 What is the difference between product design and UX design? These terms get confused with each other a lot and especially if you're a newbie in a design world it can get quite confusing and overwhelming. But not to worry because in this video we're going to show you the similarities and the differences between the roles so you can get more clarity. Let's dive right in. As you're watching this video let us know in the comments below what you think the key differences between product and UX design roles are would love to hear from you. Before we dive into the differences let's look at the official definitions of product design and UX design according to interactiondesign.org. So let's just head on over to the side and look at how they define product design. So according to interaction design, product design is process designers used to blend user needs with business goals to help brands make consistently successful products. Product designers work to optimize the user experience and the solutions they make for the users and help their brands by making products sustainable for longer term business needs. Now on the flip side what is UX design? Interaction design defines it as the process design teams used to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experience to users. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product including aspects of branding design usability and function. So I mean just by looking at these two definitions you can instantly spot the difference. Right no wrong if you read these two definitions it becomes even more confusing as to what the differences between the two roles actually are. To be fair the roles are almost completely identical there's just one crucial difference that has traditionally separated these two roles and for product designers the official definition is that they care more about the long-term strategy and how businesses achieve their goals and have a more holistic approach to design while UX designers are hyper focused on user needs on carrying out the entire design thinking process and just really drilling down into the process of designing a user experience. And while some companies might still refer to this criteria when writing out their job ads we at Agentsmart are confident that these two roles are exactly the same and will give you four reasons why. Reason number one the industry is changing fast. Product and UX industries are very fast-paced and there are a lot of changes happening all of the time. I mean the UX design role has been around for only a couple of decades so if you're getting hung up on a particular title and a particular role you might be missing out on some very important developments. Hey before we dive into reason number two we have a weekly newsletter that's packed with UX product design and career advice that you don't want to miss out on. Link is in the description below subscribe to right now. Reason number two the end business goal should always be on your mind. So even though the official description of product designer versus UX designer says that UX designers should not care about the business goal and should only concentrate on the user that's the most sure far away to never get promoted and always be seen as an executor rather than a strategic partner. As a UX designer it's always important to keep the end business goal in mind. Frankly creating a sleek cool design is not that hard any designer can do that regardless of their seniority. What's more challenging however is being mindful of what your business is trying to achieve, what your adjacent teams are working on. So the next time you find yourself getting carried away in a project stop and think critically. Is your design feasible for the web dev team to do? Is legal going to be on board with that? Is it actually going to help your company achieve the bigger business goal? Reason number three the job ads do not reflect this difference. So while we were researching job ads for this video to really showcase what the difference between the role is we've actually discovered that while there are loads of companies having separate job descriptions for UX designers and product designers there are also loads of job ads that want a UX and product designer in one but you don't have to take a word for it. Let's actually take a look at some LinkedIn job ads that we've discovered from eBay and Wayfair. So what will you do as a UX slash product designer at eBay? You will provide hands-on delivery of UX assets across all channels. You will ensure a simple and fun experience for users. You will work with overarching design patterns to ensure consistent user and brand experience. You will facilitate ideation coordination and perform user interviews and you will contribute on building and refining our design system. So this already sounds like a mishmash of the two roles together. If you look at the requirements they have for the person taking on a role you can see that if you have three plus years of experience as a UX or UI designer, product designer, interaction designer or any similar UX related role you could potentially apply for this job. Now if we look at the Wayfair job ad for product design slash UX manager as you can see they want five plus years of professional UX experience they don't even define a concrete UX domain that you should be coming from so if you have experience in UX, UI, product design or interaction design you could be a candidate for this role. And by now you're probably wondering well is there a salary difference between the two roles and the answer is not really. Looking at entry-level positions for UX designers and product designers in the Berlin area in Germany this is what we can see from LinkedIn salaries. You can expect to get 45,000 yearly as a user experience designer and you can expect for 49,000 euros yearly as a product designer. So the difference is very minimal and bear in mind that the salary comparison portals always depend on how many people fill out the survey and how honest they are in the answers but you can already see that the salary range is more or less the same. Final reason number four titles are a vanity thing. Sure titles should serve a purpose and provide a clear overview of your skills, seniority and what your job description is but that is just not the case in the UX world anymore. You could be a UX designer, a product designer, a conversation designer, a hat customer product evangelist, a head of customer experience designs or any other ambiguous UX title that doesn't really tell much about the job you do. So instead of focusing on what your title means we suggest you focus on the skills you want to perfect on the day-to-day assignments and tasks you want to be doing and on really selecting which career path you want to follow. Do you want to become a specialist and really drill down into the technical skills or if you want to go a managerial route and manage the design team because those two career paths require really different skill sets but that's a topic for another video. So to wrap this up the role will be largely defined by the company you'll be working for so make sure to check the job specs thoroughly and focus on the skills and responsibilities that a role has instead of getting hung up on the title. Just apply for the job, no designer is going to go into an interview with a checklist of what a product designer should do or what a UX designer should do so really just break down the role specs and make sure you can deliver what a company needs and wants for the current skill set and that you can completely over deliver on this role. You should always be applying for the exact job the company is advertising not what you think a UX or a product designer should be doing. So that's it from us I hope you enjoyed the video I hope you've got some clarity on what the differences between the product design and UX design roles are and why they actually don't matter that much in the current job market. If you found this video helpful subscribe to the channel and hit the bell icon we have weekly videos coming out on topics of UX, UI, career progression and product design and much much more. If you want exclusive access to UX and UI resources and tips that we just don't share on any other channel subscribe to our weekly newsletter the link is in the description below and that's it from us I hope you really enjoyed this video see you in the next one the industry is changing fast you think okay so to wrap this up I forgot God