At this year’s WebExpo, Jan Řezáč delivered a compelling and structured talk titled “12 Core Design Skills” that reframed what it means to be a complete designer today. Drawing from real-world challenges in UX, CX, and product design, he warned against common traps and laid out a roadmap for how designers can escape it by growing beyond just creativity or aesthetics.
Here are the 12 essential skills he outlined, along with some key takeaways from each:
1. Design Process
Design is not art. It’s intentional problem-solving. Whether you’re improving conversion rates or building a new service, a structured and goal-oriented design process is critical.
2. Business Thinking
To be taken seriously, designers must speak the language of business. This means understanding value chains, profit models, and being fluent in spreadsheets, metrics, and strategic frameworks.
3. Workshop Facilitation
Good workshops don’t happen by accident. Designers need to know how to listen actively, manage group dynamics, and facilitate decision-making sessions that are productive—not just fun.
4. Customer Research
From interviews to analytics, understanding what people say vs. what they do is vital. Tactical empathy—listening well, reading nonverbal cues, and avoiding judgment—is just as important as choosing the right method.
5. Sense-making
It’s not enough to gather data—you must extract meaning from it. Tools like journey maps, affinity diagrams, or concept maps help designers (alone or in teams) make strategic sense of what they learn.
6. Strategy
Designers influence business outcomes. Strategic thinking involves more than goals—it’s about choosing the right battles and methods. Familiarity with tools like Wardley Maps or Cynefin helps designers navigate complexity.
7. Stakeholder Management
This is a social skill, not a soft skill. Designers must persuade, negotiate, and manage conflict—often while handling governance and aligning teams. The higher you go, the more this matters.
8. Ideation
Great designers generate many ideas. Juniors tend to fixate on the first; seniors create, oppose, remix, and improve. With AI in the mix, idea generation becomes a hybrid of human insight and computational creativity.
9. Rapid Prototyping
Prototypes aren’t just sketches—they’re experiments. From static screens to AI-driven tools, being fast and iterative is essential. Tools like Replit, Firebase Studio, and Glitch are part of the modern prototyper’s stack.
10. Testing Business Ideas
Borrowing from lean startup methods, this skill is about de-risking innovation. You don’t need to build to test—you need fake doors, landing pages, concierge tests, and more.
11. Design Operations
The backstage of design: automation, documentation, tooling, and workflows. Understanding APIs, JSON, prompt engineering, and how to use AI tools well is increasingly part of the designer’s toolkit.
12. Project Management
Designers who can’t manage time, people, and dependencies get stuck. As you grow, you must manage not only yourself, but also others—and your boss. That means mastering risks, gantt charts, and even meetings.
Final Thought: Avoid the Second Diamond Trap
One of the most resonant warnings from Řezáč was about the “Second Diamond Trap”—the tendency to over-invest in ideation and exploration without ever delivering results. To rise above that, designers must develop both creative and operational muscles.
If you’re a junior, mid-level, or senior designer, this list isn’t just a checklist—it’s a map. And in a world where 95% of new products fail, becoming fluent in these 12 areas might just make the difference between launching something forgettable… or something that lasts.
