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WHAT IS A UX DESIGNER AND WHY YOU NEED ONE RIGHT NOW

What’s the best way to turn customers into life-long fans of your product or service? Give them a positive, meaningful, and worthwhile experience. That’s what a UX Designer does.

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Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1

What is a UX Designer?

CHAPTER 2

Why is a UX Design Important?

CHAPTER 3

Important Skills and Traits of UX Designers

CHAPTER 4

Where to Hire UX Designers

CHAPTER 5

Hiring Considerations

CHAPTER 6

C9 Staff UX Designers

What is a UX Designer?

If you’re looking to hire top UX Designers, you’re in the right place. Read up.

UX stands for user experience. This encompasses the whole interaction between a human (the user) and a product or service.

Think of something you used for the first time that you immediately got the hang of and actually enjoyed. Things like a swing, a skipping rope, your first iPhone, a remote controlled car, lining up for your turn to buy from the ice cream truck, or waiting for your turn to sit on Santa’s lap at the mall. These are examples of products or services that provide a positive user experience.

In technology, the application of UX Design is limitless. From the shape of a mouse to the way a monitor can tilt and bend depending on the user’s height and viewing angle. From the placement of the physical buttons of a mobile phone to how easy it is for you to set an alarm using it. These are all within the bounds of UX Design, and therefore within the scope of a UX Designer’s work.

But UX Design is not limited to technology and physical products. Nowadays, even services need UX Design. The flow of service from one window to another in a government office benefits from thoughtful UX Design. The accessibility and user-friendliness of a membership site benefits from an intuitive UX Design. Even the placement and grouping of exercise equipment in the gym draws inspiration from affective UX Design.

A UX Designer is someone who takes a product or service and looks at it from the user’s point of view and asks questions such as: Will this product or service provide me with a good experience? If I use this product for the first time, how easy will it be for me to use it for the second time? If I use this product now, how likely am I to use it again in the future? Will I recommend this to my friends and family? What are the possible problems I may encounter with this product moving forward?

After asking these questions, a UX Designer makes recommendations to the product developer or service provider on how they can improve their product or service. That’s what a UX Designer does.

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Why is UX Design Important?

The simplest explanation why UX Design is important is in order to create optimum customer satisfaction – but that’s just for starters.

If a product or service provides a positive user experience, the result is high customer satisfaction. High customer satisfaction, in turn, translates to a higher probability of a repeat customer. This is why people always go back to their favourite restaurant, their favourite shopping center, their favourite gym. This is why customers develop brand and product loyalty.

And here’s the kicker. If a product or service provides, not just good, but exemplary user experience, the result is even more than just developing repeat customers. Customers actually turn into fans. This is exactly the case with Apple products. Because of the high quality and premium feel of Apple products combined with an over the top user experience, people line up for hours to get their hands on the newest Apple products regardless of how expensive they are.

To think that user experience encompasses everything from physical products, memberships, services, self-service machines, utilities, subscriptions and every single thing that humans USE, you can just imagine how important this position is to any team. That is why companies hire top UX Designers with plenty of experience in a a wide range of industries.

Important Skills and Traits of UX Designers

A UX Designer’s normal mindset should always be out of the ordinary. You don’t have to tell a UX Designer to “think outside the box” because that’s already his default setting.
Like all other creatives, a UX Designer has to have Super Saiyan level creativity, psychic level communication skills, and politician level people skills. UX Design is rather complicated profession that pulls inspiration from principles of psychology, business, market research, design, and technology.

A UX Designer’s ability to see products and services from different angles should be unparalleled. In fact, he goes beyond merely looking from different perspectives – he looks at it in the context of time. “Given the rate of technological development, will the product still be useful after 3 months? 6 months? 1 year? Will this service still be beneficial after a certain age? Will this service or product’s ROI outlast its usability?”

As far as technical skills are concerned, familiarity with mind mapping applications is useful for a UX Designer. Other than that, a working knowledge of how a product is made or a how a service is provided is also desirable but not necessarily required.

Where To Find UX Designers

So where can you find these seemingly supernatural creatures? Do you pray hard for their intercession? Fortunately, you don’t need human sacrifice to conjure up the presence of a UX Designer.

The first thing you need to decide when hiring a UX Designer is whether you want to hire local or a remote.

The advantages of hiring locally include:

  • Ease of access and the ability to work with you personally – it’s always easier to work with someone face to face.

  • Less cultural and social adjustment needed you’re most probably living in the same city as your designer so you’re in the same time zone, speak the same language and share the same culture. This makes work so much smoother.

  • Better team-building opportunities being in the same place physically creates plenty of opportunity to train, collaborate, build rapport, and get feedback.

On the other hand, hiring local talent can have the following disadvantages:

  • Specific skill sets can be harder to find if you’re limited to a particular geographical area, finding a rockstar will be challenging. 

  • Overhead expenses if you hire locally, you’ll be obligated to keep an office which means you have to pay rent, pay for supplies, pay for electricity and other utilities. If you already have an office, you’ll have to provide your new hire with a work space which translates to the same thing – increased overhead.

If you decide to hire a remote worker, you need to decide if you’re hiring a project-based UX Designer or a full-time one. In any case,

here are the advantages of hiring remotely

  • Access to a global pool of talents you’re not limited to who’s available in your city and what they know. Hiring remotely gives you access to talented UX Designers from different countries who may even charge relatively smaller fees than local recruits. This is true to both project-based freelancers and full-timers.

  • Little to no overhead most remote workers work from home so you don’t need to worry about providing them with work spaces. This is especially true for project-based freelancers. However, for full-time employees, you may be required to subsidize their internet connection, computer equipment etc. But these costs are still far less compared to local overhead expenses. 

  • Less contractual obligation you can hire UX Designers on a per-project basis. If you like their work, continue to give them projects to work on. If you don’t, just don’t give them any more tasks to perform and that’s that.

On the other hand,

here are the disadvantages of hiring remote workers:

  • Trial and error you can’t really gauge the level of expertise, experience and even work ethic of the remote worker until you take a leap of faith and hire them. The good news is, if you don’t like their performance on the first project, you can just part ways right then and there.

  • Time constraints if you hire a remote web designer, particularly a freelancer, you need to understand right off the bat that you’re probably sharing him with several other clients (some paying more than you). That means your project is at the mercy of the freelancer’s workload. This may not be the case, though, with full-time remote employees.

That being said, here are a few places where you can find UX Designers online. Note that in some of these websites, you’ll have the option to hire either locally or remotely. It’s all up to you, your needs and your budget:

Upwork (local and remote) – geared more towards the US market. You can post a UX Design job, and available contractors can start lining up to apply. All you’d need to do is choose the best candidate. This is a good place to look for either part-timers or full-time UX Designers.

Fiverr (remote and local) – contractors already post their services and their fees upfront. However, there’s still room for negotiation once you’ve touched base with a contractor. This is your best choice for one-off projects.

People Per Hour (remote and local) – geared more towards the European market. Just like Upwork, you post a job and contractors will apply. You can choose the best candidate and go from there. This is also a good place to look for either part-timers or full-time UX Designers.

C9 Staff (remote) – specializes in providing remote staffing services from the Philippines. It is considered a concierge service where you don’t simply hire top UX Designers (or any other kind of remote worker for that matter), you hire a UX Designer with an entire management service behind him to keep him accountable and always on his toes. This is ideal for people looking to hire the best and expecting to get the best while keeping costs relatively competitive.

Hiring Considerations

When looking to hire UX designers, whether it be local or remote, there are a few important considerations you have to keep in mind.

What kind of product or service are you developing? Different products entail different kinds and levels of user experience. Are you looking for a technology-centric UX design or more of an ergonomic UX Design? What user demographic do you want your UX Design to focus on?

Is it going to be a one-off project or do you have a series of projects in your pipeline?

Next, what level of experience or proficiency would you like your UX Designer to have? Would you be okay with a mid-level designer or are you looking for a senior level designer?

Finally, how much do you have to spend on the project? Do you have just enough for a one-off deal? Is your pocket deep enough for a part-time or even a full-time recruit? Are you ready to spend good money on a senior-level UX Designer salary or is your budget pointing towards a mid-level one?

Why C9 Staff UX Designers Rock

Here at C9 Staff, we have UX designers in all levels of proficiency. Whether you need mid-level designers (with 1-3 years experience) or senior level designers (with 4 years experience or more), we have one that fits your needs.