Multi-Faceted by Necessity

I have new (6 months together now) junior co-workers who ask me what they need to do in order to be considered User Interface Designers, Interaction Designers, User Experience Designers, or more likely some combination of those titles as long as they come with higher pay, prestige, and significant work. They are considered graphic designers at the moment. I have also recently had front-end engineers ask me the same question. So I am using my career as an example here since it is the one I am most familiar with.

The simplest answer is that you need to know and do more. I think of my work in terms of user experience. Every element in a company affects user experience. Technical limitations in database design affecting how relevant or useful some bit of information is for a user are things I need to understand and factor in. Reading between the lines when meeting with stakeholders is important for saving time and staying employed. Expressing your ideas in writing, info graphics, wireframes, and mockups is essential.

So how did I get there?  1) Startups  2) Reading  3)Web Design

1. I started working in Silicon Valley in 1997 as a project manager with a Master Degree in English. Within a year and a half, I was in a 3-person startup funded by a small insurance company. I helped design the product, designed and coded the interface, ran the Russian development team, wrote the copy, and hired a bunch of people. Another year and a half and I was managing 8 people at eLance; moonlighting at another small startup of 5 people doing UI design.  Startups are good for stretching your talents into the available need.
2. You gotta digest a few books and be learning continuously. I started with Don't Make Me Think and my brain's been plastic ever since. Loved a few editions of Principles of Interaction Design by Cooper, et al. Read Norman's Emotional Design a few years ago and was struck by how shallow most of the UI design I do is. Then I shrugged it off and went back to work... Use Jennifer Tidwell's Designing Interfaces every other day or so at work. Seen Edward Tufte's seminar twice over the years. Have 2 sets of the books.... And here I am getting a second Masters Degree. Not proud, just obsessed.
3. I could be wrong, but back in the day, we sorta had to do it all if you wanted to make websites for people (and make $). A lot of HTML/CSS.  A little javascript (some Perl...). Gather requirements. Design. Analyze server logs. FTP to the server. QA your own work. Did I mention write all the copy 'cause the client can't seem to get the words out? 

 If you take all that experience and then decide to focus it on improving the end users' experience as well as the performance (from the company's perspective) of some digital product, you get a lot of skills you don't use directly except as checks and balances against the complex machine which will actually develop and support your products. You also retain enough skills to express your research and your original ideas in forms which allow stakeholders to understand them and evaluate their potential -- eventually coming aboard as clear supporters. And it's cool to know a lot of stuff.

NEXT POST: Re-designing the Grocery IQ iOS app for the Google/Motorola launch of their Honeycomb tablet device. With pics!