Ultimate Guide: Hiring a UX Designer in 2022

You can’t do without a competent UX designer if you intend to be seriously engaged in a product or website. After all, on the shoulders of a freelance UX designer falls the entire responsibility for the user experience with the newly formed product or website. This is, if not half, then precisely 1/3 of the success of the future project (the rest depends on the content and various features). This article will tell you about hiring a UX designer in 2022 in a non-obvious way for startups with small teams.

Decide what UX designer you need

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Before hiring a UX Designer, formulate a UX designer competency profile. It will allow you to structure your expectations about the freelance or in-house UX designer and thus improve the quality of your search. Specify the expected result of the UX designer’s work, area of expertise, and functional duties.

The main duties of a UX designer:

• Сonduct user surveys
• Create a portrait of the target audience
• Development of a working prototype of the product
• Create a logical chain of using the product
• Testing and making changes based on its results
• Repeat the sequence “prototype development – testing – changes” until the optimal interaction for users is achieved.

A reliable UX designer should be versed in:

• Marketing. It is necessary to be able to make a portrait of the target audience, design a unique selling proposition, and make an analysis of competitors.
• Analytics. It is important to know the methodologies of business task analysis and how to make a CJM (customer journey map) to achieve the goals of these tasks.
• Psychology. It will help to use the patterns of user behavior and principles of visual perception.
• Layout principles. It is necessary to interact with the programmer during the transfer of the website layout.
• Technical solutions. Computer programs do all the work; without them, nothing will work.
• Insights. It allows UX designers to track modern visual trends and apply them in practice. Most User Experience designers use Awwwards, Behance, and Dribbble for this purpose.

Personal qualities of a User Experience designer that are important:

• Perfectionism
• Persistence and diligence
• Creative thinking
• Desire to learn and develop

UX designer needs to know:

• Sketch (interface design)
• Figma (interface design with collaborative work)
• Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator (additional functionality)
• Adobe XD (prototyping and interface design)
• Invision App (prototyping with collaborative work)
• Balsamiq (prototyping)
• RedPen (collaborative notebook)
• Notion (task manager)
• Framer (interactive mobile interface design)

UX design has more to do with product structure and usability than UI design. Nevertheless, the User Experience designer should have a wide range of skills: he or she should know about graphic design, social research, and software development.

Find a freelance UX designer

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Once you’ve decided how great your future UX designer should be, another equally important question arises: “Where to find a good UX designer at a reasonable price?

It often happens that initially, it is not always possible to use the services of expensive and well-promoted UX designers and web studios. But it’s not so bad. After all, in design (as in many other businesses), those who have seized the lead are not necessarily the best. You can find a promoted freelance UX designer who will do low-quality work for high money without showing a genuine interest in it.

But many talented and young freelance UX designers on the web have a genuine interest in their work. They need to prove their professionalism, and they do it with enthusiasm. Many use new approach design platform that automatically matches freelance UX designers and clients based on their tasks and skills. This saves time for clients and freelance UX designers and improves their cooperation.

To find talented and extraordinary UX designers, you need to take an interest in various web design websites. Freelance UX designers can be found on numerous forums, social networks, or personal blogs. Starting with a trivial Google search, you can find sites dedicated to the subject of interest.

Many websites related to design have a “blogs” section. You should click there and “scan” the materials from the bloggers and their profiles. This is also a great way to find a freelance UX designer. On a similar principle, you can reach UX designers on social networks.

When hiring a UX designer, you need to pay attention to UX designers who are members of a particular website on UX design and follow the personal web pages. Sooner or later, an invitation to cooperation will appear in the statuses. From there, hiring a UX designer will depend on communication skills and the ability to negotiate.

Choose the best UX designer for your needs

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When hiring a UX designer, intuition will point to the right person if you clearly understand who you need. For this, you have to write to many freelance UX designers, ask them to demonstrate UX design work and be sure to check the interest of the person because it is vital.

By the way, the interest of the potential UX designer in cooperation will help to agree on a price that would suit both parties. After all, there is no doubt that the person does a quality job thanks to decent pay, interest in the work, and the possibility of professional growth.

So in dialogue with a potential UX designer, focus on the prospects of the product or website and the possibility of promotion of his name. The best option is when everything is consistent in a UX designer – professionalism, desire to work, and a proper assessment of his work.

Conclusion

Due to the high supply of freelance UX designer services, hiring a UX designer is not difficult. The problem is hiring the right person for your project. In addition, the key to a healthy working relationship is proper feedback. You should be communicative and discuss issues that require an unusual solution. Also, don’t forget to leave a review of the designer you worked with. Then your colleagues can easily find a good freelance UX designer when they need such services.