Top UX design skills to launch your career in 2025
With the right UX design skills, you can build a job-ready portfolio that will attract attention. Explore the most marketable UX skills for beginners.
By: James M. Tobin, Edited by: Marie Custodio Collazo
Published: September 18, 2025
User experience (UX) designers draw on technical abilities and soft skills to create digital interfaces that engage users and ensure proper functionality. This guide to essential UX designer skills covers three areas:
- Core essentials
- Soft skills
- Technical skills
Explore multiple examples from each of these areas. Kick-start your career in UX design by identifying key proficiencies that can help you break into the UX field or advance in your current role.
Essential UX design skills for today's job market
Core UX design skills
The UX design job skills covered here represent core proficiencies that employers often list in job postings and descriptions. The following section covers several key skills.
Information architecture
Users want to find the information, services, or features they need quickly, without friction or effort. Information architecture describes the strategies UX designers use to create intuitive, user-friendly product navigation.
Target this area when you learn UX design — information architecture forms the foundations of a good user experience.
Interaction and visual design
Interaction design follows from information architecture but focuses specifically on navigation features like clickable buttons, links, and forms. It controls the way users interface with the digital product.
Visual design engages the aesthetic side of the user experience. It focuses on elements like color schemes, font styles, and imagery themes.
Research and analysis
UX designers must understand user needs and the pain points users face when seeking to meet them.
To achieve this, UX professionals use various research and analysis tools, including:
- A/B testing
- Interviews
- User surveys
A solid command of these research and analysis skills can help you build better, more functional digital products.
Wireframing and prototyping
As product designs come to life, UX designers conduct detailed usability tests. Wireframing and prototyping play key roles in this testing process.
Wireframes are basic product layouts that allow designers to perform high-level user flow and overall performance tests. After refining these foundational elements, prototyping adds more detail to create a functional simulation of the finished product for final, detailed testing.
Core UX design skills
The UX design job skills covered here represent core proficiencies that employers often list in job postings and descriptions. The following section covers several key skills.
Information architecture
Users want to find the information, services, or features they need quickly, without friction or effort. Information architecture describes the strategies UX designers use to create intuitive, user-friendly product navigation.
Target this area when you learn UX design — information architecture forms the foundations of a good user experience.
Interaction and visual design
Interaction design follows from information architecture but focuses specifically on navigation features like clickable buttons, links, and forms. It controls the way users interface with the digital product.
Visual design engages the aesthetic side of the user experience. It focuses on elements like color schemes, font styles, and imagery themes.
Research and analysis
UX designers must understand user needs and the pain points users face when seeking to meet them.
To achieve this, UX professionals use various research and analysis tools, including:
- A/B testing
- Interviews
- User surveys
A solid command of these research and analysis skills can help you build better, more functional digital products.
Wireframing and prototyping
As product designs come to life, UX designers conduct detailed usability tests. Wireframing and prototyping play key roles in this testing process.
Wireframes are basic product layouts that allow designers to perform high-level user flow and overall performance tests. After refining these foundational elements, prototyping adds more detail to create a functional simulation of the finished product for final, detailed testing.
From the field: How a UX designer uses these skills
- Name: Jonathan Ortiz
- Years as a UX Designer: 8+ years
Q: Which UX skills do you rely on the most in your day-to-day work, and have those changed since you started your career?
Ortiz: I rely on user research, workflow diagrams, information architecture, and low-fidelity (lo-fi) prototyping almost every day. These skills help us answer key questions: What are we building? Where is it happening? How is it being done? And most importantly, why?
A big part of my role as a UX designer is helping teams visualize what they might need — before they commit to buying or building a solution.
Early in my career, I just wanted to jump straight into prototyping. But over time, I realized that having a system for defining and validating ideas makes everything move faster. High-fidelity screens can distract people with minor design details. It's more important that stakeholders can understand the product flow and the user insights — before high-fidelity designs come into play.
Q: Can you share a time when a soft skill was as important as your technical skills?
Ortiz: My favorite part of UX happens before we even think about building: getting to know the people we're designing for. The only way to truly understand pain points and needs is by talking to them, not just reading a brief or watching a walkthrough.
User experience design is really a dialogue between stakeholders and users, and the UX designer is the translator. Documents help facilitate those conversations, but they can't replace them.
I once worked with a cancer care startup that frequently used the term "journey" to describe the member experience. But in a user interview, someone said, "Can we stop calling this a journey? This doesn't feel like a journey. This is a death sentence." That moment stuck with me. It was a powerful reminder that empathy is essential in UX.
How to build a UX design portfolio
A portfolio is an important tool for displaying your UX design job skills to potential employers. Curate your work by choosing the right projects, structuring your portfolio effectively, and presenting it professionally.
Choose projects that highlight key skills
Consider these tips when selecting projects to include in your portfolio:
- Select up to three projects that you found satisfying to complete.
- Highlight projects that taught you new skills or forced you to overcome a difficult challenge.
- Include the process in your presentation, as it gives employers a clearer understanding of your problem-solving abilities.
"Focus on quality over quantity. You don't need to include every screen, every idea, or every project. I want to understand how you think about problems, what solutions you proposed, and how you adapted when things didn't go as planned," suggested Jonathan Ortiz, a designer with over eight years of professional UX experience.
Structure your UX portfolio effectively
When deciding what to present and how to present it, keep these best practices in mind:
- Include background information about yourself that personalizes the portfolio.
- Use case studies that speak directly to the position you're applying for and the duties it involves.
- Highlight the broadest possible variety of skills you can.
If you're just getting started, you might have limited material available. Try to aim for at least two case studies.
Tips for presenting UX case studies
These strategies can help your UX case study presentations hit the right notes with employers:
- Tell a story by showing the problem and explaining how you solved it.
- Aim for clear, scannable visuals with strong stylistic consistency.
- Show your process and emphasize important decisions you made, why you made them, and how they improved the end result.
"Creativity in UX isn't just about colors or shapes—it's about how you apply patterns, systems, and logic across a product. That's what impresses me most. A consistent, thoughtful design system shows far more UX maturity than a flashy logo or trendy interface," added Ortiz.
Consider customizing your presentation for different audiences, such as potential clients or fellow designers.
Where to learn UX design skills online
Online tutorials, standalone courses, and certificate and degree programs are all great ways to learn about UX design.
Accredited edX partner providers offer UX courses and programs for students at any level, including beginners. They offer a convenient and structured way to build UX design skills that can help you launch your career and advance beyond the entry level.
How to choose the right UX course
Consider these factors when you're trying to determine whether a particular learning opportunity is right for you:
- Skill level: Choose a course or program designed for learners at your level.
- Available support: You may want access to your instructor and/or peers, especially if you're new to UX and eager for feedback.
- Costs: Ensure the course or program fits your budget, especially if you're new to UX design and want to see how well you take to the field.
Take the next step in your UX design career
Get started today with a course or program that can kick-start your journey to a UI/UX career.