So you’ve taken the plunge and decided to go ahead with a big UX project. Where should you start? What should you look for in your UX design team? How do you know what UX designer will be right for your project and your company?
The answer to those questions depends on a lot of things – the scope of your project, your goals, your budget, your corporate culture – but there are a few rules of thumb that will help when it comes to finding the perfect UX design team.
Here are five key qualities to look for during your UX designer search:
1) They do their research first
A fundamental part of a UX designer’s job is doing their research and getting to grips with who your actual users are. A UX designer who wants to jump right into the design process isn’t the ideal candidate – you want someone who’s committed to doing user research before they get deep into the project.
There are a lot of ways to conduct user research, from gathering quantitative data from web analytics, to running surveys, to collecting qualitative data through user interviews and observation. All of these methods can offer valuable insights that will help a designer get to know the user and understand how they interact with your product.
2) They can define and solve your problem
Research is also important because it helps designers understand what your problems really are. Most companies don’t actually know what problem they need solved (or they’ve been trying to solve the wrong problem) – and this is where a skilled UX expert comes in.
UX is essentially a two-part process: Step one is understanding what the key problems are from the user’s perspective (this is where all that research comes in handy); Step two is designing the right solution to those problems and coming up with a detailed design strategy. Look for a designer who can do both.
Keep in mind that we’ve talked a lot about the user perspective here – but understanding the problem also requires a good grasp of your business and its objectives. After all, you’re solving a usability problem, but at the end of the day, that problem needs to be solved in order to help your business meet its goals.
3) They emphasize the process
The overarching goal of UX design is to create a usable site. But the end product isn’t as important as how you get there and why.
Look for a UX designer who doesn’t just hit you over the head with a list of all of their past design successes. You also want a designer who puts a major emphasis on their design process and focuses on things like how they’ll design that awesome user experience, what their research process looks like, the value they’ll bring to the project, and how they’ll fit into your company.
4) Their background resonates with your project
UX design is a cool field because UX designers come from a wide variety of backgrounds and past experiences. Many UX designers have come to the job from fields like web development, graphic design, psychology, business, or advertising – the list goes on.
The key thing here is to make sure that the UX designer you bring on board has a good skillset and background for your project. Luckily, the varied skillsets of UX designers means you should be able to find someone who’s a good fit.
And a word to the wise – good UX design takes a lot more than the ability to make pretty wireframes. Understanding some basic cognitive psychology and the way users interact with technology is probably more important than a graphic design degree.
5) They put your users first
User-centered design is more than just a buzzword. Since UX design is all about the user experience, you want your design team to prioritize and understand your user first and foremost.
Look for a UX expert that obviously understands user’s tasks and environments, and builds user personas that go beyond superficial things like marketing demographics or income, and instead describes things like motivations, knowledge bases, and behavioral tendencies.
UX design aims to hit that ‘sweet spot’ between business and user needs – but a good UX designer knows that the only way to get there is to understand and put the user first.
Wrap Up
Finding the right UX design team can do phenomenal things for your business, and lighten the load of that daunting UX project you’re taking on. The five qualities on this list are a great jumping off point in your quest to find the perfect UX expert for your project.
