egyptians, Aztecs, Romans, Persians…)

Every UXer who can code (that I have come across) does not understand and can not passingly explain design theory and how it relates to business development.
I find them to be ok at both fields but not great in one or the other.

I’ve been designing for 23 years and not once has anyone ever asked me to code in any way, shape, fashion, or form.

I do however, believe that it is very helpful for digital designers in general to have an understanding of coding technologies and their impact on interaction design.