Visual Interaction Designers

Visual interaction designers advance by receiving pay raises and working for more prestigious tech companies that offer better fringe benefits, higher salaries, and more lucrative bonuses, profit-sharing programs, and other non-salary–related financial awards. A designer who has strong leadership and interpersonal skills can advance to become a lead interaction designer, who supervises and trains other interaction designers, serves as the primary contact for clients and management, and participates in creating budgets. Interaction designers can also transition to the related profession of user experience designer, who is responsible for interaction design, but also tasks such as user research, creating user personas, performing user testing, and conducting usability testing. Lead interaction designers and user experience designers can advance to the position of department manager. Highly skilled managers can be promoted to the position of chief technology officer, who evaluates new technology and determines how it can help his or her organization save money, increase efficiency, and meet other goals. Some designers open their own design firms, while others become high school or college computer science teachers.