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How to Hire a UI/UX Designer - Guide

Due to the increase in mobile apps and digital products, the need to hire UX/UI designers has risen exponentially. The digital world is becoming very important, and businesses are always looking for the best UX designers. After all, if the UI is easy to use, the UX is positive.

Graphic designer earnings heat map for UI/UX designer guide.
Table of Contents
Difference Between UI and UX Designers
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What is a UI Designer?
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Specialist UI Roles
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What is a UX Designer?
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Specialist UX Roles
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How to Hire a UX/UI Designer: 4 Tips
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Is it Time to Hire a UX Designer?
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Icon of a black circle surrounding a black arrow pointing to the right.
Icon of a black circle surrounding a black arrow pointing to the right.

Difference Between UI and UX Designers

Often, business owners believe that UI and UX designers are the same- but actually, there is a difference between UI and UX. A UI designer is there to make the app look good. On the other hand, the UX designer is more focused on the app's functionality and increasing user engagement.

You will hire a UI designer to build a user interface for your digital product. The UX designer is there to ensure that the UI provides an ideal user experience. A UI designer is only able to change the interface based on suggestions by the UX designer.

The UX designer utilizes data, results, and metrics to improve the UI of a product. The success depends upon the UI and the UX. Therefore, you need to hire both UI and UX designers.

What is a UI Designer?

A UI designer, or a user interface designer, creates visual interfaces for digital products such as websites, apps, and games. They focus on delivering needs for users to achieve what they need to do through the specified digital products. They ensure the interface is visually appealing and easy to use. One of the core skills a UI designer has to have is an understanding of human intuition when it comes to designing. Additionally, their work is often support by a UX designer.

Specialist UI Roles

There are many different levels and aspects of UI designers. The key roles are:

  • UI Developer
  • UI Architect
  • UI Engineer
  • UI Manager

UI Developer

A UI Developer’s primary role is taking creative design concepts and translating them into reality. The concepts are usually provided by a UI Artist or member of the design team. Some important UI Developer skills are: HTML, CSS, Javascript, Angular, AJAX, Python, and more.

UI Architect

The UI Architect collaborates with UX designers, graphic designers, and engineers to create a framework for projects. Additionally, many important decisions will be made by them to ensure the project is a success. Some decisions they will face will be about security, functionality, structure of the system, delivery time, and ease of future modifications.

UI Engineer

A UI Engineer has several key responsibilities. Their responsibilities include debugging code, turning designs into code, and gathering information about the project. When it comes to dealing and debugging code, an important skill to have is problem solving.

UI Manager

As the name suggests, a UI Manager oversees and manages design projects. Their goal is to meet brand standards, appeal to the audience, and ensure projects are completed timely. A successful UI Manager has some experience in numerous related roles. This enables them to determine appropriate deadlines and delegate tasks appropriately.

What is a UX Designer?

The UX designer, or a user experience designer, makes a helpful digital product and provides the user with a pleasant experience. They work towards making the product better so that users can enjoy using it. They are responsible for product research, analyzing user engagement with the product, and implementing the necessary changes to make it a smoother experience. We can help you know what to look for in a UX designer, visit our website and connect with a top recruiter.

Specialist UX Roles

There are several different roles that a UX designer has. These roles are:

  • UX Researcher
  • UX Architect
  • UX Copywriter
  • UX Analyst
  • Product Designer
  • UX Strategist

We will take a closer look at each of these below.

UX Researcher

The UX Researcher’s primary role is to research user characteristics, behaviors, preferences, and more. They gather the intel on the needs and behaviors of their users, which is quantitative and qualitative data. Once the data has been collected, you can hire a UI designer to create an ideal interface for your target audience and your business.

UX Architect/IA  

A UX Architect is a professional that assists the UI designer by making suggestions for page layouts and content. They do this after carrying out thorough research. Additionally, they help ensure the structure of the page is user-friendly. UX Architects are also responsible for overlooking the navigation of the page to ensure that the journey of the user on the site or app is a pleasant/smooth one.  

UX Copywriter  

The UX Copywriter role is a relatively new one in the UX field. A UX Copywriter is responsible for crafting or recreating the text elements of a web or app page. The role of a UX Copywriter is different than marketing writers that are focused on attracting customers. The UX Copywriter is focused on practical, concise information so that the app or webpage functions smoothly.

UX Analyst  

The role of UX Analysts is crucial because they are responsible for improving engagement and UX. They focus on revenue trends and client retention and set goals that are realistic and achievable. The UX Analyst focuses on the most recent UX trends, psychology, and customer research.  

Product Designers  

The product designer is the supervisor of the entire design process of a user interface. They do everything from UX to UI to coding to solving issues related to the design of the site or app. Since they can do it all, it eliminates the need to hire a separate UI designer.  

UX Strategist

In large companies, the role of the UX strategist is to make sure that the UX designers keep the needs of the consumers and the company in mind. They understand the roles of all the parts: UX architects, designing prototypes, user experience, prototypes, and visual design.

How to Hire a UX/UI Designer: 4 Tips

Since UX design is trending, more UX designer skills and UI designer skills are on the market than ever before. This means that it’s not all that difficult to find a suitable designer like it was in the past. However, if you want to have help finding the best one, you need to understand how to hire one. Here are 4 tips for hiring a UX designer for your project.

Top industries hiring for UI/UX designers.

Give them a chance  

Unfortunately, many companies overestimate portfolios and resumes of UX designers, focusing on the quantity of samples provided instead of the quality. You might believe that more samples equal more UX designer skills- but the truth is the number of samples doesn’t reveal to you the true potential of the designer. You might be impressed if they provide you with 10 to 20 samples- but look closer. If they’re all very similar, that might not be the best candidate for you.  

Also, don’t believe that they are not a great candidate just because a UX Designer only has 2 or 3 samples. In some cases, the 2 or 3 samples might be more impressive than the designer that has given you 10 that all look the same.  

Take some time to dig through and evaluate the UX Designer portfolios before hiring a designer. If you still have trouble deciding, challenge their skillsets with testing.

Learn to Judge a Portfolio

The portfolio represents the abilities that the UX designer has. Therefore, the next time you are looking to hire a UX designer, evaluate the following when looking at their portfolio:

Problems Encountered: pay attention to find any issues that the designer came to during a project. UX designers who can point out these problems have a sharp eye for detail, which can benefit your company.  

Wireframes: a good UX designer knows it’s essential to make wireframes, which are black/white layouts of the webpage or app with design elements included. To better judge, the candidate's UX skills, focus on their wireframes.  

Implemented Skills: Focus on the skills used by the designer in a project. Some of the top skills include visual communication, coding, interactive design, analytics, and wireframing.  

Key UX Metrics: it’s critical to understand the metrics used by the designer to complete a project. The 6 crucial metrics of UX design include recommendations, app/website ratings, customer satisfaction, ease of performing tasks, product description, and usability of app/website.

Don’t Ignore the UX Competition

Each business does whatever it can to be better than its competitors because that is how the industry works. The competition between the best UX designers is the same. Since websites and apps are critical to today’s businesses, you must take the time to review UX/UI designer skills and hire the best candidates.  

Don’t underestimate the competition. Make sure that you hire the best designers to ensure that your business thrives. Keep in mind that you want to hire both a UI and a UX designer because the UI designer focuses on making the app/website look good, while a UX designer is focused on user engagement.

Is it Time to Hire a UX Designer?

These days, with the digital transformation, more and more apps/websites are being created. Companies must keep up with this if they want to stand out among the crowd- otherwise, they look the same as every other similar company. This means that you need to understand the importance of UI and UX in your business.  

These professionals are the backbone of the digital world and can either make or break them. There’s more to aesthetics to the user experience. Businesses want their apps to be smooth and functional. Make sure that a UI developer is worth their UI developer salary before hiring them.  

There are lots of UX designers out there today- many more than just a few years ago. Your options are almost endless. The easiest route is letting IT staffing agencies like Advantis Global handle the hiring. Learn how we can help you get qualified candidates here.

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