How to Hire a UX Design Consultant?

Want to hire a UX design consultant? It’s a crucial role in the success of complex digital products.

We can’t overstate the importance of hiring the right people. Organizations that hired DevTeam.Space will attest to that.

Read on, as we explain how to hire a UX consultant.

1. Understand why you need a UX design consultant in your organization

Observers contend that “the demand for UX professionals has skyrocketed in recent years”. This includes UX design consultants, who earn hefty salaries. Do you need a user experience design consultant in your company?

UX designers focus on the digital product they design. They also focus on designing the services offered by the company.

UX consultants focus on much more than that. They consider the entire ecosystem of products and services offered by an organization.

The UX consulting process emphasizes more on the business side more, and UX design consultants look at the user’s journey through the product and services.

UX designers must demonstrate design skills. They need sufficient technical knowledge too. UX design consultants need these skills, furthermore, they need the perspective of the businesses.

Decide which roles you need in your project team. Read “What Is A UX Consultant And Why Should You Hire One?” for more information.

2. Determine whether you need a co-located or remote UX design consultant

Can you work with a UX design consultant located in another part of the world? Or, do you need a UX consultant working at your site? You need to make this decision based on your business context.

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Certain projects can be highly complex. Users might have a fluid set of requirements, furthermore, the project might have its unique set of challenges.

Imagine users located in San Francisco and the UX design consultant working from London! Experienced UX consultants can certainly create design solutions using modern collaboration tools. However, even the world’s best UX designer will require more time to deliver such projects!

You might want to take advantage of co-located teams in complex projects. Remote UX design consultants might suffice in simpler projects. Get a good sense of the complexity before you choose between remote vs co-located UX consultants.

3. Decide whether to hire freelance or field-expert UX design consultants

You might toy with the idea of hiring freelance UX consultants. While this might work in simple projects, we don’t recommend this approach for complex projects.

We believe that you should hire a field-expert UX design consultant for a complex project. We say this due to the following factors:

• Focus: Freelancers work part-time. This might dilute their focus on your project. That’s not helpful when you have a complex project at hand. Field-expert UX consultants work full-time on your project, which helps.

• Management support: Freelance platforms don’t provide any project management support. On the other hand, you hire field-expert UX consultants from a trustworthy software development company. Such companies provide management support.

• Finding a replacement: Freelance UX consultants routinely look for more lucrative opportunities. They might take up the next job with old clients, and they might leave your project mid-way. Hiring a replacement can take time. If you hire from a software development company, then this partner provides replacements.

4. Advertise the UX design consultant job requirement

You need to create a job advertisement and post it. The job advertisement should contain the following:

4a. Company description

Describe your company factually, however, make it an exciting description. Talk about the growth trajectory of your company.

Explain the rewarding career and growth opportunities you offer, and describe how you encourage professional development.

Talk about the organizational culture and work environment. Finally, describe the compensation and benefits policies in your organization.

4b. UX design consultant job description

Explain the kind of projects for which you need UX design consultants. Briefly mention the different stakeholders that will be benefitted from the projects.

Explain how the UX consultant can contribute to the projects and your organization. Furthermore, describe the larger organizational set-up that the consultant will work in.

4c. Roles and responsibilities of UX consultants

Specify the roles and responsibilities of the UX design consultant. UX consultants focus on solving the underlying business problem of what seems like a UX problem.

They should also do what UX designers do, which are as follows:

• Working with different stakeholders to understand the specifications of digital products;

• Understanding the user needs;

• Conducting concept tests;

• Running usability tests and gathering feedback;

• Conducting UX research;

• Performing user research;

• Creating user personas based on the research findings and other relevant data;

• Formulating appropriate user interaction models;

• Creating prototypes;

• Building wireframes;

• Collaborating with UI designers;

• Examining the success of the UX design;

• Solving problems identified during usability testing;

• Connecting with developers to provide the details of prototyping and design solutions;

• Collaborating with your larger team;

• Learning continuously about the relevant market and upgrading UX design knowledge.

4d. UX consulting skills required

A UX design consultant needs all the UX design skills, which are as follows:

• In-depth knowledge of conducting UX research;

• Sound knowledge of design thinking;

• Creating wireframes;

• Prototyping;

• Deep knowledge of UI design;

• Sound background in UX writing;

• In-depth understanding of information architecture;

• Robust knowledge of visual design and visual communication;

• Good knowledge of interaction design;

• Knowledge of creating user flows;

• Understanding of adaptive and responsive design;

• Familiarity with UI design and prototyping tools like Adobe XD, InVision Studio, Figma, Sketch, etc.;

• Robust knowledge of usability testing;

• Good knowledge of user interface design elements like input controls;

• User research skills;

• Knowledge of style standards and guides;

• Good knowledge of concepts like the “Human First” way of user-centered design;

• Familiarity with field research methods.

Additionally, UX design consultants need the following skills:

• Sound knowledge of the UX consulting process;

• In-depth understanding of competitive analysis;

• Understanding of the impact of UX on a brand;

• Good exposure to analytics;

• The ability to gather actionable insights using Analytics tools;

• Business acumen;

• Up-to-date knowledge of research and development initiatives in the UX design field;

• Understanding of customer service and sales processes;

• Knowledge of change management;

• Familiarity with systems thinking;

• Exposure to business analysis;

• Generic consulting skills;

• Deep understanding of business transformation.

4e. Other software development/engineering skills required

User experience consultants need the following software engineering/development skills:

• Familiarity with software development methodologies like Agile;

• Good understanding of software development best practices;

• Sufficient knowledge of software architecture;

• Familiarity with testing processes;

• Understanding of DevOps processes, methods, and tools.

4f. Competencies required by the UX design consultant

A successful UX consultant needs the following competencies:

• An ability to see the bigger picture;

• Empathy, which helps to see the viewpoint of the end-user;

• Passion for excellence;

• A drive to continuously upgrade expertise;

• Commitment to the larger project objectives;

• Communication skills;

• Teamwork.

5. Interview the UX design consultant

So, you have received plenty of job applications in your inbox after you advertised the requirement. You now need to interview the candidates.

Assess the theoretical knowledge of the candidate, however, go well beyond that. Evaluate the hands-on experience as a UX design consultant. Check the portfolio of projects, and ask questions about those projects.

Find out how the candidate approaches UX design and UX consulting. Assess expertise in key areas like UX research, user research, information architecture, usability testing, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, interaction design, etc.

Evaluate how the consultant solved different UX design challenges. While evaluating this, look into how the candidate solved the underlying business challenges.

Check how the candidate arrived at actionable insights from data. Examine how the UX design consultant utilized user research findings. See if the consultant has worked in the industry you target, and assess the industry knowledge.

Explain the requirements of your company. Check if the candidate can grasp the bigger picture of your projects.

Ask how the UX design consultant will approach your project, and you should expect specific responses.

6. Onboard the selected UX consultant

Eventually, you will select the UX design consultant that you need. You will also sign the required agreements to hire the consultant.

However, the UX consultant can become productive only if you execute the onboarding process effectively.

You need to ensure expedited processing of the access request forms submitted by the UX design consultant. This will help the consultant to get the required access to the technical environment of your project.

Provide the relevant project documents to the UX design consultant. Explain the business requirements.

Introduce the UX consultant to your larger team. Provide clarity over the roles and responsibilities of different team members.

Set up a regular communication channel. Explain the project plan and milestones. Finally, establish accountability.

A few software development-related pro tips to offer that superlative user experience

You have found that smart UX design consultant you wanted, and that’s great! Remember that you need more than that to provide a sustained high-quality customer experience.

How you plan, execute, and manage your software development project greatly influences your chances of success. We offer the following important tips in this regard:

A. Find a competent project manager (PM)

A competent PM can significantly help you navigate the complexity of building and launching a successful digital product. Look for PMs with knowledge of project management best practices.

Modern project management emphasizes automation and tools. You need a PM with sufficient familiarity with the top project management tools.

B. Hire competent developers

A capable PM provides sound leadership, however, organizations need smart software developers to execute projects successfully. Competent developers noticeably help to navigate complexities.

Finding skilled, experienced, and motivated developers can be hard though. Plan ahead. Allow for sufficient hiring lead time.

Remember to hire competent people for roles like business analysts, architects, testers, and DevOps engineers too.

C. Managing requirements effectively

Business analysts in your team need to gather functional requirements. These requirements pertain to the functional features of your proposed digital product.

The architect needs to define the non-functional requirements (NFRs). Performance, scalability, security, maintainability, etc., are examples of NFRs.

Your team needs to document the requirements effectively. The PM should implement a thorough review process, and get sign-off from the appropriate stakeholders. Establish a requirements management process.

D. Formulate an effective software development approach

You need the software architect to formulate an effective software development approach. This involves several key decision points, e.g.:

• Developing native mobile apps vs cross-platform apps;

• Choosing the right cloud computing provider and the type of cloud platform;

• Selecting the right software architecture pattern;

• Choosing the right technology stack;

• Striking a balance between developing your own APIs vs using 3^rd party APIs;

• Designing and implementing an appropriate information security solution;

• Using the right test automation frameworks and tools.

Final thoughts

We described how you can hire the best UX design consultants. Do you need more help with your digital product development project?

Reach out to DevTeam.Space, and a dedicated account manager will contact you to explain our value proposition.

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