T-shaped designers are strong generalists who know how to do all aspects of design sufficiently, but excels especially in one discipline. For example, a UX designer who specializes in front-end development.

The horizontal part of the letter “T” refers to the breadth of design skills, while the vertical part of “T” refers to the depth in one design specialty.

Some teams are built by selecting T-shaped designers whose strengths work well together. For example, pairing the UX designer who specializes in UI design with a UX Designer who codes.