What Makes for a Good UX Professional?: Development of a UX Professional Competence Model

More than ever, companies need to find the right user experience (UX) employees who are competent in UX and have the necessary soft skills. Although training plans are available, the competencies required in practice are mainly unclear. An overview of the competencies relevant to UX professionals would help with the composition of digital product teams. Therefore, 25 exploratory interviews were conducted with UX managers to learn what they considered to be the relevant competence characteristics of UX professionals. The thematic analysis of the interviews reveals motives (e.g., interest in what they do), traits (e.g., honesty), knowledge (e.g., knowing UX theories and methods), and many skills (e.g., communicating with and mediating among others), but also the expected self-image (e.g., eager for knowledge) of competent UX professionals. Based on these insights, we develop a competence model that enables managers to identify suitable candidates for a job and develop the competencies of UX professionals.