I asked Claude to give me a simple bullet point list of things a product designer should be able to do. There are 210 things on the list spanning everything from illustration to Javascript.
Obviously, no product designer can do all of these things. But it's telling that this is what the models spit out. This is the expectation the market has built up about what it is product designers are expected to know and do.
We've created a title that is a catch-all for 40+ distinct disciplines.
No wonder so many of us are burned out.
Here's the list:
- Run user interviews
- Conduct usability testing
- Write discussion guides
- Recruit research participants
- Synthesize qualitative research findings
- Analyze quantitative data and metrics
- Create user personas
- Map user journeys
- Build service blueprints
- Create information architecture and sitemaps
- Write user flows and task flows
- Sketch and ideate on paper
- Create wireframes
- Build low-fidelity prototypes
- Build high-fidelity prototypes
- Design interactive prototypes in Figma
- Use Figma variables and modes
- Build and maintain design systems
- Create component libraries
- Create design tokens (primitive, semantic, component)
- Document components and usage guidelines
- Apply atomic design principles
- Design for responsive web
- Design for iOS (HIG)
- Design for Android (Material Design)
- Design native mobile app patterns
- Design email templates
- Design marketing landing pages
- Design a typeface
- Design an icon set
- Design a logo and brand identity
- Apply typography fundamentals (hierarchy, scale, pairing)
- Apply color theory
- Build and apply color palettes
- Understand color contrast and accessibility ratios
- Apply grid systems and layout principles
- Apply visual hierarchy
- Apply gestalt principles
- Design with whitespace and density
- Create custom illustrations
- Work with stock imagery and licensing
- Edit and retouch photography
- Create and animate micro-interactions
- Design motion and transitions
- Prototype animations (Principle, After Effects, Rive, Framer)
- Design empty states
- Design error states
- Design loading states
- Design onboarding flows
- Design forms and input patterns
- Design data tables
- Design dashboards and data visualization
- Design navigation patterns
- Design search experiences
- Design notification systems
- Design permissions and settings
- Write UX copy and microcopy
- Establish voice and tone guidelines
- Localize and internationalize designs
- Design for right-to-left languages
- Understand WCAG standards
- Perform accessibility compliance audits
- Build accessibility documentation
- Design for screen readers
- Design for keyboard navigation
- Apply inclusive design principles
- Write HTML
- Write CSS
- Write JavaScript basics
- Understand React component structure
- Use Git and version control
- Work in GitHub/GitLab
- Understand APIs and data models
- Read and write basic SQL
- Understand responsive breakpoints
- Understand rendering performance
- Collaborate with engineers in handoff
- Use developer tools (Chrome DevTools)
- Write design specifications
- Run design critiques
- Give and receive feedback
- Facilitate workshops
- Run design sprints
- Facilitate stakeholder alignment sessions
- Present work to executives
- Tell a compelling design story
- Create case studies
- Build a design portfolio
- Write design documentation
- Define design principles
- Contribute to product strategy
- Write and contribute to PRDs
- Define and track success metrics
- Write OKRs
- Build a roadmap
- Scope and estimate design work
- Prioritize across competing demands
- Understand business models and revenue
- Understand pricing and packaging
- Understand SaaS metrics (ARR, churn, LTV, CAC)
- Understand funnels and conversion
- A/B test designs
- Analyze product analytics (Amplitude, Mixpanel, Heap)
- Understand session replay tools (FullStory, Hotjar)
- Understand SEO fundamentals
- Understand marketing and growth principles
- Understand sales cycles and B2B buying behavior
- Understand customer support workflows
- Apply Jobs-to-be-Done framework
- Apply continuous discovery (Teresa Torres)
- Apply Double Diamond process
- Apply Lean UX methodology
- Apply design thinking
- Facilitate opportunity solution trees
- Run competitive audits
- Conduct heuristic evaluations
- Apply Nielsen's heuristics
- Apply Fitts's Law, Hick's Law, and other UX laws
- Understand cognitive load and psychology
- Understand behavioral science and nudges
- Understand mental models
- Understand persuasive design ethics
- Understand dark patterns and avoid them
- Consider privacy in design (GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, FERPA)
- Consider security implications of design
- Understand compliance constraints in regulated industries
- Hire and interview designers
- Write job descriptions
- Build design team rubrics and ladders
- Mentor junior designers
- Manage direct reports
- Run 1:1s
- Give performance reviews
- Define the UX/PM boundary
- Partner with product management
- Partner with engineering
- Partner with marketing and brand
- Partner with customer success
- Partner with sales
- Negotiate scope and trade-offs
- Manage up to executives
- Influence without authority
- Build design operations
- Manage design tool licenses and budgets
- Establish file organization and naming conventions
- Maintain design libraries at scale
- Run design ops rituals (critiques, reviews, retros)
- Stay current with industry trends
- Follow thought leaders and publications
- Participate in design communities
- Speak at conferences or meetups
- Write about design
- Write effective prompts (prompt engineering fundamentals)
- Understand how LLMs work at a conceptual level (tokens, context windows, temperature, embeddings)
- Understand the differences between major models and providers (Claude, GPT, Gemini, open-source)
- Evaluate model outputs for quality, hallucination, and bias
- Design AI-powered features and flows
- Design for non-deterministic outputs
- Design for streaming and progressive disclosure of AI responses
- Design loading, thinking, and reasoning states
- Design for AI errors, refusals, and low-confidence responses
- Design human-in-the-loop review patterns
- Design undo, edit, and regenerate affordances
- Design citations, sources, and provenance UI
- Design transparency and explainability into AI features
- Design for user trust and calibrated reliance
- Design consent and disclosure for AI use
- Design feedback mechanisms (thumbs, corrections, preference capture)
- Design for graceful degradation when AI fails
- Understand latency trade-offs in AI UX
- Understand cost trade-offs in AI features (token economics)
- Apply responsible AI and AI ethics principles
- Understand AI privacy implications (data retention, training, PII)
- Understand IP and copyright considerations for generative AI
- Understand AI bias and fairness in design decisions
- Design for agentic workflows and tool use
- Design multi-turn conversational interfaces
- Design chat UI patterns (threading, context, memory)
- Design voice interfaces
- Design multimodal interfaces (text, image, audio, video input/output)
- Use AI for rapid ideation and concept generation
- Use AI image generation tools (Midjourney, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, Firefly)
- Use AI video generation tools (Sora, Runway, Veo)
- Use AI for copywriting and UX writing drafts
- Use AI for research synthesis and thematic analysis
- Use AI to generate synthetic users or research stimuli (and know when not to)
- Use AI coding assistants (Claude Code, Cursor, Copilot)
- Use AI design tools (Figma AI, Magic Patterns, v0, Uizard)
- Prototype with AI (Claude Artifacts, Bolt, Lovable)
- Build functional prototypes with AI-generated code
- Integrate AI APIs into prototypes (Anthropic, OpenAI)
- Understand and design with RAG (retrieval-augmented generation)
- Understand and design for MCP and tool-use patterns
- Understand fine-tuning vs. prompting vs. RAG trade-offs
- Write system prompts that encode product voice and behavior
- Evaluate and iterate on prompts systematically
- Build and maintain prompt libraries
- Design evals for AI features
- Collaborate with ML/AI engineers and researchers
- Speak the language of AI PMs and AI engineers
- Stay current with a rapidly changing AI landscape
- Know when NOT to use AI in a product