◆ Design

What an interaction designer
really does.

22 tasks, each one witnessed by the sources that watched the job — and behind every one, a prompt you can use tonight.

22evidenced tasks
113,330in the US (2025)
$104,000median pay / year
11systems it runs on
See the 22 tasks ↓Open in the atlasThe full career map →
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Design layout and visual elements
Create three responsive page templates and a component library for the…3 sources agree

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The work, task by task

22 tasks
Hands on the work14
Design layout and visual elements+
Create three responsive page templates and a component library for the dashboard with spacing rules, type scale and interaction states, then hand the assets and a dev-ready spec to Aaron and the frontend team by Friday.
escojdwiki3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Troubleshoot website issues+
Diagnose the intermittent rendering bug reported on the product gallery: gather console logs, compare the latest asset builds, roll back the last visual change if needed, and brief Sami with steps to reproduce and a hotfix plan within 24 hours.
escojdonet3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Align the client's web presence with its business strategy+
Align our public website content, navigation and homepage messaging to match the Q3 product launch targets and B2B sales goals; map pages to the five priority customer journeys, list required content changes, and schedule a stakeholder review with Priya on Friday.
escojdonet3 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Optimize website graphics for performance+
Reduce the hero image and icon asset weight across the marketing site to hit a 2.5 second homepage load on mobile; export optimized vector and raster variants, produce responsive size rules, and prod engineering to deploy by Wednesday.
jdwiki2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Stay updated with web design trends and technologies+
Review the latest seven web design articles, three component libraries, and two browser release notes, then summarise actionable changes for our design system and list two spikes to validate before Friday.
onetwiki2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Integrate multimedia elements into websites+
Embed responsive video, animated SVGs, and a lazy‑loaded audio clip into the marketing page prototype, ensure captions and ARIA roles are present, and deliver a working build for usability testing on Tuesday.
jdwiki2 agree
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Create searchable indices for Web page content.+
Index all product and help pages, extract headings and metadata, wire up full‑text search with faceted filters, and produce a deployable search index plus query examples for the developers by Wednesday.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Create Web models or prototypes that include physical, interface, logical, or data models.+
Build an interactive prototype that shows physical layout, screen flows, data models, and API call examples for the checkout journey, then run a 20‑minute walkthrough with product and engineering on Thursday.
onet
when the reply comes backPush once: ask it to sharpen the weakest part, and to say what it assumed. Helpful?
Keep the record3
Grow the practice3
Watch and assess2

What the work runs on

named inside the evidenced tasks
5 tasksAJAXreproduce and test asynchronous content loading and interactions in the gallery during debugging
3 tasksAmazon Web Services AWShosts and serves the website and supports infrastructure-driven alignment work such as analytics and routing for A/B mapping
3 tasksAmazon Redshiftstore and query extracted content for building and testing searchable indices at scale
3 tasksAmazon Elastic Compute Cloud EC2host the prototype and backend mocks so the team can interact with the integrated models
2 tasksAdobe Illustratordesign and export scalable layout components and iconography for handoff
2 tasksAdobe InDesignprepare and export updated page proofs and content packages for publishing workflows
2 tasksAdobe Photoshopproduces compressed raster exports and fine-tunes photographic assets for smallest file size
2 tasksAmazon Web Services AWS CloudFormationdefine and version the infrastructure components invoked in the interaction diagrams for review
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The same task, four heights

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ExecuteDo today's task, with fewer mistakesyou are here → ImproveMake it easy for the next person to acceptin the atlas → DecideWork out the right move when it is unclearin the atlas → BecomeLearn the pattern so it stops coming backin the atlas →

Can AI actually do this job?

the honest answer

It can

where it genuinely helps
  • Explain the theory behind the work
  • Draft, tidy and structure your writing
  • Rehearse a hard conversation before you have it
  • Build a study plan that fits your gaps

It cannot

where it stops, completely
  • Be in the room where an interaction designer actually works
  • Carry the responsibility when the call is wrong — that weight stays yours
  • Notice what no one wrote down: the hesitation, the thing left unsaid
  • Live with the outcome

What the work pays

two countries, two different measures

United States

this exact occupation · BLS 2025
  • $104,000 a year — the middle: half earn more, half earn less
  • The lowest tenth earn near $53,750; the top tenth near $201,550
  • 113,330 people employed in this occupation

India

the occupation GROUP, not this job · PLFS via ILOSTAT 2025
  • ₹38,298 a month — the median for Professionals, the group this work sits in
  • India publishes pay by broad occupation group, so this covers many jobs besides this one. It is a shape, not a salary.
read this carefullyThese two numbers are not comparable and must not be converted into each other. One is a yearly figure for this job alone; the other is a monthly figure for a whole family of jobs. What travels between them is the pattern, not the amount: experience lifts pay almost everywhere.

Where the evidence lives

open any of it yourself
O*NETThe US Department of Labor's own record of this job15 of these tasks ESCOThe European skills and occupations register5 of these tasks Job descriptionsReal postings, in the wild8 of these tasks WikipediaHow the world describes this work6 of these tasks US Bureau of Labor StatisticsPay and employment, by occupation2025 figures UK NOS TECIS100141Design and develop digital user interfaces for web and mobile app platnational standard UK NOS TECDT130144Conduct user experience design assignmentsnational standard

Close to this work

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Questions people actually ask

You’ll split time between design and technical work. Mornings often have meetings: standups, client reviews, or reviewing analytics from Amazon Redshift or website traffic tools.

Afternoons usually mean creating prototypes (Axure, Figma, or HTML/JavaScript), updating content, testing pages across devices, and documenting results—server load, bandwidth, or browser types—so developers know what to fix. You’ll also iterate on visuals in Photoshop or Illustrator and update the project timeline or moodboards.

Expect Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign for visual assets and Adobe Creative Cloud to manage files. For prototypes and web code you’ll use HTML, JavaScript, maybe AJAX, and SQL for data queries.

On the operations side you’ll read metrics from AWS services (EC2, DynamoDB, CloudFormation, Redshift) to document server load, bandwidth, and database performance and choose web architecture options.

Begin with HTML and basic JavaScript; those let you build interactive prototypes and small features. Practice by making simple pages, then add AJAX calls to fetch data and basic SQL queries to read a database.

Use one small project—build a prototype, test it, document browser/device types and performance. Move to integrating assets you made in Photoshop/Illustrator and deploy on a free or cheap AWS EC2 instance to learn hosting.

Interaction designers focus on how users interact with interfaces: sequence diagrams, prototypes, and interaction flows. They design behavior and microinteractions rather than just visuals.

UX designers can be broader—research, information architecture, testing—while web developers implement code and backend systems. Interaction designers often bridge both: they create prototypes in HTML/JavaScript and document server or database needs for developers.

Yes. Use AI to generate moodboard ideas, write draft microcopy, or create quick layout variations. Always check and edit AI output for clarity, accessibility, and correctness—don’t paste private code or customer data into public tools.

For technical choices (architecture, AWS configs), use AI suggestions only as a starting point. Verify with documentation and tests: run prototypes, check server load on EC2/Redshift, and confirm security and privacy needs before deploying.

BLS reports 113,330 employed interaction designers with a median pay of $104,000 per year. The lowest tenth earn about $53,750; the top tenth about $201,550 (BLS).

Starting salaries vary by region and company size. Experience with coding, AWS tooling, and proven measurable results (improved performance, lower server costs, better user metrics) push you toward the higher end.

Learn to prototype with real code: HTML plus JavaScript (and AJAX). That single skill lets you show actual interactions, test performance, and troubleshoot issues.

With coded prototypes you can measure load, test across browsers, integrate backend APIs or SQL queries, and hand precise specs to developers—making you far more effective than polishing visuals alone.