Types of Designers & the Benefits They Bring to a Business

Assess your company's needs

Consider the question of why your company needs a designer in the first place. Sometimes, teams see that every company has a dedicated designer on their team and decide without due research that their product also needs one. While the vast majority of products will eventually benefit from a dedicated designer, not every company needs to hire a full-time, in-house designer right away.

Drew Hamlin, Senior Director, Product Design at Slack compares the design stages of a product with Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. When basic needs for food, water, and shelter are satisfied, people can build friendship, health, achievement, self-esteem, and desire to become a better version of themselves on top of this core.

We might look at the design process as a pyramid too.

When should you start thinking more seriously about your first design hire?

• When your team has a lack of design expertise that prevents your business from getting to the market or engaging with the audience.
• When aesthetic, user-friendly, and functional designs will give you a competitive advantage over other products with poorly designed interfaces.

Different types of designers carry out different roles — they may work on the user experience, evaluate usability, conduct user research, or take care of the visual parts of your product. To understand what type of designer you should hire, you should first assess your company's needs. Does your team require a specialist for a one-time task? An in-house designer available full-time? Or maybe you need to hire several people for multiple roles?

Assess the design team's performance to identify the most time-consuming tasks or tasks that no one seems to complete correctly. For example, you might realize that you don't know your users well, and the product lacks data about users' needs. Or you might have received feedback that your interfaces aren't appealing or are confusing to users. Depending on your problems, you can decide what design specialist will help you most.

Effective UX team management plays a pivotal role in harnessing the full potential of design professionals and elevating their performance. Assembling a skilled and diverse UX team is just the beginning; nurturing their growth and fostering collaboration is where the real magic happens.

By cultivating a positive work environment and empowering team members to thrive, UX team managers can unleash the full potential of their designers, leading to exceptional user experiences that drive business success.

Types of Designers & What Their Roles Include

Think of your new designer as a solution to a specific problem. Knowing what gaps you have will help you define the type of designer and what skills they should have to solve these problems.

UX Designers

UX designers are responsible for establishing a positive interaction between users and the interface. They also aim to make products efficient, delightful, and accessible to everyone. UX designers advocate for users' needs and balance them with their company's business goals. Their responsibilities include:

• Applying the findings of user research
• Creating user personas
• Outlining the information architecture
• Designing user flows, wireframes, and prototypes
• Conducting usability testing and other user-focused tasks
  

UI Designers

Understanding the difference between the responsibilities of a UI vs. UX designer can help you make the right choice and even reduce expenses. Some professionals underestimate UI designers, assuming they're only responsible for the visual aesthetics of a website or an application. In reality, UI designers also keep user experience in mind and are primarily focused on implementing designs that meet UX needs. They're highly knowledgeable of design principles and theories of composition, color, and typography and use their mastery to create aesthetically pleasing designs.

Product Designers

Product designers are high-level product managers of the design process. Like UX designers, they ensure the product's user experience meets the needs and expectations of end-users. However, they're also responsible for collaboration between departments, making sure teams meet deadlines, solve problems at various levels, and lead multiple UX and UI activities to ensure that the final product is consistent, user-friendly, and functional.

Visual Designers

Visual designers (also sometimes called "graphic designers") create eye-catching, sleek designs and deal with typefaces, colors, imagery, and other visual elements to properly represent a product.

UX Researchers

UX researchers do all of the fieldwork related to providing a great user experience. They plan and organize user testing and surveys, moderate user interviews, and analyze and articulate user data.

It’s common for many designers to possess diverse UX skills and some can combine the duties of a UX researcher and UI/UX designer, for example. This type of designer is called a generalist.

At first sight, generalists may seem perfect as they have proficiency in multiple disciplines. However, be cautious when hiring generalists as they may lack the required level of expertise to solve your more complex design challenges.

Conversely, design specialists have deep domain expertise and are more likely to produce best-in-class work.

Decide what skills you’re looking for

As a lead, having a clear understanding of the outcomes you want your designer to achieve allows you to specify the desired skills and competencies. For instance, if you aim to strengthen your team's ability to investigate the needs of your target audience, you should prioritize candidates with qualitative and quantitative research skills, complemented by strong communication abilities. Critical competencies for a UX designer role may also encompass attention to detail, integrity, proactivity, persistence, creativity, and openness to criticism.
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To assess these skills during UX interviews, evaluate candidates through portfolio reviews, looking for a diverse range of projects, problem-solving approaches, and attention to user needs. Ask them to walk you through their design process for specific projects to reveal their critical thinking and user-centric approach. You can also assign a design exercise or challenge that simulates real-world scenarios to assess their creativity and problem-solving abilities. This comprehensive evaluation ensures you identify a UX designer who not only possesses technical expertise but also aligns with your company's values and design philosophy.
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Furthermore, as a lead, you can foster continuous growth and development in your design team. Providing opportunities for team training and skill enhancement helps bridge any existing gaps and ensures that designers stay up-to-date with the latest industry trends and best practices.

Give your Designers a Competitive Edge

Investing in employee education is key to building a high-performance design team. With Uxcel, you can provide your team with top-notch learning materials and skill testing tools to build a culture of learning.

Upskill my team

Collaboration form and budget

Financial constraints may require you to adjust your expectations about the type of designer you can afford for your needs. However, keep in mind that you cannot hire a design professional with little experience or a new graduate and expect them to work as efficiently as senior designers.

Freelancers

Freelancers are the best fit for small and specific tasks and might charge you from $10 to $100 per hour or more, depending on experience and location. Unfortunately, freelancers usually work on multiple projects and won't always be available to reply to your messages instantly. Plus, sometimes, the quality of designs might suffer.

In-house designers

In-house designers represent the most expensive group. The average designer salary across 102 countries is $54,588, with the highest average of $102,614 in Switzerland. However, having an in-house designer means having a full-time high-end specialist with skills tailored to your product needs. Ideally, they're dedicated to your project alone and become experts of your brand and style.

He compares having your own team of designers and working with agencies/freelancers with owning your own house and renting one. The benefits are great, but it'll cost you more.

Design agencies

Netflix’s Principal Product Design Recruiter Carrie Cardona shares that design agencies are a safe bet for small companies and startups. They have experience working with various industries and offer various design services, including research and analysis. One of the most significant pros of engaging with agencies is having a complete design and operations team at your disposal (so-called "DesignOps"). Additionally, agencies that care about their reputation deliver high-quality work, conduct in-depth design processes, and maintain tight deadlines.

On the flip side, agencies will cost you more than hiring a freelancer, as many of them charge by the hour for any activity (e.g., a phone call) associated with the work.

Sadly, there's no one-fit-all solution when hiring a designer. You should estimate your budget, communicate with your team, understand the core objectives of hiring a new team member, and consider many other aspects (like the level of expertise, skills, and competencies) vital for your team and your business.
Sadly, there's no one-size-fits-all solution when hiring a designer. You should estimate your budget, communicate with your team, understand the core objectives of hiring a new team member, and consider many other vital aspects, such as the level of expertise, skills, and competencies required for your team and business.
Once you define all these aspects, you can start your hunt for the perfect candidate. One of the best ways to crack the code and find quality UX design talent is knowing where to look. Numerous hiring platforms allow you to post a job or project and receive hundreds of applicants every month.

Uxcel is one such platform, and one of the best things about it is that candidates on Uxcel typically have a rating for their skills based on their Uxcel test scores—provided they've taken the time to test their skills. This rating system can help you quickly identify top talent and streamline your hiring process, ensuring you find the right fit for your design team and projects.

Be specific when defining the goals, needs, and deal-breakers when hiring a designer. You're more likely to find a candidate perfect for your company if you know what gaps you need to fill and what qualities and skills you're looking for. Learn more how to understand your team skill set with Uxcel's Teams.