Why Hiring a UI/UX Designer Is a Bad Idea

By James Richman

You’ve heard that old saying about first impressions and how they’re super important, right? Of course you have.

Now consider this: the world revolves around the Internet these days. Don’t believe me? Well, maybe think about the fact that enough information is consumed worldwide on the Internet every 24 hours to fill up 168 million DVDs. That’s an absolutely insane number--and that’s just one day!

And for you dollars-and-cents skeptics out there, telling yourself, “Traffic is one thing, but I need sales,” maybe you’d be surprised to find out that the global e-commerce market generates almost $2.5 million in business every minute. Yes, you read that correctly. Every minute.

What that means for you is this: as far as the customer-facing end of your business goes, your website or app is of paramount importance. So if you’re looking to make hires that will directly improve your outward image, your best bet is to hire a top-notch digital designer. Hiring someone of real quality in this field is a good step toward assuring your website sticks out from the crowd.

The World of Digital Design

If you’re up on your knowledge of the tech industry, you know that you’re dipping your toes into the digital design world at a very convenient time because more and more major players in the tech industry are starting to invest their time and attention in digital design, specifically in the marketplaces for freelance digital designers.

Digital designers are specially trained to make your app or website look and function as phenomenally and memorably as possible, so they’re in pretty high demand these days. Luckily, there are tons of different freelance marketplaces to track down freelance designers, which is good for you. It means you have options when it comes to hiring a good candidate to build your site.

All this attention on digital design points to a pretty obvious conclusion: it is a very complicated, meticulous process. A good website takes into account all the details, even the tiniest ones, and it means the process has a number of crucial steps, including User Experience, User Interaction, Visual, and Interaction Design. While a lot of designers may be proficient in more than one of these phases of the design process, the point remains: design is a complicated art with a lot of moving pieces.

Hiring a Designer: UI vs UX

When doing your research on how to go about hiring the ideal candidate for your design project, you may come across some people saying things like this: User Interaction (UI) and User Experience (UX) are basically the same thing, so just hire one designer to take care of all that to save you some money.

Okay, I know saving money is great. I’m all for saving money, but don’t take that advice. Yes, the UX and UI phases of design are linked in many ways, but they are decidedly different, so much so that there’s a whole different set of criteria to consider when hiring for each phase of the process.

Think about it this way. Let’s say you’re building a house. That’s a pretty complicated process, right? It requires a lot of different phases involving many workers with entirely different skillsets. These skillsets are related, sure, and they’re all contributing to the same end goal, building the house, but they’re still different.

Design is the same way. Think of UX as being the blueprinting process for your design project. These are the architects, the people who map out the whole project before any part of the house is built. Now think of UI as being the part of the process where the frame is put up for your house, the foundation, the walls, the roof, all that. This requires an entirely different skillset than that of the blueprinting process, right?

You wouldn’t put an architect to work laying up framing for your house, would you? I hope you wouldn’t. That probably wouldn’t be a good idea. The same is true for hiring designers. UX and UI often have overlapping skills, and it’s certainly the case that one informs the other, but they are definitely different processes.

Coming across a “hybrid” UI/UX designer probably just means that designer knows a little bit about each process, but not enough about either to be really good at one or the other. Don’t skimp on this part of the process. These are the early stages, when your concept is really being mapped out so it’s fully realized for implementation. Failure at this stage means doom for the finished product.

Introducing the UX Designer

So, since UX comes first in the process, here are a few things you want to keep an eye out for when vetting candidates for your project.

First, since this is the blueprinting part of the process, your candidate should have rock-solid wireframing and prototyping skills. These skills use a combination of qualitative and quantitative data to build a strong early-stage product that is fully realized and takes into account your project’s goal.

Be sure you ask all your candidates which specific prototyping tools they use. There’s a pragmatic reason for this question (to see if the designer’s process will work well with your existing team) as well as a more intellectual reason, that is, testing the designer to see if he or she knows the industry and is able to explain his or her process using sound technical backing.

Since we mentioned data earlier, it’s also worth noting that you should test each candidate’s consumer and competitor analysis skills. Since UX is largely conceptual but still has the end-goal in mind, it’s important that the designer is able to back up crucial conceptual decisions with sound data, which can range from metrics for specific design features to consumer interviews and even in-product testing.

Ask your candidates how they approach analytics in such a creative field. Get them to explain which set of data they typically rely on the most. The answers your candidates give will say a lot as to how they view the design process.

What this all adds up to, finally, is the need for your UX designer to have fantastic communication skills. This phase is largely conceptual, and it’s your project, not the designer's, so you want to make sure you hire someone who will take the initiative to stay on the same page with you at all times.

Introducing the UI Designer

UI designers, on the other hand, while they may share some similar skills to UX designers, also bring with them a different set of tools specific to the UI process. The biggest difference is that a really good UI designer will typically have front-end development and coding skills since they’re the ones actually building pieces of the site that users will interact with, whereas UX is pretty much exclusively a prototyping phase.

Since UI and UX are still closely related, though, you’ll want to see how each of your design candidates works with prototypes. Some UI designers will prototype themselves. If not, ask them how they incorporate someone else’s prototype into their execution of building the architecture.

Again, since the UI process is just one step closer to the consumers, it’s not uncommon for UI designers to have some solid understanding of consumer psychology as it relates to aesthetics and functionality. This means you’ll want to ask UI designers specific technical questions that test their knowledge on such concepts as aesthetic usability-effect, atomic design, call to action, and even color theory.

UX + UI = Website Success

Hopefully by now you can see that there are distinct differences between UX and UI designers, and that if you really want to take the success of your website or app seriously, you should consider hiring both for your team.

Now, it might very well be the case that you are lucky enough to come across a candidate who is truly proficient in both UI and UX design, but you had better confirm it. During the interview process, you’ll want to ask questions that show the designer’s level of knowledge for both. Don’t just take that claim at face value. Explore it, and screen for the skillsets that each of these phases of the design process require. (Check out these guides by Toptal if you need help: UI hiring guide and UX hiring guide.) 

There you have it. You’re all ready to take your startup to the next level and let your sharp new website conquer the world. Happy hiring!