The demand for effective user experience (UX) designers continues to rise as increasingly more companies take notice of the massive value realized through providing an outstanding user experience. Some of the biggest brands on the planet like Amazon, Apple and Google put significant effort and investment into optimizing the user experience. The return on that investment is shown through these company’s growth over the last couple decades.
Users in this time of technological revolution demand the ability to define their own experience and their expectations for that experience are often exceptionally high. In fact, poor user experience is among the leading reasons for the loss of users.
That is why it is essential to find a UX designer that is able to create the perfect user experience for a brand’s unique needs. Understanding what those needs are is the best way to ensure that you walk into the hiring process with a clear idea of what your brand needs in a user experience designer.
Read on to learn how to do just that!
#1 Understand the User Experience
Having a lucid understanding of the experience you want to provide to users is the first step in hiring somebody to craft that experience. Determine what you want your customers to experience when they visit your brand online or in person. This knowledge will provide you with a baseline by which to gauge perspective UX designers.
This can’t just be a surface level understanding of the user’s expectations but rather a deep knowledge of what makes them tick and how you can cater to their needs. You should have such an understanding of what gets them to take specific actions that you can almost predict what they will do.
Conduct market research and usability testing to help you better understand your user’s needs, wants and desires. Then, design an experience that over delivers on your brands promises.
#2 Know Your Unique Problem
Most brands do not consider hiring a user experience designer until a problem with their user experience arises. Familiarizing yourself with what is negatively affecting user experience will provide you with a clear picture of what an ideal candidate looks like.
You may need to conduct a deep dive into your user experience through user testing and Google Analytics analysis. User testing will unearth issues that you thought were strengths of your user experience. Maybe a user is getting confused with a series of pages you want them to go through during checkout or the way your content is laid out makes it difficult to consume. Having users who are outside of your organization go through your user experience will bring a fresh perspective and uncover issues.
For instance, if your problem is that your website performance is subpar and you believe it is outdated, you should look for a user experience designer with the ability to address the interface and visual effects of your site. However, if you are just starting out and are looking to launch a new product online, somebody who focuses on research and implementation strategy would be more fitting. All UX designers – and the brands that employ them – benefit from strong leadership skills and business sense.
#3 Know Your Process
Understanding how the teams within your company currently work will help you to determine where a new user experience designer will fit. The user experience can be thrown off even further by the snags associated with throwing a new personality into an established process. Knowing the process provides the ability to insert a UX designer with the least amount of disruption to the individual and collective functioning of the company’s existing teams.
Build process charts and documents that give new team members with a clear picture of workflows while also providing the flexibility they need to come up with creative solutions to your UX problems.
#4 Know Your People
Every model and strategy for improving the user experience of your brand comes through the efforts of individuals with their own unique skillset and personality. By developing an intimate understanding of your current staff, you can avoid hiring a UX designer who will clash with them and upset the vital elements of your team. Chemistry is extremely important and failing to take this into account is where most companies fail when hiring a user experience designer.
Another aspect of this is making sure you do not overlook somebody who is already on the team and has the skills to get the job done. This can build resentment that will drag your user experience and brand down. Conduct a skills gap analysis of your current UX team to identify the skills the team currently has as well as those that are missing. Also, analyze where the market is going and make sure you develop skillsets or hire for those that the future UX role will require.
To conduct a skills gap analysis, first you must identify the skills that are needed. This can be created the same way you would create a project scope document.
- What’s the mission of the organization?
- What are the business goals associated with that mission?
- What are the skills that will be needed to accomplish the mission and goals of the organization?
From there, you need to go into data collection and analysis. Analyze the current job roles and responsibilities within your organization.
- Review current job roles in the company for skills.
- Think about the future of those roles and what skills will be needed.
- Analyze whether or not the roles currently in the company alight with those current and future skillset needs.
Summing it Up
In the end, creating an exceptional user experience means digging deep into what your brand intends to provide and how to enhance that. Before you begin the search for somebody to craft that user experience, make sure you know what it is you need them to create.
Now that you know what to look for when hiring a UX Designer, all that is left to do is to hire one. Get out there and find the right UX Designer for your brand now.
