Franck DebaneDigital Evolution

UX designer vs product manager: what distinguishes the two roles?

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In the guide From code to product

Comic-style illustration of a designer chair in a workshop, examined at once by four people: one sits in it, one measures it, one checks underneath with a wrench, one takes notes in a ledger

My answer on Quora to the question: Given that the qualities of a good UX Designer and a good Product Manager seem so close what are the distinguishing features of the two roles?

Thanks for the question.

If you take a step back, to drive the product forward, the product manager need to understand and master his product from different perspective: technology, user, usage, design, revenue, legal, marketing, maintenance, distribution, etc...

The product is at the intersection of those areas.

The UX designer needs to understand the user needs/wants to do and design the experience that will allow him/her to achieve his goal.

UX is really just one aspect of the product - very important in some product and sometime not so important. You can think of some product where the user experience does not exist - APIs, back-end system or machine 2 machine.

If for some consumer facing products the qualities required of a good product manager and a good UX designer are similar, the roles in general are really different.

Source: Quora

First published on LinkedIn on June 12, 2012. View the original post

Franck Debane helps large companies build new ventures with Forward Partners: about a hundred programmes in more than 50 companies since 2012. He wrote Passez en mode startup (Eyrolles, 2021) and organises the Lead Innovation Day.