- There are designers who care more about the user's experience than the beauty of their graphic design. They obsess about clarity of design, action flow, and h

- There are designers who care more about the user's experience than the beauty of their graphic design. They obsess about clarity of design, action flow, and how the average person will view or interpret their graphics and layouts, rather than something that is purely elegant or attractive. They work around technical limitations rather than ignore them. Of course, some people simply call these good designers. - There are front-end engineers who care more about how the user perceives the product than how fellow engineers might perceive their architecture. These engineers obsess about things like UI responsiveness, framerates, and page loading times. They take user studies with a grain of salt, but they deeply respect them. They do not like it when other designers or engineers complain about "stupid users" that just don't understand their interface. They understand when it's time to scrap a month of work on a UI that just doesn't seem to be clicking, and get on with the next version instead of digging in their heels. Then again, some people just call these good front-end engineers. - There are managers who prioritize the user experience above all else. They make sure the people under them do as well. They personally try out and approve all major product features and liberally cut, prune, and edit where they think things are too confusing. They make the hard decisions. They throw away hard-earned features that just don't quite cut it. They understand that the quality of the final product is their responsibility, and the quality of a product is increasingly being judged almost solely on the quality of its user experience. Sometimes these are just called good managers. IMO, a UX person is just someone who cares. More about the user than about themselves. That said, I think there is a valid new profession somewhere between designer and front-end engineer. Static mock images don't let you explore certain kinds of very dynamic interfaces (touch-based ones especially). The ability to actually program a demo that moves provides incredible insight into the design process, but most designers are incapable of doing so. I don't know what to call such a person, even though I am one.