[clavalle]

Having hired a UX designer that had never coded, it was a very frustrating experience.

I enjoyed the high-touch with customers approach that they brought to the table but when it actually came to implementation it was as if I brought an astrologer to an astronomy meeting -- a lot of the same words were said but neither knew what the other was talking about.

There was just no sense of proportion on the UX side.

I am not saying a UX designer needs to code in the course of doing their UX work, but I do think they need to know how and have had some experience in it. Otherwise, the distance between saying something and doing it is too great.

[arstin]

Yeah I can understand that. I've worked with plenty of designers who can't code, and to my taste the only part that can be a little frustrating is when they don't accept that some great ideas really can't be built. But that said, I do think that negative is usually outweighed by the value of keeping the ideal in front of the reality...it's just they need to be sure to also help with what needs delivered in two weeks!

As sort of a joke, I've been on the flip side of that---especially with more enterprise-y Microsoft stack style dev teams---where I propose a design and am told it's impossible and I respond with a detailed explanation of how to build it within their constraints. I think they like that even less! :)