How to use the double diamond model to advance your UX career

Don't be a specialist or generalist: be both with the double diamond model

Photo by Susan Wilkinson on Unsplash

One of the more contentious points I came across when researching for my free e-book, The Resilient UX Professional, was my point on being a Specialist instead of a Generalist when trying to advance your UX career.

I saw several arguments (and books) that said “the age of specialization was over” and that one needed to be a Generalist to succeed in this age. However, much UX work often involves wearing many hats (such as user research, stakeholder management, etc.), so specialization seems to be a flawed approach.

However, I think that many people misunderstand the terms used, and in truth, they’re two sides of the same process you should use to advance your UX career.

To explain this, let’s talk about what a generalist is.

The problem with being a generalist

Most people aren’t generalists because becoming a generalist takes more time than you realize.

One of the most famous generalists, Benjamin Franklin, was an author, publisher, printer, postmaster, politician, civics activist, scientist, and inventor.

It sounds impressive, and he’s undoubtedly a generalist that many people look up to. But here’s the problem: how long did it take him to get good at doing all those things? More time than you think.

Many people think that being a generalist means having a passing knowledge of many different skills, but that’s not the case: to be an effective generalist, you need to invest enough time to be good at multiple things. To put it another way, you need to be in the top 25% of all people at a skill to consider it part of your generalist stack.

What’s worse is that it makes learning more intimidating. For example, if you’re told that you need to learn a dozen different skills to apply for a job instead of learning one, it can make learning much more difficult.

Lastly, being a generalist doesn’t always help you in the long run. Melody Koh, a UX hiring manager and Senior Product Designer, has shown that being a generalist often hurts you when looking for your second or third UX job. Top companies like MAANG (Meta, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, Google) rarely hire generalist UX professionals.

It’s often better to specialize in domain knowledge and understanding specific problems instead of attempting to gain generalist knowledge.

However, that doesn’t mean specialization isn’t flawed, either. Too many people take a narrow skill range and focus on their field, and their judgment worsens.

So what I’d offer instead is not to become a generalist or specialist: it’s to become both. After all, you may be familiar with two parts of a process: the double diamond model.

Generalists and specialists are the two parts of iterating your UX career

Most of you have probably heard of the Double Diamond model. If you haven’t, it consists of two diamonds that cover two aspects of the design process: research and design.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Diamond_(design_process_model)

It’s a valuable way of ensuring that you consider all possible solutions while looking at a problem rather than simply designing whatever first comes to mind. It’s also the model you should take with your UX career.

Here’s how each phase of the process aligns with this process.

Start as a specialist to avoid analysis paralysis (and move quickly)

One of the first questions that any business has to tackle is, “What do we focus on?” There may be dozens of problems or opportunities to focus on, but they have to narrow it down to a goal to create a project with it.

This is the same thing you encounter when learning to become a UX professional. So many things might interest you about UX, so you’re unsure what to focus on. There might be dozens of domains, skills, specialties, and more in UX that you could focus on, so you are applying to hundreds of random jobs.

I talk about how this is an ineffective, generalist approach in my free e-book (which is not just about getting your first UX job but shaping your UX career). So you need to choose a few niches you’re interested in and go all in with polishing your skills and finding a job there. Ideally, you choose a list of 2-4 niches to ensure a healthy selection of jobs you can apply to.

You’ll probably get a job from a list of 75 different jobs (narrowed down from your niches) than from applying to 10,000 jobs. Why? Because when you choose your specialties ahead of time, you can make yourself a much stronger candidate for those jobs.

Have you ever found yourself BS-ing your way through a cover letter? You find it hard to care about anything around the job, but it pays well. Hiring managers and the team can spot that fake enthusiasm a mile away.

If, instead, you’re able to understand the niche, have skills and experience catering to it, and are interested in it, it’s hard for people to reject you outright. For example, I made it to the final round of interviews for jobs I probably didn’t have the skills for simply because I was passionate about the field.

In any case, what matters the most is getting your foot in the door. It’s easier to figure out what you like (or don’t like) about UX when working in the field. Also, starting as a specialist helps you get that first UX job quicker. But that doesn’t mean you should be one forever.

Become a “specialist with range” (i.e., generalist) to build career capital

Many people stick with being a specialist, which limits their growth. Many people specialize in a skill but sit there until they can advance to the next position.

For example, a UX Designer with two years of experience will often wait for an entire year or two before applying for jobs requiring 3-4 years of experience.

However, this is where being a “specialist with range” (i.e., a generalist) can help you immensely. In his book Range: why Generalists triumph in a specialized world, David Epstein talks about why this approach works well.

Wisdom is fungible. The more you have of it — regardless of where you got it — the more places you can apply it. -Ryan Holiday, interviewing David Epstein

As you’ve gotten good at a particular skill or topic, consider broadening your horizons and thinking about where (and how) you can apply it. This requires “divergent thinking,” where we expand our narrow idea to as many potential solutions as possible.

This is where considering your niches helps a ton. For example, I was getting pretty good at handling Healthcare UX, based on 1-2 jobs. So how could I expand on those skills? As it turns out, through writing. There tend to be several ways that many UX professionals use to do this:

• Creating YouTube videos or other content

• Writing articles, books, or blogs on the subject

• Designing widgets, templates, or other elements

• etc.

However, I probably would have quit writing if I only wrote about healthcare UX. There wasn’t much to say (beyond a dozen posts), and I would need to choose something else to write about to avoid only writing once every three months.

This is where other niches that I was interested in helped me. I was good at one skill, but I had multiple interests. So what I ended up choosing was this:

“I’m a writer who writes about UX, psychology, writing, and healthcare.”

I initially had several different interests, and I wanted to use the new skill I was practicing (and my previous expertise) to find things to write about. Writing about UX, in turn, helped to further my career because I was showing that I knew what I was talking about more than some vague “years of experience” metric. From there, I helped to focus back down to my following specialization.

Narrow down to a new specialization (and iterate)

Over the last several years, I’ve morphed from a Junior UX Designer with one year of experience to being a Senior UX Designer, Design Writer, and Author of 3 books. My “specialist with range” phase brought me new opportunities like being the Design Lead in startups, being featured in several websites and newsletters, and being offered 5-figure freelance opportunities along with my full-time job.

As I’ve narrowed down my writing focus, I’ve also connected with CEOs and some of the top thought leaders in the field. However, I know I’m not content just sitting here, either: I’m figuring out the following ‘range’ I want to pursue to continue building excellence.

The ironic thing is, if I continue with these sorts of iterations over time, I might one day be known as a generalist. But regardless of where you are on your UX or professional journey, don’t think like a generalist. Instead, follow the double-diamond approach, and you’ll find that building your skills that way rewards you immensely.

Want to become a UX professional? I’ve written a free e-book explaining how to make yourself an ideal UX candidate.

Kai Wong is a Senior Product Designer and a top Design Writer on Medium. His new book, Data-informed UX Design, explains small changes you can make regarding data to improve your UX Design process.