UX Unicorn vs. UX Team: Which Is Better?

Jakob Neilsen explaining that an Olympic javelin-throwing “specialist” outperforms an Olympic decathlete at javelin throwing.

I’ve been thinking a lot about collaboration on design teams.

Even though lots of data is now available proving that teams of specialists deliver better results than a single practitioner with skills in multiple disciplines (often dubbed a “unicorn”), it’s still common to see projects and products whose entire design process is the responsibility of one designer.

This short video by Jakob Nielsen provides a great quick argument that a team of specialists will outperform a single generalist.

I love the example about the performance of the decathlon athlete vs. the “specialist” or single-event athlete.

As a potential counterpoint, this article by Conor Ward at first appears to argue against teams of specialists and for the “unicorn” approach.

A quick read, however, shows that Conor isn’t proposing that one person handle all the responsibilities of designing a product. He still posits a team. He just argues that each person on the team should be highly skilled in all UX functions—design, content, research, information architecture, development.

This arrangement would be a collaboration of unicorns, which he also calls “square-shaped designers” (which creates a pretty funny mental picture).

I think both takes are true. Designing products is complex. We need teams of specialists.

If each specialist is also a “unicorn,” highly skilled in all adjacent disciplines, that’s great! Such a practitioner would be difficult to find (I wouldn’t count on hiring all unicorns), but if you have them available, so much the better.