Paul (@ppedrazzi) pointed me at “So You Want to Be a Designer: Top 5 List” by Aza Raskin (@azaaza), who knows a thing or two about design.
He is Firefox’s creative lead and led UX for Mozilla Labs prior to that.
Aza’s points are all valid and apply to product managers too, whether they have overlapping responsibilities that involve design or they just want to know more about design.
I was pleased to see a recurring theme, namely that people involved with designing software should know how to code. I, obviously, see this as a very useful skill, and as with many good topics, several commenters on my post from March disagree.
This isn’t to say that it’s required, or that anyone with the title product manager who doesn’t code is doing it wrong.
Part of the problem is that if you’re not writing code for a living, your role in development isn’t cut and dried. Roles vary greatly between companies and types of software.
Anyway, what do you think of Aza’s list? I’m excited to find new areas where I can improve and glad that I’m already working in the others.
Find the comments here, and/or sound off in his comments.
