Articles
What a freelance UX and UI designer can do
By Carsten Bjerregaard, Marketingcapacity.dk (Link to the article. Copying/publishing without agreement is not allowed)
Good UX (User Experience) design makes websites easy to navigate and ensures that users have a good experience. Among other things, by prioritizing and dosing the content - and by making sure that the necessary functionality is present - at the points in the customer journey where they will be of help to users. While UI (User Interface) design is about making sure that the actual design (style, tone, colors, sounds) supports the brand and creates the desired visual experience.
View UX and UI designer profiles
What is UX design?
The term UX was coined in the early 1990s and it's all about creating the user experience, especially on digital interfaces. Recognizing several things. Among other things:
- Communication via digital screens (like any other communication) takes place on the user's terms. The limit is what the user can and will
- Businesses have huge amounts of data, information and functionality they want to provide access to through just one screen at a time. This requires careful planning and prioritization
- Decoding digital information is not as clear-cut as it is when reading a book or newspaper
So a UX designer works to reconcile several loose ends:
- What information does the company want to provide access to?
- What does your company's target audience look like?
- What are the needs, motivations and desires of each of these target groups?
- How can we provide the desirable and necessary information and functionality so that it is decoded and used in the best possible way?
- How should we prioritize the information?
- What should the customer journey on the site look like?
That is, the UX designer works with:
- Customer analytics
- Personas
- Usage scenarios
- Wireframes (sketches of pages on the website - passed on to a UI designer)
- Prototyping
- Pretotyping
- UX Writing
- Performance follow-up
- Adjustments and maintenance
What is UI design?
UI design is about finalizing the design of the pages in a website. That is, choosing parameters such as:
- Font
- Color scale
- Image style
- Sound design
- Forms
- Visual aids
- Graphic elements
This will often be according to a design manual or simply the overall style and tone of the company's communication.
How does a UX and UI designer create value?
The designer creates value by helping more people:
- Engaging with the website
- Finding what they want/need
- Buying a product or service
The reality is that tiny changes can have a big impact. Or to put it negatively, small mistakes can have big consequences. That's why the importance of the UX and UI designer is hard to overestimate. The thing is, people don't buy the best product - they buy what sells best. And UX and UI design is sales through digital nudging.
What types of UX and UI designers are there?
UX and UI designers have essentially the same job. But their approach and skills are vastly different in that respect:
- Strategic understanding
- Commercial understanding
- Insight into people (needs, wants, habits)
- Communicative insight and judgment
- Insights into purchase flow and nurturing
- Analytical skills
- Experience working with personas
- The ability to make precise wire-frames
- The ability to program
- The ability to orchestrate a development project
- The ability to develop a consistent design
- The ability to use design tools
- A capacity for self-criticism and reflection
... to name a few differences that would exist if you talk to multiple designers to compare them.
Examples of good UX and UI design
It's hard not to notice how well Facebook, YouTube and Amazon are designed. Admittedly, they are very different in their look and feel. But compared to the sheer amount of information and options they each provide, using them is almost unbelievably intuitive. You don't have to read anything - and you won't be left helpless anywhere.
Why a freelance UX and UI designer?
In the past, most people might have thought of freelancers for one-off projects. However, many companies have now realized the benefits of working with freelancers on a long-term basis:
- You can cover needs that don't justify a permanent position
- In periods when you don't need it, you don't pay for the skill
- In a long-term relationship, the freelancer gets to know the company almost as well as a permanent employee
- Compared to buying the desired skill set from an agency - such as an advertising agency - working with freelancers is usually much cheaper
- You have the flexibility to rethink the overall competency profile of the person responsible for an area
- More and more really talented people prefer to work freelance
- A freelancer can still look at your business 'from the outside' - which is a valuable thing when thinking about creative
- Freelancers can bring fresh, outside inspiration to your business
How do you find a good freelance UX and UI designer?
Finding the right freelancer can be difficult. And above all, it can take a long time. Because there are many freelancers within the same field, and even if they boast the same skills, there can be a big difference when it comes to the way they work and the work they deliver. When you ask Marketingcapacity.dk to help you find a freelancer to work with, the process is simple:
- You describe your needs to us (either in writing or verbally - we'll confirm in an email)
- We screen the thousands of profiles on Marketingcapacity.dk and, if necessary, the market through our channels
- We nominate a list of candidates and talk to them according to your needs
- You will be presented with 3 candidates that seem to meet your needs
- During the 3 meetings (at your location or digitally) you can ask questions and see examples of their work
- You choose the freelancer you would like to start working with
- We set it up in our systems with time tracking etc. so you have an overview and full control
In other words: After describing your needs, simply set aside 2 hours to meet with 3 hand-picked and screened candidates. That's your guarantee of a good result with reasonable effort.
