UX/UI Designer
Where empathy meets pixel-perfect craft.
What a UX/UI Designer does
Day-to-day responsibilities and the work itself.
- Conduct user research, synthesize findings, and translate insight into design decisions.
- Design wireframes, prototypes, and high-fidelity interfaces using tools like Figma.
- Run usability tests, iterate on feedback, and validate design choices with real users.
- Collaborate closely with engineering to ensure designs ship faithfully and accessibly.
- Maintain and evolve design systems — components, tokens, patterns — that scale across products.
Best Ikigai types for this career
Personality profiles whose strengths align with UX/UI Designer.
Pillar profile for this career
How UX/UI Designer draws on the four Ikigai pillars.
Salary detail
Median wage
$98,540
USD/yr
Range (10th–90th percentile)
$48,610 – $158,950
10th–90th percentile
10-year growth
+16%
Much faster than average
US employment (2023)
219,200
SOC 15-1255
Source: BLS OEWS May 2023; EP 2023–2033
Key skills
Typical education
Bachelor's degree
A day in the life
Your day rarely begins with a list — it begins with an impulse. A sketch, a screenshot you saved last night, a user-research clip you can't stop replaying. By mid-morning you're in Figma, iterating on a flow that needs to feel inevitable. Afternoons mix collaboration and craft: a critique with engineering, a research synthesis with the team, a quiet hour to push pixels until they land. You think in patterns — components, tokens, the small consistencies that make a product feel coherent. Evenings sometimes leak into your personal work — a side project, a typeface that caught your eye. The boundary between work and curiosity is thin, and you mostly like it that way.
Related careers
Is this your ikigai?
Take the 12-minute test to see if UX/UI Designer aligns with your purpose, your passion, and the world's needs.
Take the free test