Are you thinking of hiring a user interface (UI) designer for your company? If so, it’s probably because you need to create an app or website with a great user experience. A UI designer is the perfect person for the job.
After all, they are experts in creating the visual look of digital products and services.
However, hiring remote workers is not as straightforward as it may seem. It takes time to find the right person and bring them on board. And that’s why we’ve put together this checklist to make things easier for you when hiring a UI designer.
Hiring a UI Designer? Here’s How to Do It the Right Way
User interface (UI) design is challenging. It’s easy to make a UI look good—just add lots of colors, gradients, shadows, and animations. The hard part is making it useful and accessible to your users. In other words, creating the best user experience possible.
This is even harder when you’re working with an UI designer as an external partner or contractor instead of someone who works for your organization full-time. It’s not that hiring a UI designer is difficult in general; it’s just challenging in the context of our company culture and specific job description.
Let’s take a closer look at why this might be the case and how you can hire a UI designer effectively if you decide that contracting one would be beneficial for your team.
Why is UI Designing so difficult?
UI designers have to navigate a lot of conflicting goals and expectations. If your organization is looking to hire a UI designer, it’s likely because you want to improve your product or service in some way—whether that be by making it easier to use, increasing engagement, or otherwise strengthening your business.
But what you want and what your customers want are not always the same thing. So even if your UI designer has strong communication skills, it’s still a challenge to get what you need. UI designers have to navigate a lot of conflicting goals and expectations.
For example, if you want your UI designer to help increase the number of people who sign up for your service each day, they might suggest making it easier to enter your email address.
But your customers might not want to share their email address—they might prefer to use a social media account instead. In this scenario, your UI designer’s efforts would be wasted.
Why Should You Hire UI UX Designer?
Any designer is a valuable asset in brand strategy and prioritization. A UI UX designer especially plays a crucial role in understanding & explaining what a customer wants & needs. There are multiple responsibilities that a UX UI designer needs to take care of, and we have listed a few of them here:
Key Roles & Responsibilities of a UI UX Designer
- Communicating with clients to understand their goals.
- Explaining user research results to the stakeholders.
- Developing personas and usage plans.
- Conducting usability testing.
- Designing wireframes, storyboards, sitemaps, and screen flows.
- Creating product prototypes.
Be clear about what you want
If you want a UI designer to help you make your product better, you have to be clear about what you want them to do. Ideally, you should have an existing product to work with.
However, if you’re hiring a UI designer to help plan out a new product, you’ll need to be very specific about your goals and the type of functionality you’re looking for.
When hiring a UI designer, you should be as clear as possible about what you need them to do. This can help minimize the risk that you’ll hire someone who doesn’t seem like a good fit.
If you’re hiring someone to help plan out and create a new design, make sure you’re specific about what you want. Don’t just say you want to create a new UI—instead, say you want to create a new sign-up flow that is designed to increase the number of people who sign up for your service.
Be flexible
Even if you’re clear about what you want from your UI designer, it’s possible that they’ll come up with an amazing design that you can’t use for one reason or another.
For example, let’s say you’re looking for a design that will help people find your company’s website. You might hire a UI designer to create a design that pops up a banner on other websites when people are browsing.
If the UI designer comes up with a great design but you can’t use it because the law prohibits you from running banner ads on other sites, you’d be in a tough spot. In this case, you’d want to hire someone who is flexible enough to create an alternative design that serves the same purpose.
Ideally, you want to hire someone who is already familiar with your business and its goals so that they can come up with design solutions that are likely to be successful.
Check the portfolio
No matter how clear you are about what you need, it’s possible that your UI designer will come up with something that doesn’t exactly fit your product or service. In this scenario, the best thing to do is to hire someone else.
But how do you decide who to hire if you have a lot of different designers to choose from? One way to narrow down the field is to look at each candidate’s portfolio of previous work. While you don’t want to only hire someone who has done exactly the same type of work as you need, you can look for general indications that the designer is capable of doing a good job for you.
For example, if you’re hiring a designer to create a landing page for a service, you want to make sure they have plenty of examples of landing pages in their portfolio. If you’re hiring someone to design a new website for your organization, look for examples of websites the designer has created for other companies.
Ask to see a test and walkthrough
If you’re hiring a UI designer to create a new design for your product, you definitely want to see a walkthrough or test of their design. Ideally, you also want to see a test of a couple of different designs.
By seeing a test of a UI designer’s work, you can get a better idea of what it would be like to use their design. You can also get feedback from your teammates on which design they prefer. This will help you make a better decision when it comes time to hire a UI designer.
If you’re hiring a UI designer to improve an existing design, you don’t necessarily need to see a test. However, you should ask the designer to walk you through their proposed changes. This can help you decide if their proposed changes would be beneficial to your product or service.
Best Platforms To Hire UI UX Designers
1. Upwork
This platform connects businesses of all sizes. From freelancers to independent professionals and agencies, they can fulfill your UI UX hiring needs.
2. Toptal
Toptal enables startups, businesses, and organizations to hire freelancers from a growing network of the best talent in the world.
3. Fiverr
This platform connects businesses with freelancers offering digital services in 250+ categories.
4. Workingnotworking
Working Not Working is where the world’s most innovative organizations hire creative talent.
WorkingNotWorking is an online publication and creative agency that publishes a bi-weekly magazine, creates branded content, and hosts events. And they do it all with a focus on men.
Two years prior, they had started a blog called TheEnd 3 Working as an outlet to discuss their passion for men’s fashion. However, once Internet trends started moving away from blogs towards Instagram, the founders saw an opportunity to pivot into new territory.
That pivot ultimately led to WNW as it is today: A dual-pronged company with the ability to publish their own content while also working with other brands to create branded content about men’s style and culture. In other words: The perfect combination of publications and products centered around a target market that wasn’t being adequately served by existing options.
5. Freelancer.com
Find & hire top freelancers, web developers & designers that fits your budget. This is the world’s largest marketplace of 43m.
We hope this article helps you find the right UX designer for your company & your hiring process. You can always go with the freelance options if you do not wish to hire a full-time UI UX resource for your company
Wrapping up
When hiring a UI designer, you want to make sure that you get what you need from the position. Ideally, you should hire someone you feel comfortable working with. You should also make sure that they have the skills and experience needed to complete their work successfully.
If you’re hiring a UI designer to help create a new design for your product or service, you want to make sure that you see a test of their work. This will help you make a better decision when it comes time to decide which design to use. If you’re hiring a UI designer to help improve an existing design, you can look at their portfolio and ask to see a walkthrough of their proposed changes.