As a team of technical architects and developers we’ve designed our fair share of user interfaces over the years but we also know our limitations. One of those is that we’re not experts at crafting one of the most critical pieces of the software puzzle: the user experience, or “UX”. Here’s how we selected and worked with a truly outstanding UX designer on our recent suite of mobile applications (iOS, Android, Windows Phone) for Time Entry.
Interviewing for UX
Here are some questions we found useful when interviewing UX Designers:
- What similar projects have they completed? We usually start the interview by laying out the goals of the project. Asking about similar work they have done is a good way to get the designer talking about their experience in relation to the task at hand.
- What approach would they take on this project? A competent designer should be able to explain the approach that they will take with your project. They should outline their process from requirements gathering/user interviews through what their deliverables will be. Specifics could well change once they are hired and get started, but how they discuss their project life cycle can give you a good feel for their level of organization and communication strategies.
- What layout or style might work for this project? Once they have outlined their high level approach, ask what their layout/style might consist of. A good UX designer will take stakeholder needs, user goals, content management requirements, the timeline (what’s doable), and the actual content into consideration when choosing a certain layout.
- What recent UX and design trends have they been following or find interesting? This question should give you a good feel for how closely they follow their field and may also give you insights on how they might design your project.
- What is an example of an app or website (depending on the nature of your project) that inspires them? As designers, their opinions really matter. Like the last question, this is intended to give further insight into their UX design interests and preferences. A nice follow-up is having a few examples of your own that you can pull out and discuss together.
As in most interview situations, their specific answers are not as important as how they answer them.
Working with a UX Designer
Here are some general tips for getting the most out of working with a UX Designer that we have learned over the course of our mobile projects:
- While many User Experience designers are also solid at User Interface design, these are different skill sets and you should not assume that your UX designer will be comfortable doing the UI designing. Have a good understanding of what your designer will be delivering very early in the process.
- The UX design should be complete before development begins in earnest. We found this to be especially critical in our recent native mobile application efforts.
- The UX designer should participate in the creation of User Stories or at least do a thorough review of them. Their perspective on requirements and user stories is very important to your project.
- In addition to wire frames we found that a prototype application highlighting navigation and flow within the app created by (or with) the designer was extremely beneficial. This can help the team highlight any global interaction design issues (swipe vs. tap, timing of items displaying, etc.) early in the process and save a lot of development time.
- Our project was completed remotely so regular communication with our UX designer was critical and not built-in due to proximity. We set up weekly meetings and set delivery and milestone expectations early so the team would understand what to expect when.
- Even with remote projects, some face-to-face meetings really help when it comes to reviewing designs, especially at the beginning and end of the process. You are communicating about communication — try and eliminate any barriers.
If you follow the tips and techniques outlined above you should get the most out of a collaboration with a user experience designer.
