A free tool · UX and product design
The UX competency framework.
Design skill is hard to argue about without shared words for it. This maps twelve competencies along the double diamond, discovery through delivery, with five written levels each so a score means the same thing to you and your manager.
Use it on yourself before a review, or across a team to see where the craft is thin and who is already good enough to be teaching it.
Free, and it stays free. No sign-up, no email, no paywall halfway through. It runs in your browser and nothing leaves this page unless you choose to share it.
Twelve petals, one per competency. The pale outline is the role you are aiming at.
What it covers
12 competencies, each with five written levels, so you are picking the paragraph that sounds like your week rather than guessing at a number.
- Discovery
- Definition
- Develop
- Deliver
- Process
- Agile delivery
- Leadership
- Collaboration
- Building relationships
- Effective communication
- Deliver on commitments
- Developing others
What you measure against
Your scores get held against the real profile of each role, so the gap you see is the gap to a job rather than to an average.
- Junior UX Designer
- UX Designer
- UX Researcher
- Senior UX Designer
- Principal UX Designer
- Manager, UX
- Director, UX
Who it is for
Designers who want evidence for a level conversation rather than a portfolio argument
Design leads working out where a team is genuinely strong and where it is thin
Researchers deciding whether to go deeper in craft or wider into leadership
PMs who want to understand what good design practice actually looks like
What you walk away with
A ranked read of your gaps against the role you are aiming at
A team view, if you run it across several designers and compare
Wording for the review that came from the framework, not from you
A handover into the development plan with the scores already loaded
Who made this
I spent nearly twenty years building product teams, most recently as VP Product at the 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchisor, and I now work with businesses and people on product, AI and careers from Vancouver. These are the levels I used to run real development conversations, refined over years of using them, not a framework I found in a book.
Fill it in and send it to me if you want a second read. I read them myself and reply.
Next in the same garden
The development plan
A choices exercise, not a wish list. Bring in your competency scores and your goals, pick the two or three that are actually blocking you, and set the measure, the named people, the real steps and where each sits in the sequence of now, next and later.
Use it for yourself, or with someone you are developing.
Open the toolProduct management competency framework
Fourteen competencies scored on the same five-rung ladder, from customer and market through data, business acumen, technical aptitude, design partnership, agile delivery, leadership and developing others. Then it holds your scores against the real profile of eight roles, junior PM through Director.
Use it to see the gap between where you are and the role you want, and to walk into your next development conversation with something specific to talk about. Have your manager score you too and compare.
Start the check-inThe ecommerce usability checklist
Twenty-four checks I run on a store before anyone spends another dollar on traffic. Product page, checkout, trust, speed, measurement, in the order they pay back.
Use it with your own store open in another tab. Every no is a job for this week.
Open the checklistKnow exactly where you stand.
It takes about the length of a cup of tea, and nothing is stored anywhere.