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The Ideal (Junior) Industrial Designer: A Study of Skills and Traits For New Industrial Designers
The Ideal (Junior) Industrial Designer: A Study of Skills and Traits For New Industrial Designers
Background
Over the past few years, Ive written about the integration of skills and traits essential to being a great industrial designer. In that same period of time, Ive taught Design Communication to students at the University of Cincinnati and hired many co-ops and interns at Kaleidoscope. Over time, Ive developed a passion for helping students understand, navigate, and cope with the diverse range of qualities needed to achieve success. This study aims to clarify the balance needed by young industrial designers with two years of experience or less. It does not aspire to lofty definitions of contemporary industrial design, nor will it provide specific approaches for how to improve certain skills. The survey focuses on understanding and organizing what is most important to the senior designers and hiring managers who hire young talent. Finally, it is important to remember that this study is largely qualitative and open to interpretation. I welcome a rich discussion of this document on my blog.
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100 Respondents
79%
North America
54%
Consultant
24% 10%
Europe
Corporate
6%
Asia
4%
No Response
1%
22%
Other
Academia, Anonymous, Unknown
South America
Based on the backgrounds of the studys participants, the perspectives in this survey are widely informed and best applied to junior industrial design opportunities with consultancies in North America.
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Please rank the importance of the following skills and traits when considering a junior industrial designer for your team.
Low Importance Medium Importance High Importance Very High Importance
1 2 3 4
Personality (3.11)
Designers Weigh In
The survey began by asking respondents to rank four aspects of the designer using a likert scale. Design Solutions, Personality, and Problem Identification all scored as having high importance, while Presentation & Execution barely missed the cut. All skills and traits were relatively important to respondents, but Design Solutions had the highest score, at least in part because it received the most scores in the very high category.
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Which presentation and execution skills are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Ideation Sketching
CAD Modeling
Sketch Rendering
Other
CAD Rendering
15%
Presentation
Other names for presentation skills, in this situation, could be process skills, or even communication skills. These are the hard skills that industrial designers use to communicate to peers, managers, and clients. Overwhelmingly, the survey confirms that ideation sketching is the most important of these skills at which a junior industrial design should excel.
Responses from Other include: insightfulness, illustrating design strategy, physical modeling, following directions, teamwork, Illustrator/Photoshop, positive attitude, and fast acquisition of beer.
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Which aspects of the a design solution are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Quality of Ideas
Aesthetic Sensitivity
Attention to Detail
Quantity of Ideas
Other
6%
Design Solutions
This question aims to remove all presentation aspects of the solution out of the equation and focus on the concepts and ideas at the core of a solution. While not as definitively important as ideation sketching, more than half of the respondents reported that both the quality of the idea and the ideas aesthetic were the most important.
Responses from Other include: systems thinking, variety of product/industry sensitivities, global design awareness, and offering a fresh perspective.
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Which problem identification or project framing skills are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Ergonomics & Human Factors
Ethnographic Research
Opportunity Mapping
Marketing Knowledge
Other
15%
Problem Identification
Not only does an industrial designer need to know how to solve problems, she also needs to know how to identify the right problems to solve. This can be done in a variety of ways, depending on the project. Compared to the other sections, this question proved to have the least obvious answer, with Ergonomics and Human Factors scoring the highest. Four other choices varied by only 8%.
Responses from Other include: consideration of interaction design, idea generation and brainstorming, observation & analysis, work ethic, and exposure to other methodologies.
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Which personality traits are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Positive Attitude
Professionalism
Other
8% 3%
Dress/Personal Style
Personality
Hard skills matter, but personality traits are important too, since many industrial designers work in teams where these traits can have an impact on its success. Although respondents considered a positive attitude the most important, three other traits (passion for career, cultural fit, and professionalism) also combine for the ideal junior ID personality.
Responses from Other include: cross-functional team fit, pro-active attitude, independent, selfmotivated, good time management skills, and willingness to take direction from managers.
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Of all traits covered in this survey, which are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Ideation Sketching Quality of Ideas Positive Attitude Passion for Career Aesthetic Sensitivity Cultural fit with brand Professionalism Attention to Detail CAD Modeling Quantity of Ideas Graphic Design Other Materials & Processes Verbal Presentation Ergonomics Blue Sky Thinking Marketing Knowledge Business Knowledge Sketch Rendering CAD Rendering Opportunity Mapping Ethnographic Research Personal Style Interests outside of work Presentation Skills Design Solution Skills Problem Framing Skills Personality Traits
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Which skills or traits quickly disqualify a candidate for a junior industrial design position with your team?
Negative Attitude Low Quality of Ideas Unprofessional Poor Ideation Sketching Low Passion for Career Weak Aesthetic Sensitivity Poor Attention to Detail Weak Cultural Fit Weak Verbal Presentation Poor CAD Modeling Low Quantity of Ideas Poor Personal Style Poor Matls & Processes Poor CAD Rendering Poor Sketch Rendering Weak Graphic Design Weak Blue Sky Thinking Low Biz. Knowledge Weak Ergonomics Weak Ethnography Low Mktg. Knowledge Weak Opp. Mapping Interests outside of work Presentation Skills Design Solution Skills Problem Framing Skills Personality Traits
Dealbreakers
Often a skill or trait is more important when it is noticeably weak rather than when it is strong. To gain insights around this framing, respondents were asked which skills were the biggest turn-offs when evaluating a junior industrial designer. Junior industrial designers who showed a negative attitude were considered the worst. Personality traits in general jumped up the rankings across the board.
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_Sketching is (still) Tablestakes _A Problem with Framing _Attitude Adjustment _Staying on Top _One Final Look
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Analysis Whats the most important skill for a junior industrial designer?
89%
Ideation Sketching
CAD Modeling
Overall, problem identification & framing scored in the middle, but when specific skills within the category were listed, participants struggled to find their importance relative to other traits.
Design Solutions
Personality
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Analysis How do preferences change when the framing of the question changes?
Positive Framing Of all traits covered in this survey, which are most important when considering a junior industrial designer for your team?
Negative Framing Which skills or traits quickly disqualify a candidate for a junior industrial design position with your team?
Attitude Adjustment
When observing the differences in results between the positvely- and negatively-framed questions, a clear difference could be noted in personality traits. While other categories remained relatively unchanged, every personality trait scored higher when framed negatively. In short, designers may not win a job solely based on their personality, but a negative attitude or signs of unprofessionalism may do the most to hurt ones chances.
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Ideation Sketching
Quality of Ideas Positive Attitude Passion for Career Aesthetic Sensitivity Cultural fit with brand Attention to Detail Professionalism
CAD Modeling Quantity of Ideas Graphic Design Materials & Processes Verbal Presentation Ergonomics Blue Sky Thinking Marketing Knowledge Business Knowledge Sketch Rendering CAD Rendering Opportunity Mapping
Staying on Top
Low Overall Importance
Based on the ranking of skill categories (p.4), the ideal junior industrial designer is some balanced combination of good personality, talented problem solver, and skilled technician. Mapping out all the skills and traits based both on multiple performance metrics, one can see that the ideal junior industrial designer sketches great but then quickly adds quality ideas, a positive and passionate attitude, a keen aesthetic sense, and a good fit within the team. The list continues, but this is a good starting point for any young designer looking to capture the attention of their senior peers.
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32% 32%
Problem Identification
Conceptually, problem identification and framing were considered to be of high importance, but respondents found it difficult to identify the specific skills that were key to its importance. It would seem risky for young designers to ignore the development of these skills altogether, especially given the recent popularity of design thinking and design research.
38% 30%
Overall, executional skills ranked as the least important of the four categories but that ideation sketching was considered the most important of any individual skill on the survey. 89% of respondents felt sketching was very important, outscoring everything else. The second most important executional skill was CAD modeling (38%).
4 2 3 1
55%
Positive Attitude
61%
52%
51%
Personality
Having the right personality traits is even more important than having good technical skills. Hiring managers most often disqualify junior ID candidates for having a negative attitude, followed shortly by being unprofessional, showing a lack passion, or being a poor fit for the company culture.
89%
Quality of Ideas
69%
52%
38%
Design Solutions
Beautiful and intelligent design solutions ranked as the most important overall. More than half of respondents considered the quality of ideas and aesthetic sensitivity to be very important.
Whats Next
After conducting this study, a number of opportunities have been uncovered for further potential research to ensure the quality of this information and to explore adjacent areas of interest. Although this survey used numbers and figures to measure the responses, its still largely qualitative. Alternative research methods as well as more rigorous screening would help ensure the validity of future studies. Further exploration into a number of areas could help to identify the differences across region, business type, and experience level. Understanding preferences globally could help a broader audience understand their regions specific needs or help North American students cater their portfolios to the global audience of their choice. For similar reasons, it would also be useful to better understand the differences between corporate and consultant businesses. Its likely that the skills of junior industrial designers are not the same for designers of other experience levels. Additional studies across a variety of experience levels would help identify which skills remain essential and which shift over time to become more or less important, allowing designers to focus their personal development to be the most effective.
Thank you to everyone who participated in the study! Your insights are truly appreciated and this document could not have been created without your input.
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