Today’s organizations are so structurally varied that it’s impossible to describe a “typical” organization. Especially as companies scale, their organizational charts shift to fit new needs. One UX role that businesses sometimes hire for — but don’t always fully understand — is the UX manager.
In this article, I’ll describe what a UX manager does in the grand scheme of things, why this role matters (especially when compared to companies that lack one), when it might make sense to hire or advocate for one, and how to set them up to make the biggest product impact.
Yes, UX managers manage UX teams and projects — but isn’t that what product managers already do? Not quiet. Unlike roles with well-defined boundaries, the responsibilities of a UX manager are often shaped by:
You might be hired to act as a liaison between higher-ups (perhaps product managers) and a fairly large number of UX designers. Or to act as a product manager in the business’s earlier days, if you have experience in or aptitude for managing the UX function as well as servicing the overall product vision.
As a UX manager, what you might feel you should be doing is advocating for good UX design at any cost. However, if hired to be a middle-person between business and UX, you might be expected to be business-first (although, while understanding the value of good UX, where a product manager might not). This is particularly important for products whose key differentiator is just better UX than that of the competition.
As a senior-level UX expert, the UX team that you manage might need you to bat for UX when talking to business people, but also relay business needs to the UX team in a way that UX designers can reason with. Basically — bridge the gap between business and UX, something that product managers can sometimes struggle with.
All in all, having a UX manager to bridge the gap between business and UX, or to exist in place of a product manager, can be very beneficial. There are pros and cons to both, which we’ll go into — the point is that the role of UX manager isn’t necessarily as clear-cut as ‘manages UX teams and UX projects.’
Let’s start with ‘manages UX teams and UX projects’ though, since that part is a given and involves many responsibilities, including:
However, a UX manager with a broader set of responsibilities, perhaps one that’s more akin to a technical product manager with a UX background, might also have the following responsibilities:
Put side by side, it’s easy to see how a (good) UX manager could be advantageous over a product manager. They’re more adept at recognizing customer/user needs, they can play a player/coach role in UX projects whenever needed, but they can still get UX teams to meet business goals.
That said, product managers have a broader, bird’s-eye view of all functions at once. They hold the authority to manoeuvre them as a cohesive unit. Ideally, your structure includes both: a PM to guide the big picture, and a UX manager to ensure the user experience isn’t lost in the noise.
In my experience, the worst setup is having product managers directly oversee UX designers, devs, and marketing without support from function managers. Product managers typically don’t have deep expertise in each domain. That’s why function leads — like UX managers — are so crucial. They provide context, advocate for their craft, and help PMs make more informed decisions.
Having function managers without a product manager is popular with new or new-ish businesses, where there needs to be a heavy focus on building before we can truly gauge how successful it’ll be financially.
As Phil Freo said in his LogRocket Leader Spotlight: “The smaller the company, the more hats people have to wear.” In the earliest days of Close, they didn’t even have PMs or UX designers — just full-stack engineers with design instincts.
Truthfully, though, when a product manager is managing everything solo, they’re the ones wearing too many hats. This is because it’s the function managers who alleviate the burdens of product managers (not the other way around). Just like with Close, you need that function manager-level support before you can hire a product manager and use them effectively.
In any case, the role of UX manager is a unique one because you’re often leading and serving at the same time, which lends itself well to organizations with horizontal leadership styles.
Understand that the product must be revenue-first, because if it’s not financially sustainable, then it simply can’t exist, and then users don’t even get the solution to their problem at all.
A cynic might assume that a UX manager balances the scales in business, where all too often, UX is only important if it drives a return-on-investment, and falls by the wayside otherwise. Now this might be true to an extent, but it’s important to remember that revenue-first businesses can still allocate most of their resources to UX…but after.
An excellent UX manager who’s an expert in spearheading the design of critically-acclaimed products but still understands the bigger picture can be a valuable asset to an organization.
To actually translate UX work into product impact, it’s important to understand the difference between (business) goals and (UX) objectives. Goals are business-oriented, passed from business people (a product manager, if there is one) to the UX manager and shared with other function managers. Objectives are smaller, function-specific targets that, if met, act as a surrogate for the goal. For example, if the business goal is to increase Customer Lifetime Value (perhaps because new customer acquisition has slowed), one UX objective (of many) could be to redesign the email marketing campaigns/flows. The objective is the surrogate for the goal, presented in a way that the UX team can resonate with.
A UX manager not only sets these UX KPIs and the overall UX strategy, but they also ensure that UX teams develop business acumen by, from time to time, remembering that there’s a bigger picture/overarching business goal. In turn, this prevents the UX team from working in a silo and helps them truly align with the UX manager’s vision.
Bridging the gap should enable business people to understand what UX designers do, and what their goals are (and vice versa). Metaphorically, it should mean that either party feels comfortable crossing the bridge rather than just meeting in the middle of it to compromise on conflicting goals.
As a UX manager, you shouldn’t be mediating between business people and UX designers; instead, it’s, “How do we achieve all of our most important goals?” Or, “How can we help you with your goals?” Or, “How can you help us with our goals?”
For this to happen, teams need to be comfortable in other teams’ domains.
First, consider building a content hub. These are so fun to create and empower UX teams to collaborate on documenting their process and outcomes. These can be as short (e.g., articles) or as long (e.g., entire case studies) as you want them to be (whatever you have the bandwidth for), and putting aside a huge variety benefits this can have, it gives cross-functional teams excellent insight into the true capabilities of a UX team. Spotify Design, Adobe Design, Slack Design, and Amazon Design are all great examples of UX/design teams openly talking about what they do.
Second, organize workshops where cross-functional teams work together on a real project while teaching each other how their function actually functions and even providing hands-on experience. This truly is an initiative that only organizations with function managers, such as UX managers, can weave together.
All managers have to maintain team morale. Among their teammates, people want to feel heard, valued, and like their work has meaning.
However, UX managers also need to ensure that UX and the people who design it are batted for, and that the business goals are defined with the input of these function leads, who should have a hand in deciding business goals rather than just relaying them like a messenger.
Being a UX manager provides you with the unique opportunity to benchmark efficiency (i.e., iteratively measure and improve the speed and outcomes of repeatable processes such as UX tests and design sprints). Having an aerial view of all the moving parts in the UX team can help you to test improvements and ultimately make changes to roles, responsibilities, tools, workflows, and frankly…chemistry!
Ensure that you gather team feedback to help you, and when you think you’ve hit the jackpot with a process, document it.
Whether it’s research, wireframes, or usability testing — jump in when needed. Just make sure you’ve got the bandwidth. Some areas, though, really need your involvement:
That said — stay out of design system governance. Let the people using the system own it.
All in all, a UX manager is very valuable to have in an organization, either in place of a product manager in those critical early days, or in addition to a product manager to better bridge the gap between business and UX. The key benefits are that UX teams will have somebody who can authoritatively bat for UX but also own business goals with objective eyes, thanks to their knowledge, skills, and experience. In fact, I think all functions should have at least a team lead before hiring product managers.
Besides this, UX managers are responsible for setting goals and objectives, managing timelines and budgets, managing people and morale, spearheading UX research, managing DesignOps, and, when necessary, being a player/coach.
Finally, the critical soft skill that UX managers absolutely must have, that really ties all of this together, is the ability to collaborate with product managers and cross-functional teams.
If you can near-enough master all of this, not only can you become a successful UX manager, but you can provide significant value to your organization too. Finally, it’s important to remember that good leadership is a skill that you can grow. UX managers often start off as UX designers and can even grow into product managers (with a highly coveted technical background!).
Got a question to ask or an insight to share? Drop it in the comment section below. And, as always, thanks for reading!
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