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How to hire the best Freelance UX designer for your project
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How to hire the best Freelance UX designer for your project

The purpose of this article is to help you understand the best practices when it comes to hiring a UX designer, what budget should you start with and which challenges might arise. Then we will recommend the best places to find the right UX designer for you. So let's dig in.

Deepak Lalit
September 4, 2021

Do you need to hire a UI or a UX Designer?

UX design has recently become one of the the most sought after design skill. But its important to understand the distinction between UI and UX design. While a UI designer is responsible for designing the aesthetic elements that are present on the page or app, the UX designer is responsible for designing the experience that a user goes through. Both UI and UX designers typically have specific knowledge and tools expertise like Figma, Adobe XD, Sketch, Invision, Framer, among others. A lot of the times, both these roles can be performed by the same person, especially in smaller teams. UX designers are jack of all trades, experts in many fields like web design, technology, psychology, programming etc. The main goal of UX designers is to help people easily navigate a website, app, or any online platform so your users enjoy your products through intuitive design. They need to understand your audience and your business goals as they will define the flow and the way people interact with the final product.

So why should you add a UX designer to the team? If you feel like your website or app can do a much better job of mapping the customer's journey. For example, If you have a niche e-commerce site, you want customers to easily browse all your products, add them to the shopping cart and check out. Every shopping site and experience is different and you will need to design a unique experience that makes sense for your product. For example, while buying a cheaper product, a user may just want to quickly check out in the minimum number of steps, but if its a more expensive or complicated purchase, a user will need to understand a lot more things before commiting to purchase. In this case, a User experience may include other steps / screens which inform the user about all the questions or addresses all their concerns.

What projects can a UX Designer do ?

UX designers are experts in human psychology and behavior. Their skills will come in handy on a whole range of projects. Some other projects that benefit from a UX designer:

  • Landing page design
  • Website design
  • Mobile and Web apps
  • Email campaigns design
  • eLearning projects

The most cost-effective option is hiring a UX freelancer. As of 2020, 36% of the workforce in the US are freelancers. And this figure is expected to rise. Chances are you find the perfect UX Designer for your project. Freelancers usually work per hour. You can hire someone for a couple of hours a day or for a very specific project.

You can also hire UX agencies or in-house designers, both being the most expensive options. Especially if the user-friendliness of your product is already there.

What are the the different type of UX designers

There are 3 main types of UX designers:

  • UX Researcher: They are date driven designers, focusing on understanding your target market, product and potential. They work on collecting data from users tests and data analysis.
  • UX Strategist: This is the most senior category as these types of designers already have extensive experience on-screen layouts and market understanding. They are the ones who decide the actions to be made, the best approach and the user experience path. This implies wireframing, UX writing, visual design, usability studies, prototyping and some knowledge about coding.
  • Visual Designers : Jack of all trades that have the knowledge of UX as well as UI elements. Mostly responsible for designing the visual elements of the Page (e.g. at a Prototype stage during the design process).

What skills to look for when hiring a good UX Designer?

UX design was born due to the boom of mobile apps. Suddenly, there was a need to provide user centered experiences, and design products intuitive and easy to navigate. Most UX designers come from different backgrounds, from product development to project management. In fact, a good UX designer has a combination of different skills. Here are the most common ones:

Information Architecture: The discipline that focuses on the organization of information within digital products. For example, when designers create apps and websites, they lay out each individual screen so that the user can easily find the information they need.

Communication Skills: Designers need to be strong storytellers. They should explain product ideas, thinking behind the design, and also communicate with other team members like developers or copy writers.

Wireframing and prototyping: Wireframe is the first step in any UX design process. It's the layout of a product that demonstrates which elements will be included. It involves visualizing the skeleton of digital applications. The prototype is a sample of the final product which will be used for testing before launching. It's especially important to test the usability of a product.

If the candidate has experienced in all of the fields above, then you can be certain it's an experienced UX designer.

How much does it cost to hire a UX designer ?

This will fully depend on the complexity of the project. UX designers usually spend most of their time creating wireframes, prototypes and testing. They need to test results in order to ensure the product flow is as intuitive as possible. This might include:

AB Testing, KPIs, User interactions, User reviews and feedback.

You can expect to pay a US Based UX designer per hour:

  • General UX design: $25-$75
  • User Research: $25-$60
  • Wireframing: $30-$60
  • Storyboards: $30-$70

Best questions to ask a UX designer during an interview

  • What UX design tools do you usually use?
  • Which key factors do you consider while designing for users?
  • How do you solve a design problem?
  • What's your design process?
  • How to you define a successful project?
  • How do you conduct user research?
  • What are your favorite products? and Why?
  • Tell me about your product porfolio. Which one are you most proud of?
  • Why do you enjoy UX design?
  • What are you passionate about?

Where to find the best UX designers

You can hire an experienced UX designer on Proven Team. We take the time to interview each one of the designers that are now part of the team so the hiring process is faster and efficient. You can schedule an interview with the candidate you find most fitted and start working ASAP.

If you want to learn more about our hiring process, visit our Vetting Process and start getting things done with the best UX freelancers out there.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Deepak Lalit

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