Applications, websites, and mobile applications look
and function far better when user interface (UI) and user experience (UX) experts work on them. But few
companies have the project flow or capital to justify hiring full-time UI and UX staff.
Fortunately, there are four ways to create a
beautiful, easy to use, highly functional products without a UI/UX team. You can:
- Hire a consulting firm.
- Hire a freelancer from a worker-for-hire website.
- DIY it with existing staff.
- Hire your own UI and UX staff.
When you have a critical problem or want the best
because your app is what customers see first, going with a consultant is often the smartest, safest choice.
Hiring a consulting firm isn’t likely to be the cheapest option, although it can be less costly than
hiring full-time UI/UX employees, and it’s certainly less risky than hiring a solo freelancer because you
get a whole team of UI/UX pros.
The typical UI/UX 1Rivet
serves has a customer portal or mobile app they want to be more efficient for internal or external users. We
start most projects by having the client walk us through the app to understand how users interact with the
product.
For a complex application, it can take many weeks to
understand the business processes and user flows. By contrast, reskinning an existing simple app used only by
employees would take far less time.
We might do focus groups to understand how folks currently
use the product and what they wish the product would do (after we make changes, we repeat the focus groups to
make sure the product responds to the needs raised by the users). For applications with thousands of internal
users, such as call centers, we do a time study to look for ways to save clicks and time to increase efficiency.
The collected information flows to our back office in
Valsad, India, where our UI and UX development team works collectively. They talk over the best way to lay out
an application, what the most relevant information is to include on the screen, and what the user research
revealed.
There’s a science to UI and UX, but it’s also
an art. Every designer thinks differently, which is why a team approach works so well. If you hire a single
person you might get multiple ideas, but they still come from a single person. Starting with a basic layout with
navigation and a color scheme, three of the designers will come up with unique and different designs for the
screens, giving clients multiple options.
1Rivet charges $35 to $45 an
hour for its UI/UX developers. You could spend $200 to $300 an hour to hire one of the big business consulting
firms for a UI/UX project. Worker-for-hire websites will connect you with UI/UX designers who will do the job
for as little as $5 right up to $150 an hour. Let’s look at that option next.
Hire A Freelancer From A Worker-For-Hire Website
There’s no shortage of websites for locating
temporary staff to do UI and UX. Sites such as www.fiverr.com, www.upwork.com,
and www.designcrowd.com all offer UI and UX. On the
surface, it’s the perfect solution. You can see ratings from former clients, how many engagements the
freelancer has done, and possibly view their work. No new employees get added to the payroll, and you pay only
for the work you need.
Like dating websites, sometimes you make a great
connection and a lasting relationship blossoms. Other times, you find out you’re one of many hookups, the
picture doesn’t exactly match up with the person’s IRL, and you both walk away bitter about the
experience. The bottom line: It can be challenging to find someone you like, who’s available when you are,
and who can meet your deadlines.
When the goal is to get internal UI and UX upgraded at
some point, freelancers can work out nicely. But when there’s a firm deadline to meet, or external users,
it’s risky to hire one person who could flake out, rather than a consulting firm with multiple team
members.
A related option is to bring in someone to train your
people to become UI/UX people. Great idea, but if this is your first attempt, skip it because it’s like
the first time you coded a new technology. It will work, but the code is normally not the best it could be.
Plenty of companies go with a Do It Yourself (DIY)
plan, especially if they’re building an app for internal users. Assigning UI and UX to employees
you’re already paying seems like it saves money, especially if staffers have the time and inclination to
learn UI/UX.
As you look around for someone to take on those tasks,
remember most developers aren’t great designers, just as most designers aren’t great developers. If
you go this route, make sure you’re not asking someone to be something they’re not and don’t
want to be.
Start by asking your marketing department for the company
style guide. That lists your brand standards — things like fonts, colors, shading, box size, and calls to
action. Carry those into the application. This is not the time to make a red, white, and blue application
because you love the Patriots.
If you’re lucky, the marketing department will be so
horrified at the idea of an amateur designer attempting to apply their brand guidelines they’ll offer to
handle design. The good news: An in-house designer will know when to use a bar chart instead of a pie chart and
can make your application pretty. The bad news: It's unlikely they’ll know UX, so someone will still
have to handle function.
UX may look easy, but it’s not. You can’t just
shove everything on a screen and expect users to get it. Where does the home button go? What’s most
relevant on this page? What does the user need to see? Internally, you can get away with hacking it. Externally,
bad UX decisions can mean the difference between people downloading your app and using it versus immediately
deleting it.
Hiring your own in-house UI and UX team is another
option. UI and UX folks are typically creative people who thrive on tackling new challenges. Will you have
enough projects to keep them busy and challenged for a full year? UI/UX take pretty specific skillsets, so it
may be unrealistic to expect UI/UX staff to take on other IT tasks. Don’t have a full year’s work?
Making the position temporary is another option, but that
will make it harder to fill.
An entry-level U.S.-based UI employee will earn $85,000 a
year in a Midwest market and up to $100,000 in a high-cost, coastal metro. An entry-level UX person will earn
$67,000 in the Midwest up to $78,000 in coastal metros. Add about 20 to 25 percent to those salary levels to
cover the cost of employee benefits.
Creating a part-time position can work out nicely. You
might find a retired UI/UX person or one who’s currently staying home with kids. Either one might jump on
the chance to work a couple of hours a day or a couple of days a week on a long-term basis.