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There's a phrase in the design world - the unicorn designer. These are designers needed for the job adverts that require somebody who is a great visual designe

There's a phrase in the design world - the unicorn designer. These are designers needed for the job adverts that require somebody who is a great visual designer and a great user researcher and a great user tester and knows HTML5/CSS and knows JavaScript and knows PHP5 and ... So called because you're about as likely to find one as you are a unicorn ;-) There's a need for specialists and generalists on teams. Startups often need more generalists at the start - both because of cost issues and because of the communications overhead that specialists can cause. But trying to hire mythical employees who are excellent at everything is often a... suboptimal approach.

mitchellbryson 14y ago
I don't think the unicorn designer myth is true. We exist, there's just lack of people willing to pay for it. I design and develop and still find it difficult to find work. As you mentioned, it's a cost issue. As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup, and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  It's not just a cost issue - depending on the size of the unicorn. For example I know nobody who is really good at all of: * user testing * interaction design * visual design * HTML/CSS * JavaScript * user research * branding * information architecture * cognitive psychology * ethnography * marketing I know folk who are really good at a subset. I know folk who have some knowledge of everything. I keep seeing folk trying to hire for a stack of skills that rarely come up in a single person. The person who does user testing five days a week fifty weeks a year is going to be way better at it than those folk who do one every other month. You can't expect that level of skill from an individual if you expect them to be really good at visual design, interaction design and generative user research too. As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup, and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense. It's a hellishly useful combination to have certainly - and it's my preferred way of operating. But other ways can and do work. I've paired with fantastic visual designers without HTML/CSS knowledge and produced great results in the past. They've had other skills outside of HTML/CSS that they could help the business with. You need all of the skills for building a product on a team. They don't necessarily all need to be in the same person. Folk hired into design roles are sometimes expected to have an unreasonable number of skills in my experience.
philfreo 14y ago
The best designers I've known are also great at HTML/CSS - because great designers should know their medium. You'll notice in the article I mentioned looking for designers who know HTML/CSS -- but not server-side languages, databases, etc.
- adrianhoward 14y ago
  No argument that it helps - and I vastly prefer working with folk in that mode. But I've also worked successfully with great visual designers who figure out the medium's constraints without knowing CSS/HTML - and bring other aspects to the team (e.g. great user research skills). I'd be a fool to reject them just because they lack HTML/CSS. I just pair them with somebody who does. They both learn.

mitchellbryson 14y ago

I don't think the unicorn designer myth is true. We exist, there's just lack of people willing to pay for it. I design and develop and still find it difficult to find work. As you mentioned, it's a cost issue. As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup, and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense.

adrianhoward 14y ago
It's not just a cost issue - depending on the size of the unicorn. For example I know nobody who is really good at all of: * user testing * interaction design * visual design * HTML/CSS * JavaScript * user research * branding * information architecture * cognitive psychology * ethnography * marketing I know folk who are really good at a subset. I know folk who have some knowledge of everything. I keep seeing folk trying to hire for a stack of skills that rarely come up in a single person. The person who does user testing five days a week fifty weeks a year is going to be way better at it than those folk who do one every other month. You can't expect that level of skill from an individual if you expect them to be really good at visual design, interaction design and generative user research too. As an aside, I hate the idea of a visual designer that doesn't know markup, and someone else being responsible for building it - this does not make sense. It's a hellishly useful combination to have certainly - and it's my preferred way of operating. But other ways can and do work. I've paired with fantastic visual designers without HTML/CSS knowledge and produced great results in the past. They've had other skills outside of HTML/CSS that they could help the business with. You need all of the skills for building a product on a team. They don't necessarily all need to be in the same person. Folk hired into design roles are sometimes expected to have an unreasonable number of skills in my experience.

philfreo 14y ago

The best designers I've known are also great at HTML/CSS - because great designers should know their medium. You'll notice in the article I mentioned looking for designers who know HTML/CSS -- but not server-side languages, databases, etc.

adrianhoward 14y ago
No argument that it helps - and I vastly prefer working with folk in that mode. But I've also worked successfully with great visual designers who figure out the medium's constraints without knowing CSS/HTML - and bring other aspects to the team (e.g. great user research skills). I'd be a fool to reject them just because they lack HTML/CSS. I just pair them with somebody who does. They both learn.