{"id":44417,"date":"2023-05-30T09:53:59","date_gmt":"2023-05-30T16:53:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/?p=44417"},"modified":"2025-01-27T03:59:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-27T11:59:54","slug":"is-ux-design-industry-in-demand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.springboard.com\/blog\/design\/is-ux-design-industry-in-demand\/","title":{"rendered":"Is UX Design Still An In-Demand Career in 2025?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

UX design has come a long way since Apple Computer designer Don Norman first coined the term \u2018user experience\u2019 in 1993. While the first known UX designers created the touchtone keypad <\/a>for the telephone, today\u2019s designers build seamless cross-device experiences, hyper-personalization at scale, and program intuitive micro-interactions that guide users through tasks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similarly, the number of UX designers in the field has grown steadily since the 1950s. The Nielsen Norman Group predicts<\/a> that by 2050, there will be over 100 million UX professionals <\/a>globally (currently around one million). Companies grow their design teams as they increase their level of UX maturity, which requires a strong digital presence<\/a>. Now, every company is considered a \u201ctech company\u201d in today\u2019s digital-first world, given the necessity of having a digital presence.
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UX designers design and build seamless web and mobile experiences that enable users to accomplish their goals. They identify user pain points, conduct user research<\/a>, and optimize digital interfaces for user-friendliness, retention, and goal completion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

How have the recent layoffs affected the demand for UX designers?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the aftermath of the mass layoffs affecting Big Tech<\/a> at the beginning of this year\u2014the tech sector shed nearly 150,000 employees<\/a> in the last five months alone\u2014would-be UX designers are feeling understandably trepidatious about their odds of breaking into the industry. Data shows the largest job cuts were in HR and talent sourcing (27.8%), followed by engineering (22%), marketing (7.1%), and customer service (4.6%). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Job seekers have speculated<\/a> that the design industry might be \u201coversaturated\u201d as competition for UX jobs intensifies. One senior designer wrote<\/a> in a recent Medium post that he\u2019d reviewed over 300 applications for one UX design role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere\u2019s still a lot of demand for UX designers, but it\u2019s harder than it was during or just after the COVID pandemic when companies thought people would permanently change their digital habits after being cooped up for so long,\u201d says Nick Groeneveld, a senior UX consultant at Capgemini who runs his own UX consultancy, The Designer\u2019s Toolbox.<\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Data shows demand for UX designers is growing. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the employment rate for web developers and digital designers\u2014which includes UX designers\u2014is expected to grow 23%<\/a> from 2021-2031, much faster than average. However, junior roles seem to be shrinking<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the labor market is tight, companies hesitate to hire entry-level designers because of the time and cost needed to upskill a new worker. Junior designers need guidance from senior designers<\/a>\u2014something a small company may not have. Moreover, most new designers lack experience working on real-world projects<\/a>, collaborating with other designers, and adhering to time, budget, and engineering constraints\u2014meaning they need a longer ramp-up time and may require on-the-job training. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With bargaining power slowly shifting<\/a> back to employers following historical wage growth in 2022, job seekers must clear a higher bar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve noticed that hiring managers are more critical about who they take on,\u201d says Groeneveld. \u201cWe\u2019ve had some hiring pauses\u2014no layoffs, but hiring is slowing down.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, many veteran graphic designers began shifting to UX design<\/a> to take advantage of better opportunities and higher salaries, making it harder for new designers to compete. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGraphic designers began to realize it\u2019s super important to have UX design skills in today\u2019s digital world,\u201d says Aida Nogu\u00e9s, a product designer at Sage and a mentor for Springboard\u2019s UI\/UX Design Career Track<\/a>, who made the transition herself seven years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean for the future of UX design?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

UX design begets a high return on investment\u2014meaning companies are unlikely to stop investing in it. A survey by Nielsen Norman Group found that after redesigning for usability, companies saw an average improvement in KPIs of 75%<\/a>. This includes conversion rates, traffic, user performance, and target feature usage (the number of users who complete a critical task or click an important button). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the gains have shrunk over the years\u2014the ROI was 135%<\/a> when the study was first conducted in 2003\u2014UX design has since become more standardized and entrenched in core business practices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The field remains promising overall. Glassdoor ranked UX designer as the 24th best job<\/a> out of 50, based on job satisfaction ratings (4.0\/5), median base salary ($97,047), and number of openings. The salary for entry-level UX designers<\/a> is $77,123<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"UX<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, design roles may become more specialized as the trend toward accessibility design and hands-free interfaces necessitates specific skill sets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDesign is a craft that takes a lot of time, persistence, and hard work to become good at,\u201d says Adam Casiddy, UX designer at WEX and a mentor for Springboard\u2019s UI\/UX Design Career Track<\/a>. \u201cThat said, I still think there\u2019s a lot of opportunity for people who want to be in this field, but you will have to go above and beyond your education program or bootcamp to prove your employability.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI-Assisted Design: What Can AI Do That a Human Can\u2019t?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

San Francisco-based AI research lab OpenAI released its generative AI tool, GPT-3, in November 2022 to much fanfare. Generative AI is a language learning model capable of generating text, images, and other media in response to prompts. Users were astounded at the chatbot\u2019s ability to field questions, create content, and write boilerplate code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Naturally, this begged the question of whether jobs like digital marketing, copywriting, programming, and data science could be automated. Five months later, OpenAI followed up with GPT-4, its most advanced large language model yet. The bot can pass major tests like the bar exam<\/a> (90% grade), write coherent books<\/a>, create video games<\/a>, perform pharmaceutical drug discovery, and even generate entire lawsuits.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engineers at Microsoft, Goldman Sachs,<\/a> and Amazon have reportedly used ChatGPT to help them write code. However, AI\u2019s ability to disrupt the design field remains limited. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI can automate certain design tasks, such as generating layouts and color schemes or parameterizing designs to fit within business constraints. AI can personalize user experiences by analyzing user data and behavior and analyzing content for readability. Theoretically, you could train a neural network with old design variants and the associated requirements, then let the network generate a design from new requirements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Uizard<\/a> is a text-to-design tool that auto-generates user interfaces with text input.<\/em> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, designers bring a human-centered perspective to their work. Conversely, AI struggles to understand nuances and social cues. It cannot create truly original content<\/a> or filter its own biases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rise of AI tech<\/a> makes UX designers more crucial<\/a> than ever before. While AI tools<\/a> can design aesthetically pleasing interfaces, they don\u2019t have the faculties to understand usability, friction, and user-friendliness. Human-centered design is at the core of UX. Designers understand user needs and behavior and create interfaces to meet those needs. People must also understand the emotional and psychological needs of design, which are essential in creating a positive user experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI development itself may increase the need<\/a> for skilled UX designers who understand what effective human-AI collaboration looks like. IBM recently coined human-centered AI<\/a> (HCAI), \u201can emerging discipline intent on creating AI systems that amplify and augment rather than displace human abilities.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

HCAI seeks to \u201cpreserve human control in a way that ensures AI meets our needs while operating transparently, delivering equitable outcomes, and respecting privacy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there will be more demand for designers who know how to leverage AI as part of their job,\u201d says Cassidy. \u201cWe\u2019ll probably also start seeing UX design jobs involving the design of parts of the AI itself or the interface humans use to interact with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Developing human-centered AI systems requires, well, human knowledge. AI applications must reflect realistic conceptions of user needs and human psychology. According to user-centered design pioneer Don Norman, effective design is<\/a> to \u201caccept human behavior the way it is, not the way we wish it to be.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When designing digital interfaces, humans are needed for their tacit knowledge<\/a>\u2014the intuitive know-how and common sense gained by experience. For example, understanding the logic of a user flow requires the designer to put themselves in the user\u2019s shoes, which calls for empathy and life experience. AI, on the other hand, is proficient at tasks requiring explicit or crystallized knowledge\u2014facts, numbers, and words that can be used in logical deductions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, AI is slowly improving at automation tasks associated with human tacit knowledge. Examples include facial recognition (whose uses are often controversial<\/a>), driving cars, sensing emotions (or at least classifying them according to predetermined labels), and interpreting spoken words using nat<\/a>u<\/a>ral language processing<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still, most of a designer\u2019s time is not spent using design tools, which limits the extent to which the design process can be automated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI only use Sketch or Figma once or twice a week,\u201d says Groeneveld. \u201cOnce I start using the design tool, most of the design decisions have already been made, and it\u2019s a matter of executing that vision into a visual prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defining a problem statement, understanding business requirements, conducting user interviews, and determining the information architecture for a website or app are elements of the design process that rely on human problem-solving. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"UX<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI spend most of my time on the road, facilitating workshops, doing user research, and brainstorming design reviews with other designers,\u201d says Groeneveld.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if companies fully or partially automate usability tests\u2014an increasingly common practice<\/a>\u2014a human must determine the testing scope and purpose, formulate a hypothesis, determine what participants are needed and how to recruit them, and decide how to measure success metrics. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even Galileo AI<\/a>, an AI-powered interface design tool that generates editable wireframes from text inputs, won\u2019t replace designers anytime soon. A human needs to prompt it, refine the design and microcopy, and contextualize it to the use case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur jobs will shift as AI becomes more prevalent, but designers will still do the critical thinking, problem-solving, and finding creative solutions,\u201d says Cassidy. \u201cWe\u2019ll train and set parameters for AI to design screens, flows, and other deliverables.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Government agencies and companies in highly regulated industries like finance or healthcare may hesitate to use AI tools out of concern for potential data breaches and the leaking of intellectual property or trade secrets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Groeneveld\u2019s clients typically require him to sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement), which effectively prevents him from using tools like ChatGPT<\/a>, whose data governance practices remain mysterious<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Google, Microsoft, and Amazon rushing to release generative AI tools in early 2023 to compete with OpenAI\u2014effectively inciting an AI \u201carms race\u201d<\/a>\u2014AI development seems to be on an exponential path that could lead us to an unfathomable, AI-dominated future where no one has a job<\/a> and courtship is facilitated by ChatGPT-generated pickup lines<\/a> on dating apps. However, technological development doesn\u2019t follow a straight line.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAI development appears to be skyrocketing with all the recent improvements we\u2019ve seen, and it\u2019s easy to assume that tomorrow half the people will lose their jobs, in two days, nobody will have a job and in three days, the Terminators will attack,\u201d says Groeneveld. \u201cBut that\u2019s now how it works. Technological development occurs in waves. It may be months or even years before the next wave.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Will AI replace UX designers?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s unlikely<\/a> that AI tools will replace UX designers any time soon. General-purpose generative AI tools like Stability Diffusion and ChatGPT are not trained on design-specific datasets that would enable them to understand how to generate deliverables like sketches, wireframes, prototypes, user flows, customer journey maps, stakeholder presentations, and UX copy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, widely used design tools like Adobe Sensei<\/a>, Figma<\/a>, and Canva<\/a> have long incorporated AI to help designers generate templates, edit images, and personalize their designs\u2014none of which have resulted in the displacement of designers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katie Jacquez, a senior product designer at LinkedIn, ran several experiments<\/a> on DALL-E by asking it to do the following:<\/p>\n\n\n\n