Hunting the Right UI and UX Designer For Your Development Project

Almost 95% of all job descriptions for user experience (UX) and user interface (UI) designers look like this one below.

But the irony is that companies that post such job descriptions will most likely fail their recruiting goals, because, as specialists suggest, finding great UX and UI design skills in one person is a mission impossible!

Although it may sound strange, but UX designer and UI designer are two totally different roles and one person should not be hired to be responsible for both functions.

In this blog post I won’t talk about how to review portfolios, interview candidates or convince a designer to join your web or mobile development team. I’d rather help you answer one main question you should ask yourself before launching any software development project - What kind of a designer do I need for my project?

As a matter of fact, UX and UI are two facets that strictly define the success of your mobile application. If your mobile app is full of bugs and/or has poor quality, it is the failure of UX. If your mobile app isn’t easy to use and intuitive enough, it is the failure of UI.
See below our Checklist of focus areas and skills relevant to UX and UI designer jobs.

So, as you can see, it’s of high importance to create the right job descriptions for each area in order to hunt the right people and have them join your mobile development team. Mixing UX and UI design skills in one description can, in fact, discourage specialists from applying for the job with your company.

Remember - even if you manage to find a candidate with equally stellar UI and UX design skills, s/he may not perform to your expectations due to a huge amount of work relating to UI and UX design.

There are some complicated trade-offs to be made:

Should your designer be able to code?

It’s important for any designer to understand the basics of mobile software development. But usually it’s a bad idea to ask designer to write production code, since many designers can’t code and putting this skill to your job description will limit a number of candidates. You must hire a front-end developer for coding, and let your designer design!

Interaction design or visual design?

Whom to hire depends on your mobile application and what is most important for your customers.

The main goal is to deliver your mobile product to your user as effectively as possible. If you do this, you won’t have a problem selling or benefiting from your mobile application. Hire someone who will understand your user and will be able to find a healthy balance between wants, needs, and must-haves!

Still not sure what primary skills to look for in your candidates? Feel free to order our Software Development Project Advisory service and we’ll help you identify the job roles and skills that would be most appropriate for your particular mobile product!