When people say "you can be good at at both UX and visual design", they are saying that you can master a list of complex disciplines ranging from cognitive science to information theory to the soft skills of design advocacy and product leadership AND still have time to be good enough to create full-fidelity UI assets in challenging styles like skeuomorphism or branded design.

I can tell you from personal experience that, despite passively improving my visual design skills while working on my own projects or creating specs for visual designers, I STILL cannot do visual UI to what I'd call an industry-standard level. Why? Because it's HARD. It's a deep skill set of its own. It involves both technical skills which are highly perishable and require constant maintenance, and artistic skills which are difficult to teach and require a specialized education in fine arts. And I choose to spend my time developing my UX skills.

So, the question is, are the powers-that-be really naive enough to believe that you can take the time to master visual design AND UX?

NOPE!

They're gaslighting you. The reality is they KNOW that UX is a deep, complex skill set. But they don't want actual UX masters. Those kinds of people do pesky things like insist on following proper process rather than jumping into Figma files and refuse to make bad UX. It's much easier to get a glorified pixel pusher who has memorized some basic design patterns largely copied from other sites and apps rather than actual best practices.

It's no surprise the corporate world has such contempt for a discipline that prioritizes humanity, but what's scary is that the so-called "UX" world has bought into this lie. The people claiming to be "unicorns" believe the right-hand definition of UX so it's no wonder they think they are equally good at both visual design and UX. They have no idea how deep the subject is. It's like saying you can be a master of two totally different instruments, because one of those instruments is the kazoo.

It is my belief that we have a SEVERE skill crisis in UX. The number of people who adequately skilled at UX, as in all of the disciplines I list in the left column, is alarmingly low. I would say it represents less than 10%, if not 5% of the population calling themselves "UX". The demand for human-centered design GREATLY outstrips the supply. But more and more tech is built every year. More and more things are "smart". Even at a time when we are more dependent upon good design than ever, design is worse than ever because there's nobody around to do it.

We have to do something immediately. If we don't rebrand our discipline to reflect its depth and its importance to the future of humanity, not only will our discipline die, but so too may humanity itself. That's not melodrama. Planes have crashed due to bad UX. Cars have plunged into the water due to bad UX. Bad UX will kill more people every year unless it is stopped. Who is going to stop it? Not the Figma jockeys.