Product Manager vs UX Designer

Product Manager vs UX Designer; Key Differences in 2024

Many companies assume that the roles of UX designer and product manager are the same due to the overlap in responsibilities. Therefore, most of them rely on one person to handle both roles, which sometimes causes issues in the final product. Undoubtedly, product manager vs UX designer both share many similar tasks, but the former mainly deals with the management of product development while the latter works on the product’s technical/crafting side.

Both must work together to ensure that the customers get up-to-the-mark products and services. To make product manager vs UX designer clear for you, we’ve listed their significant differences, responsibilities, and more. To help you understand the differences between a product manager vs UX designer, we’ve listed their key differences, responsibilities, and more. So, let’s delve into these details!

What is a Product Manager and Their Role?

Typically, a product manager leads the process of planning and executing a product’s lifecycle. Product managers must be good at research, as their job involves researching and prioritizing customers’ demands during the product development stage.

Moreover, they work closely with engineering, sales, and marketing teams to ensure the products are properly designed and marketed before introduction in the market. According to a recent study, a fully optimized product manager or management process can increase a company’s profit by 34.2%.

Here are the functions or roles a product manager performs:

• The product manager’s main responsibility is to communicate actively between the sales or marketing team, design team, etc.
• Product managers supervise and take care of different aspects and features of a product.
• Lastly, they guide the engineering team in product creation according to their research and give strategies to market the product.

→ Related content: Product Strategy Framework

What is a UX Designer and Their Role?

A User Experience Designer, also known as a UX designer, focuses on the interaction between a product and end users. Some people are not aware of product management vs user experience and get confused in their role. A UX designer plans everything, from how a product should be designed to what the engineering team needs to make customers purchase it. UX designers always look for tips and tricks to make the product more innovative and easier to use.

Here are the primary responsibilities of a UX designer:

• UX designers particularly invest their time in making the product or application more usable and friendly.
• They give proper and clear design guidance to the engineering or design team.
• Lastly, they test everything with the team before coming up with the final product version.

Other functions of a UX designer may involve attending a sprint meeting, reading customers’ feedback, and going through product analytics.

Product Manager vs UX Designer: Major Differences

The responsibility of a product manager isn’t limited to one task. Instead, they communicate with the stakeholders, designing teams, practical product developers, and many more to ensure the product successfully gets completed and manages the whole process.

On the other hand, a UX designer primarily focuses on the user interface and develops something that engages users. So, let’s discuss the major differences between a product manager vs UX designer to get a better idea!

1. Research and Planning

The first difference between a product manager vs UX designer is the type of research and planning both roles need.

Product Manager 

A product manager actively interacts with everyone directly or indirectly involved in product creation, marketing, and sales processes. They make a roadmap and deliver proper guidelines to different working teams, including business executives, developers, stakeholders, etc. Their primary purpose is to closely monitor the entire procedure and check the progress.

UX Designer 

In contrast, UX designers keep their research and planning solely focused on the users and what they anticipate. Once the UX designer knows the demands of end users, they can guide the design team to add those things to the final product to make it an ultimate success. Moreover, they go through users’ feedback on similar products to see what others lack and add that to their products to make them easier to use.

2. Working Process and Execution

Once the planning and research are complete, the practical working process and execution start. Even though the jobs of product manager and UX designer seem alike, their working processes and final execution also don’t match.

Product Manager 

In product manager vs UX designer, the former tries to identify opportunities and prioritize what the users demand to make quick sales. Additionally, they also keep an eye on the business and market demand and develop a plan that aligns both, along with ensuring final product delivery.

UX Designer

The UX designer’s working process is totally different from the product manager. After completing the research and knowing the users’ needs, the UX designers conduct tests and prepare sketches for the blueprints. Once this is done, the UX designer performs wireframing to prepare prototypes of visuals. The final prototype tells how the audience will see the product and its interaction. Product development starts when the final prototype is handed over to the engineering team.

Who Gets Paid More UX Designer or Product Designer or Product Manager?

All these professionals get excellent salaries as these jobs are in demand and crucial to organizational success. However, the difference in salaries may occur due to geographical location and responsibilities. It’s because the pay is relatively high in some states compared to others.

• On average, a product designer gets an average salary of $116,771 per year, while for a UX designer, the average per year salary is $106,753. (Jan 30, 2024)
• In product manager vs UX designer salary, the former has an average salary of $117,603 per year, which is quite low compared to the latter but still a rewarding one. (Jan 30, 2024)

→ Build your user-centric products with User Story Map by ProductGo

Conclusion

UX designer and product manager are separate roles vital for an organization to launch a successful product. In product manager vs UX designer, no one takes the lead as both have different jobs. To help both in their respective roles, Agile User Story Map is a great tool.

With this management tool, UX designers can convey their ideas to the engineering team and give them the final product design roadmap with visuals considering the needs of end users. Product managers can utilize this tool to manage the production process, check its progress, and dispatch essential guidance to different teams involved without any hassle.