“Focus on the user and all else will follow” – Rule #1, Google’s “Ten Things” Philosophy.
So simple, yet so true. If we make the users and their experience with our product/service our No.1 priority all other steps will come naturally. UX or User Experience design has undoubtedly become one of the most important aspects of business success. The numbers and statistics prove the same thing. The return on investment (ROI) is 100$ for every dollar spent on UX.
How the customers/users perceive, and react to the experience of browsing and buying your product is crucial. The importance of UX and UI for your business success is no longer a question to be asked.
The question now is how to get the best of UX. When you’ve already decided to invest in UX designers and know that you need this for your company, how do you make the right decision and hire great people to do the job?
The market is expanding by the second. As you’re reading this article there are more and more people willing to do the job, and more and more platforms and software to help them. However, more qualified people don’t necessarily mean better options to choose from. In a time when technology and AI are whirlpooling us, it’s really difficult to choose who to hire and what to look for in candidates.
But, there’s no reason to worry as we’ve done the research for you and put up the most important aspects to consider in this process. We’ve prepared the essential things you need to know when hiring UX designers and how they can be a great asset for your business.
How to hire designers with strategic thinking
Designers` creativity and skills can often be overlooked and not used to their full potential. They are often hired to make the app or the website look `nice` or `trendy`. However, good UX designers usually possess skills for strategic thinking and can approach projects from a business perspective, and consider objective goals.
Here is a complete guide to hiring UX designers that think out of the box and make their decisions with your business strategy in mind.
1. Know your needs
A lot of times businesses don’t know where to start when searching for a quality UX designer. And also most of the time they don’t even know that the UX field actually offers multiple jobs: UX researcher, UX developer, and UX designer are just some to start with.
You, as a business need to know what exactly you’re searching for, and what you need in order for your business to progress. Before putting out a job post with a general UX/UI hiring search and a bunch of generic duties listed, pinpoint the field of expertise you need and search for a designer who can perform specific duties. This will open the door for the most qualified designers who will be worth investing in.
2. Search for designers with a specific niche
While you’re going through a lot of CVs and LinkedIn profiles always try to see which candidates have niched down their expertise. This will make your job a lot easier since it will create a filter and leave you with designers that have already worked for similar businesses such as yours. This means that they will not only be already familiar with the field but will also know your competition and be able to think more strategically.
Not all designers have specified niches, and most of them are open to working with various businesses. Although being open to a lot of things can be good for learning and becoming more competent, having specific niches means that the designer takes their job more professionally and knows what works best in the field.
3. Thank you letter
If it sounds weird, it’s because it is. This technique was introduced by Jared M. Spool. It’s called The Thank You Note. It’s basically writing a thank you letter for the person you’re hiring in the future, usually after a year of their employment. The letter is written by the whole team, so they all have come on board and agree on everything.
The letter should be very specific and list all the wonderful things that person has done for the company throughout their first year. It starts from the first things they did in the beginning and moves on to more detailed projects that brought the company success.
In this manner you get the whole team talking about what this person will be doing for you. Once you know what you expect your potential employees to be doing in the first year, you concentrate on what knowledge they need to even start the job.
This gives your team an interesting perspective of what’s expected and a great starting point in creating the job post and the list of desired duties for your UX designers. In this way, you’ll hopefully be able to find the people that will truly deserve that thank you note after a year.
4. Choose potential over experience
Let’s not get this wrong. Experience is very important. However, if a person has ten years of experience but is repeating the same tasks every year without extending responsibilities and facing challenges, they basically have the same one-year experience repeated ten times.
It’s definitely not the same as a ten-year growing career path. So the numbers and experience should always be double-checked and put to the test. How?
- Pay attention and listen carefully to how they structure the story
- Discuss their work in a friendly way but always ask `why` to see where frustration and inspiration come from
- Check if they’ve done some research on your company and your customers
- Ask if they would change and improve something about your company
These are relatively new job positions and a lot of people with great potential can easily learn what they need to know when provided with the right environment and support. It’s most important to pinpoint the candidates’ analytical and strategic thinking and attention to detail. Not to mention younger candidates can be a fresh energy boost for your team. As things are changing on daily bases with AI and technology, even the most experienced UX designers must learn and upgrade as time goes by.
What can great UX design do for your business
Once you have the right candidates and the onboarding process has become, think about how UX can change your business for the better. Although these are some of the parameters you already used in the hiring process, things can still change along the way as the market is an ever-changing field.
Success is very difficult to measure, and it’s not all about the numbers. Successful businesses have so many more aspects involved than just money. So how is quality User Experience part of this story?
1. Increased Conversion Rates
Did you know that you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression or the potential customer leaves the site? The 2023 customer knows that if your website doesn’t match their expectations, there are tons of other similar ones that will make them happy. So they’re not wasting their time.
That’s why increasing conversion rates is one of the main goals of a UX designer. It’s their job to make the customer stay on the webpage and eventually spend some money.
2. Satisfied returning customers that spread the word of mouth
A satisfied customer will not only be willing to spend time and money on your website or app, but they will return again because they know how to manage the platform and are not frustrated with the experience. Not only that, but they will also recommend your business to friends and family in nonformal conversations. A good product that’s easy to purchase will eventually sell itself.
Quality UX makes your customers your advocates in a way. And there is no advertisement or influencer that people will trust more than their close ones.
3. Increased ROI
All of the above mentioned makes it pretty clear that the Return on Investment is definite with quality UX design. A user-friendly platform creates happy customers spending their money on your product. This increases their retention and loyalty. As a consequence, it creates revenue growth and makes your business more successful.
A good UX design is the one customers don’t even notice because it’s so intuitive and seamlessly leads them through the shopping process.
Ready to start hiring
We hope that what we’ve put up as a short informative guide on what to look for when hiring a UX designer will be of great help. It’s surely enough to serve as a starting point for further research and asking the right questions.
The bottom point is that UX designers are a great asset for every company that wants to be serious and professional about doing business. Hopefully, this article will help you find the right ones for you.
Writer’s bio:
Iskra Stojanovska has been an English teacher for more than 13 years now. She is also a freelance translator, interpreter, and university professor for both. She’s currently looking for a career change and other ways in which she can make use of her knowledge of English.
Content writing is a definite choice.
