To add more about Visual designers, they work on designing visual experiences, which includes the visual design and consistency of a brand, which then happen to include components or anything that falls within that realm. If an experience does not require users to see to experience, we wouldn't need to visualize it, hence no visual design.
There isn't a pure visual designer in the foundation, I'm a Visual Experience Designer, which means I am more of a visual designer but I also work on user experience. The role between Visual and Experience designers are distinct, but often the line can be blur. Some UX designers also have varying degrees of visual design chops here. But, I agree with you that we need more Visual Designers. UxD and VD cannot come up with great experiences by themselves. I'm sure you know that without Design Research, UxD and VD, the whole experience would be mediocre and inconsistent. We used to have Visual Design interns where they get to be integrated into more teams, but we no longer have budget for something like that. We try to make things happen with what we have! mm On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:50 PM, Sherah Smith <[email protected]> wrote: >>>Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you >>> stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? > > Because interaction design and visual design are separate things. Visual > designers are hired to design visual components, while UX designers are > hired to design user experiences. Sometimes building experiences involves > visual design, but not always - for example, in cases where we are > innovating new ideas that do not yet have standards. > >>>Are the visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation? > > May, who is a Visual Designer, is indeed working on UI Standardization, > along with Volker, who is a UX Engineer. > >>>How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? > > Roughly: > Design Researchers conduct user research ---> UX Engineers build interactive > prototypes working with Design Research and Designers ---> Designers polish > and iterate the prototypes with the prototypers ---> Engineers build the > designs > > > As for the difference between UX Designer and UX Engineer, the main > difference is that the UX Engineer has an engineering background and applies > that to the building (coding) of interactive prototypes. > > On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 2:32 PM, Isarra Yos <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Er, forgot to cc the main list, since I did cross-post in the first place. >> >> Sorry about that! >> >> >> On 10/11/15 22:25, Isarra Yos wrote: >> >> Hi, thank you for your response. This does clarify a lot. >> >> Why do you make the distinction that UX designers also do visual when you >> stated already that you also have specifically visual designers? Are the >> visual designers the ones doing the UI standardisation? >> >> How does Design Research relate to the rest of this? You state that they >> are not designers, but their work is an integral part of the user experience >> design process. >> >> Also, in the future, could you please use a darker colour (or even just >> leave it as the default) for your emails? That grey is really hard to read >> and I misread a few things the first time that made it look a little... >> different from what you obviously meant. >> >> Thanks! >> >> On 10/11/15 22:04, Sherah Smith wrote: >> >> Hi Isarra, >> >> >> what is the 'design team'? >> >> Even though the design team (as it used to be) is now split out under >> different managers with no centralized Director, we still consider ourselves >> a "team" in that we still work together across teams to maintain consistency >> and provide feedback, collaborate, and review one another's work where >> needed. We have a weekly meeting and regularly talk and brainstorm in person >> across teams to support one another in our work. >> >> Design Research is the team that conducts research that informs the design >> of products we build on all other teams. The employees on this team are not >> designers. >> >> Reading Design is a sub-team under Reading, and it designs reading >> experiences, mostly for mobile platforms. Where you see "Visual Designer" as >> a title, that person works on visual designs. "UX Designer" works on >> combinations of visual and user experience design, mostly the latter, and >> "UX Engineer" builds interactive prototypes and interaction design. >> >> The reorganization that you reference happened in late April this year and >> was not a decision the design team itself made. Rather, it came from upper >> management. We do now work within the teams you see listed on the staff >> page, on experiences for those teams specifically. So for example, you will >> not see a designer on the Search & Discovery team working on experiences for >> the Editing team. >> >> Is there a particular concern you have about this organization that you >> feel like we should be discussing, or does this answer your questions? >> >> Thank you, >> >> >> On Tue, Nov 10, 2015 at 1:21 PM, Isarra Yos <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> From time to time I see references to the 'design team' on lists and on >>> phabricator. But what does this really mean now? As I understood it, the >>> previous monolithic Design Team was essentially disbanded toward the >>> beginning of the year, with the designers themselves distributed amongst the >>> other WMF teams in order to more directly integrate their services into the >>> development workflow (which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, at least, >>> since design is such an integral part of most development). Did this happen? >>> According to https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Staff_and_contractors, >>> there seem to still be two teams now with the word 'design' in their names, >>> Reading Design and Design Research, though these both seem to have somewhat >>> more specialised functions than just general design, namely Reading (sounds >>> like front-end non-interactive mw stuff, the visuals perhaps?) and Research. >>> >>> So what is the 'design team'? Is it one of these, though the teams only >>> have 5 and 4 people on them, respectively? Is it just WMF designers in >>> general? >>> >>> As much as this is also just a plea to please be more specific, if you >>> have an actual answer, or if you have been saying this, please, speak up, >>> share your experience and where you're coming from. As confusing as it is, I >>> suspect a discussion of what and why this has been going on could also clear >>> up quite a bit. >>> >>> Thanks. >>> >>> -I >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> Design mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design >> >> >> >> >> -- >> Sherah Smith >> UX Engineer >> Wikimedia Foundation >> 206-660-6585 >> sherahsmith.com >> donate.wikipedia.org >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Design mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Design mailing list >> [email protected] >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design >> > > > > -- > Sherah Smith > UX Engineer > Wikimedia Foundation > 206-660-6585 > sherahsmith.com > donate.wikipedia.org > > _______________________________________________ > Design mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design > -- mm _______________________________________________ Design mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/design
