For many companies a design may be one of the most crucial hires. With consumers flooded by choices and the right designer can help your company make a strong first impression and stand out from the crowd.
Whether browsing a website, scrolling through an app, consumers today care as much about the experience you give them as they do about the solution. A UX or UI designer will make critical decisions on how customers interact with you site or app. The right web designer will keep customers on your site longer and can increase sales. And a brand designer will create everything from logos to language and color pallets – what will become your online persona.
Hiring the right designer can lead to rapid adoption and life-long customers. Finding the right person can be challenging. We’ve gathered 5 tips to help you find the right designer for your team.
Designer Wanted – 5 Qualities to Look For
Ability To Design And Build
The role of the design has dramatically changed in the last ten years. For decades designers’ work stopped at creating images of what a website or app screen should look like. Now, however, the role includes defining how the webpages or app moves, sounds and navigates. Depending on the business, it may involve doing front-end developing and CSS coding.
Additionally, no design lives forever. The increasingly popular “prototype design process” has designers prototyping design and then validating that the layout works for consumers. They then bring that design across browsers and through multiple devices. Designers are asked to constantly evolve and iterate based on changing consumer behaviors.
It is crucial that you find a designer with relevant experience to your needs. If you are going mobile-first, someone with desktop application may struggle to keep up. Also, understand that experience is also about the type of environment. Some who has agency experience may have different expectations around timelines than those who have worked in a start-up environment.
Be User Driven
Great designers design for the average user. While it is often tempting to put in the latest navigation or flow, the truth is the consumer will have the best experience if design uses familiar principals. Empathy fuels good UX.
A great designer will annotate his or her work with consumer insights, showing how each decision was made based on user input. As consumer behaviors evolve or new features are introduced, a design should approach new design with the user’s behaviors and needs in mind.
Engaged In The community
Website design is quickly evolving. New tablets and mobile phones require new interactions and UX. With technological advancements causing best practices to evolve at a fast pace, one has to work hard to keep abreast.
The best designers will engage with the design community. Look for individuals that have profiles on sites like Dribbble and Behance where other designers flock. Someone who both posts their work and comments on others will have a natural curiosity that will help develop new design.
Ready To Evolve
Every startup is unique and therefore requires a different approach to making it a success. This is why a good designer should be able to evolve and adapt to your startup’s requirements – no matter how stringent or complex.
Additionally, how consumers interact with content on desktops, mobile devices and tablets is constantly evolving. A designer must be highly creative, able to think through the box on how new technologies can be applied.
Thoughtful About Distribution
After working so hard to make a great business, getting the word out can be a challenged. While marketing is often responsible to get great product (and design) out to the right customers, the truth is design can also help this effort.
Incorporating design elements like sharing buttons, or referral programs can help a business spread quickly. Design can help determine what are the best ways for current customers to share, and how they can make it easy and rewarding. By building in this growth function into the actual design, the business can more easily grow.
Quality Designer To Fit Your Business
With so many types of designers and different business needs, it can be overwhelming to find the right resource for your team. Before you start interviewing design candidates do you own due diligence. Figure out exactly what you need in a designer. Only then can you use the tips above to find the perfect person to create the UI/UX your customers will love.