Product Designer vs UX Designer: The Difference Explained

Product designers and user experience (UX) designers are similar—in fact, sometimes the titles are used interchangeably. But sometimes they’re not. Broadly speaking, product designers tend to be more involved with the entirety of the design process of a product, whilst UX designers generally focus specifically on refining the user experience of a product.

Of course, job roles can differ from company to company. Some companies may expect their UX designers to be heavily involved in business processes or their product designers to work exclusively on design.

Read on to find out even more about product designers and UX designers, their respective average salaries, and what you need to do to become either one – or both.

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Product designer vs UX designer

At a glance, the key characteristics of both product designers and UX designers breaks down as follows:

Both product designers and UX designers rely heavily on UX tools and methods. While specific tasks might set them apart, both roles work to ensure the finished product’s user experience is smooth and intuitive. This means both should know how to use common UX tools, like Balsamiq, Sketch, Lucid Chart, or design tools like Figma.

A few key ways that product designers and UX designers differ are:

• Product designers tend to be more business-oriented. Product designers often have a greater awareness of business priorities than UX designers. This might manifest in working more closely with business or product teams than a typical UX designer might, and ensuring business needs are met in a finished product.

• Product designers tend to take the lead. Product designers often lead the entire design process of a product. They can wrangle UX and visual designers, researchers, and business teams together to make sure all needs of a product are met. Because of this, product designers typically have some experience leading projects or teams.

• UX designers are more design focused. Companies often expect UX designers to design the actual visual and interactive elements of a product. That’s not to say that product designers don’t—but as a UX designer, expect to dig in a little more into the hands-on aspects of designing a user-friendly product.

What’s product design?

Product design is the process of creating a digital or physical product. The process is generally grounded in research and involves keeping the user’s experience in mind.

Product design has in recent years become associated with digital products like software or apps. But product design can also refer to the design of physical products, like furniture, electronics, and other manufactured goods. This latter type of design is also called industrial design.

Product designer salary and UX designer salary

According to various salary aggregate websites, product designers tend to have slightly higher average salaries than UX designers in India.

With a different title, you might earn a different wage and complete similar but different job duties. Explore how similar professions compare, according to data from Talent [3, 4]:

• Production manager: ₹7,00,000

• Engineering manager: ₹3,00,000

• Creative designer: ₹6,37,500

• Design engineer: ₹5,09,410

• Test engineer: ₹12,00,000

• Account manager: ₹6,00,000

• Graphic designer: ₹3,98,067

*Average annual salary is sourced from Talent.com as of October 2024

Becoming a UX designer or product designer

With the need to develop similar skill sets, the paths to UX design and product design can easily complement each other. Moving from a UX designer to a product designer can be a natural transition as you gain more experience and begin to take on more responsibilities.

If you’re just starting out in your design career, you’ll want to solidify your understanding of UX concepts and familiarise yourself with key design tools. Here’s a closer look at what that means:

• UX concepts and skills: User-centric thinking is critical, but UX design isn’t just a mentality. Tasks as a UX designer would also include being able to prototype, build wireframes, or map user journeys or user flows. These skills will also be foundational for your work as a product designer.

• Design tools and principles: UX designers should generally be familiar with several design tools. These can include Figma, Sketch, and Adobe Creative Suite. A strong understanding of design principles—like typography and colour theory—will also be an asset.

If you want to move into product design, it’ll also be useful to have the following skills:

• Leading projects: Many job descriptions for product designers call for previous experience overseeing projects. This might be something you can gradually build into a current design role. 

• Collaboration across different teams: Product designers work with business teams and might draw their own conclusions about best practices based on data. Having a wider understanding of a product’s importance and priorities within a company will be important.

The designer career path

Product designers and UX designers are only two roles in a wide field of other similar roles. You can consider plenty of other roles in a design career, with each their unique differences.

Graphic designer

Average annual salary in India (Talent): ₹3,97,542 [7]

Graphic designers develop the visual aspects of websites, ads, and other graphical interfaces. It can be a good starting point if you have an eye for design but aren’t ready to jump into UX. 

UX engineer

Average annual salary in India (Talent): ₹ 14,00,000 [8]

Also called a UX developer, UX engineers are responsible for programming the front end of websites and apps with an eye to UX principles. It can be a good option if you feel drawn to coding and web development.

UX researcher

Average annual salary in India (Talent): ₹ 14,00,000 [9]

If you enjoy learning about people and their behaviour, UX research might be worth considering. As a UX researcher, you’ll conduct the research that UX designers use to then design a product—the surveys, interviews, and data-focused studies that reveal what’s working in a product, what’s not, and what people want.

Product manager

Average annual salary in India (Talent): ₹15,00,000 [10]

If you’re a product designer, it's possible to pivot your career into product management. While this will distance you from the design elements of the job, if you’re intrigued by the planning, research, and collaborative aspects of product design, product management can be a role to consider.

Get started in design

Product designers oversee the entire product design process, including business considerations, while UX designers focus primarily on creating a user-friendly experience through hands-on design. Whether you’re eyeing a product design position or hoping to develop your UX design career, having a solid grasp of UX principles will be foundational. If you’re looking for a place to start, consider the Google UX Design Professional Certificate offered on Coursera. Get familiar with digital design tools, learn essential UX concepts, and create completed projects to put into a portfolio. The first week is free.

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Google UX Design

Get on the fast track to a career in UX design. In this certificate program, you’ll learn in-demand skills, and get AI training from Google experts. Learn at your own pace, no degree or experience required.

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(82,223 ratings)

1,167,989 already enrolled

Beginner level

Learn More

Average time: 6 month(s)

Learn at your own pace

Skills you'll build:

User Experience, Wireframe, User Experience Design (UXD), Prototype, UX Research, User Experience (UX), Figma, mockup, Usability Testing, UX design jobs

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