UX designers craft the vision for the product they’re working on, so they are very key when it comes to building your mobile or web apps. They meet with stakeholders to understand their goals with the product. They interview users to understand their needs as they relate to the product. They research other products and the industry to understand the market the product will be serving.

They create concepts to share the vision of the product with the team so everyone knows and understands what they’re developing. They are responsible for every interaction the user has with the product. They test the product with users to make sure it’s what users want and that it’s usable.

They design the product’s brand that the entire world will know the product as. And they are constantly reviewing the product to make sure it’s optimized for the market it is serving and working to continually improve the product.

For all the crucial work that the UX designers are responsible for, you might be worried about how you will get the best hands for your mobile or web apps project. This article will help you to know what you should look for when trying to hire a UX designer.

• How do I Find a Good UX Designer?
• How do I Find UX UI Designer?
• What Are Some UX Tips to Design Better Mobile Apps?
• Do UX Designers do Web Design?
• How Much Does it Cost to Hire a UX Designer?
• How Much do Freelance UX Designers Charge?
• Can I Freelance UX Design?
• What Are The Pros and Cons of Being a Freelance UX Designer?
• How do I Hire a Freelance UX Designer?
• How do I Find UI UX Freelance?
• What Makes a Good Mobile App Design?

How do I Find a Good UX Designer?

Tobias Komischke is the Director of User Experience at Infragistics and he gives some pointers on the things to look for when trying to hire a UX designer. Here are some of them.

• Ask what conferences they go to if any.
• Have them do a test exercise to see whether they can (1) analyze a problem, (2) come up with a good design, and (3) communicate and defend that design.
• Look at their background. Do they have a degree in a field such as psychology, human-computer interaction, engineering, or graphic design?
• What job experience do they have? It doesn’t matter whether they’ve worked for small firms or large firms, but job experience is critical.
• Look at their portfolio. What kinds of projects have they done? A good mix of UX methods is great. Working throughout many stages of UX design is great, too—analysis, design, and testing. How divergent are the products they’ve worked on? A mix of things is good here—mobile, Web, desktop; business and consumer applications; information systems.
• Google them and see how prolific they’ve been in communicating about user experience. Have they blogged a lot? Conducted Webinars, published articles and books, spoken at conferences? Being part of a LinkedIn UX group is not enough.”

How do I Find UX UI Designer?

Many times finding an efficient UX resource becomes a critical issue for businesses, startups, and individuals. There are many situations where any company, business, or employer finds it difficult to hire resources on a permanent basis.

Read Also: Top 5 Mobile App Design Companies In USA

One solution to such problems is to go into the freelancing world and find the best resources. This article shares the information related to some great platforms where finding UI/UX resources is a good decision.

1. Upwork
Upwork connects businesses of all sizes to freelancers, independent professionals, and agencies for all their hiring needs. 

2. Fiverr
Fiverr’s mission is to change how the world works together. Fiverr connects businesses with freelancers offering digital services in 250+ categories.

3. Toptal 
Toptal enables start-ups, businesses, and organizations to hire freelancers from a growing network of top talent in the world.

4. Workingnotworking
Working Not Working is where the world’s most innovative companies hire creative talent.

5. Peopleperhour
Get any project done on PeoplePerHour – the #1 freelancing community. Post a project for free to find professional freelancers and find freelance jobs in minutes!

6. Freelancer.com 
Freelancer – Find & hire top freelancers, web developers & designers inexpensively. World’s largest marketplace of 43m. Getting started is free. Receive quotes in seconds.

What Are Some UX Tips to Design Better Mobile Apps?

According to Google, an average user has about 36 apps installed on their device and uses just 9 of them daily. Only 4% of the apps will be used for over a year. A more usable app with better UX design is high on user engagement. Here are some UX tips for designing better mobile apps.

Usefulness

Simple design is effective if you can implement it right. A user wants to find what s/he is exactly looking for in an app. Therefore, you need to think about usefulness when you design your app. Build your design as think like your user or potential user.

Clear CTA Buttons

CTA stands for call-to-action, and CTA buttons are used for the actions you want your users to take. They need to be clear to be understood by your users. Also, its place is essential as its clearness. Hold your mobile in your hand and determine the area for CTA by reaching quickly by your thumb.

Avoid Long-Scroll

As an app owner, you need to keep screens as short as possible by breaking up tasks into screens. Although long scrolling is a great way to keep users focused while reading long blocks of text, the more users scroll, the more users tend to lose interest or get frustrated.

Font Type & Size

Different fonts and sizes can evoke different emotions while providing easy readability at the same time. It would help if you considered your typeface, font size, and color contrast when designing your app. The wrong font choice can break your design.

Think About Batteries

Background services like location detection are high on battery consumption. It would help if you kept your UI simple. Users may stay away from the apps that drain batteries.

Storage Constraints

It would help if you considered that some users might have storage constraints when designing your app. As opposed to the web, a mobile app uses storage right on the mobile device. This impacts mobile UX when using videos, images, and audios that can be used.

To sum up, no matter what considerations you follow or how good your design performs in your eyes, you should always consider usability. Hopefully, these UX tips will improve your mobile app UX design and increase your app’s user retention.

Do UX Designers do Web Design?

UX is the acronym for “User Experience” and simply refers to the experience a user has from a product or interactive media, such as a website. UX design is not limited to the internet or digital media. UX can be applied to almost anything that offers human interaction—like playing a video game, driving a car, or, using a coffee maker.

UX design focuses on the user—to understand their habits, needs, behaviors, motivations, and emotions. A UX designer considers how the experience makes the user feel and how easy it is to accomplish the desired result.

For instance: Does the game controller fit comfortably in the user’s hand, and does it respond as expected? Does the car’s dashboard present an intuitive layout to aid in the driving experience? Does the coffee maker have easy-to-read controls while efficiently brewing that hot cup of coffee?

A company looking to create an elaborate internet application needs someone with experience in problem-solving through an understanding of interactive methods, user research and behavior, customer engagement, and other criteria. Before software or app design begins, a UX designer will develop user personas and apply a specific methodology around the end-user.

Providing the best possible user experience in interactive media requires good UX design. UX is not all about visuals, although that plays a part. Before the design is implemented, interactive prototypes or simple static wireframes are created.

Then, usability testing can occur by navigating through the prototype where assessments and necessary adjustments to functionality can be made. Testing will occur again after the design is completed and before launch/product release.

UX design is especially relevant to digital applications, such as apps, software, and websites. A nice-looking website is the goal of a good web designer, but UX requires a specific methodology to create a great experience for the end-user.

Web design is the process of creating websites for the internet, whereas, UX design is a broader term and is the process used to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to users— this is the difference between web design and UX design.

UX design involves:

• The process of making a product useful, usable and enjoyable for end-users
• Strategy development based on user research and testing
• Developing wireframes and task flows based on user personas
• Collaborating with designers and developers to create intuitive, user-friendly software and apps

Web design involves:

• Webpage layout
• Content production
• Graphic design
• HTML/CSS Programming

How Much Does it Cost to Hire a UX Designer?

Good UX designers might charge upwards of $75 an hour. For that price, they’ll create personas for your brand and perform a comprehensive Target Audience Analysis. For simple prototyping and wireframing work, UX designers might cost $25 an hour or even less. But you should understand that these numbers are the specialists’ rates without additional expenses. If you hire in-house designers, you will also pay for the hiring process and have additional expenses like bonuses and taxes. See the comparison of rates depending on the hiring model.

	In-house UX designer from the US	Freelancer on Upwork	Candidate from YouTeam
Average hourly rate	$43	$32	$39
Extra costs	Taxes, bonuses, non-financial benefits, office rent, and support	Upwork commission	No commission
Hiring costs	HR costs, job promotional ads	Managers’ time for candidate sourcing, screening, and interviewing	YouTeam does candidates’ sourcing and assists with interviews for free

If you’ve already done a lot of work, however, and you have style guides, user personas, and user experience journeys, you might be able to hire a cheaper designer.

How Much do Freelance UX Designers Charge?

According to Paysa the average pay for UX Designers is $93,000, with the range spanning from $70,000 to $140,000. All in all, Glassdoor confirms that any UX Designer can expect to make at least around $80,000 and have lots of room for salary growth.

As with other jobs, this number fluctuates significantly with factors like location, years of experience, and company size.

Location

While you may or may not have heard of Silicon Prairie or Silicon Beach, you’ve definitely heard of Silicon Valley. Though a good amount of tech companies exist outside of the San Francisco Bay Area, that is where most of the magic happens. With an average salary for UX Designers in the Bay Area coming in at $105,000, it’s clear that SF is the place to be if you want the highest-paying job.

Seattle, Washington state is the next best, with the average reported salary for a UX Designer falling about $10k less than SF in the $95,000 range. New York, Los Angeles, and D.C. are the next in line for top salaries, ranging from $85,000 to $89,000 on average for UX Designers. 

Although Austin, Texas and Denver, Colorado are the places where many people who are sick of the Bay Area are headed, the pay is significantly less in those cities: $78,000 on average. But, it’s important to keep in mind that the cost of living is also lower there.

Since the San Francisco Bay Area is the place where most of the UX Design jobs are, the rest of these salaries will be based on the assumption that the job is in the Bay Area.

Years of Experience

As with most other lines of work, the more years of experience, the higher the pay. UX Designers that are just starting out and have one year (or less) of work experience can expect to make $85,000. Not a bad place to start!

UX Designers with 1-3 years of experience have a fairly significant bump in their salary, reporting $92,000 on average. The average reported salary for UX Designers with 4-6 years of experience increases by another $13k, coming in at $105,000. That means in less than 5 years, UX Designers can make six figures!

More experienced designers, with 10 or more years of experience, report an average salary of $118,000 or more a year.

Company Size

The size of the company can make a huge impact on salary. Bigger companies generally have more money available to pay their workers, while smaller companies (especially startups) might offer other forms of compensation, like equity. While equity can be extremely lucrative, it often takes many (many) years to be worth anything and depends completely on the success of the company.

Smaller companies, those with 0-500 employees, generally offer UX Designers an average salary ranging from $88,000 to $98,000. Bigger companies, those with 500 to 5000 employees, offer higher salaries, around $102,000. Gigantic companies with over 5000 employees typically offer the highest salaries to their UX Designers, with reported annual income over $108,000.

Freelancing as a UX Designer

Working as a freelance UX Designer can be a great option for people who do not wish to keep a regular 9-5 job. While working as a freelancer does often require additional work—marketing, finding clients, administrative tasks—it also offers greater flexibility and sometimes even higher pay. 

Freelancers have the freedom of setting their own rates based on their experience and the market. The lowest hourly rates for freelance UX Designers fall in the $25/hour range and the high-end hourly rates can be as high as $200/hour or more! On average, freelance UX Designers make around $70/hour.

Can I Freelance UX Design?

A few years ago, it would have been unthinkable for a UX researcher or UI designer to be a freelancer. However, today, nearly everything is done remotely. There are advanced tools and technologies to enable online collaboration.

So it’s not surprising that by 2028, 73% of all departments will have remote workers, showing that both users and organizations would be more comfortable with this way of working.

Every freelance UX designer has a unique path to success. For instance, one might start their career as a freelancer, building their portfolio as they go along. Another might work in full-time salaried employment to gain experience and then launch their freelance practice as a mid-career professional. Whichever way you choose, here are some steps to keep in mind.

Pick a Niche

While you start, it might be tempting to take on any UX project that comes your way. However, to command good pay and be referred, it helps to pick a niche. This could be the:

• Type of UX work you do, such as web design, mobile app design, game design, product design
• Industry you work in such as healthcare, personal branding
• Technology you build like Squarespace websites, iOS apps
• Specific processes like user research, accessibility design

Set Expectations

One of the biggest reasons freelancers fail is by not setting the right expectations. Make it abundantly clear to the customer what they will get, when they will receive it, how many iterations you will do, how much it will cost etc. Successful freelance projects are those in which no one gets nasty surprises.

Additionally, also set expectations with yourself. Have a plan for a year, broken down into quarterly and monthly versions. Set goals across various parameters, including financials. Budget for expenses. These could be expected ones like a new laptop when the current one’s life runs out or unexpected like accidental damage. Create enough of a financial safety net for the tougher days.

Refine Your Skills

UX is a rapidly evolving field. While your foundational skills will serve you well, staying updated can be an extraordinary competitive advantage. Therefore, make efforts to keep refining your skills. You can do this formally by joining online courses or boot camps from time to time. You can also integrate this into your freelance practice by regularly taking on new projects to challenge yourself.

Set Your Rates

Freelance UX designers typically charge in one of three ways: By the hour, by the week, or by the project.

All of them are helpful pricing methods, but you need to decide which is the right fit for the kind of job you are taking up. For instance, if you are taking on a project for designing small aspects of a larger application, which you cannot yet estimate how long it will take, you can charge by the hour.

Most freelancers start this way. Here are indicative freelance UX designer hourly rates of intermediate-level professionals in the U.S:

However, while estimating the number of hours a project might take, remember that each project will also include administrative tasks like emails, invoicing, follow-ups, collecting feedback, etc.

On the other hand, for instance, if you’re signing up to build a website and understand the expectations clearly, you can charge by the project. This means that you charge a lump sum for the entire project and get paid for delivering it. So, with experience, when you learn to do things much faster, you continue to get paid well, unlike in the per-hour model.

Once you get a good understanding of your work and the market, you can also offer value-based pricing instead of effort-based pricing. So, instead of saying this will take me 10 hours, and at 50$ per hour, I charge 500$, you can say, “this website has the potential to generate $250,000 in the next five years. So, I would charge 1% of that at $2,500.” Experienced product designers often charge this way.

What Are The Pros and Cons of Being a Freelance UX Designer?

Pros

“New freelancers report positive financial results, and 96% are likely to freelance in the future,” finds a study. There are various reasons why.

Time Flexibility

Freelance UX designers are paid for the work they deliver, not the number of hours they clock in. This means that they are not restricted by 9-5 and can work whenever they are at their creative best. Moreover, they have the freedom to schedule their projects so that they can take vacations or breaks through the course of the year without disrupting work.

Income Flexibility

While employees are limited to the same salary every month until they get a raise, there is no income cap on freelancers’ earnings. You can set your rates for your service. The earning potential doesn’t end once your time is fully booked.

You can put prospective clients on a waiting list, securing more earnings for the future. Or you could hire an assistant to perform specific tasks for you (for example, marketing, and billing), freeing up more time for newer clients.

Location Independence

Since most freelancers work remotely, they also enjoy location flexibility. Your office is no longer limited to any city or even country. This means you can work from your local coffee shop or the other side of the planet.

With your laptop and a stable internet connection, you can get your work done anywhere you feel the most productive and comfortable. Location independence also lets you enjoy a lower cost of living and/or a higher quality of life.

Continuous Career Growth

Unlike salaried employees, as a freelancer, you are not limited by the projects that are assigned to you. You can pitch for a wide range of projects, take on challenging assignments and gain invaluable experience along the way. You will also get to learn and work in different industries, broadening your horizon.

Cons

While the upside is attractive, there are a few disadvantages of taking the freelance career path as well.

Unstable Income

Being a freelancer is inherently unstable. While some months might be hectic, others may be pretty slow. The trick to being a successful freelance UX designer isn’t just getting the first client. You will need to build a reliable system to generate clients over and over again. This can be challenging for some.

Complex Taxes

One of the biggest challenges freelancers face is the complexity of their tax returns. Tax laws vary depending on your country, state, and individual situation. The onus is on you to make the necessary provisions, pay and file taxes regularly. If you incur expenses for work as a freelance UX designer, it is also on you to maintain bills and claim deductions. These can be tedious if you’re not tax-savvy.

Paying for Your Benefits and Expenses

Most salaried employment comes with health insurance, retirement plan contributions, paid sick leave, paid vacation, maternity/paternity/parental leave, etc. As a freelancer, you need to make provisions for all these. For instance, if you’re charging your customer by the number of hours you work on their project, vacation will mean loss of pay. To allow yourself paid vacation, you need to plan your rates/projects accordingly.

Isolation

All said and done, freelancing is a lonely job. Firstly, it’s often project-based, which means once the project is done, you’re on your own. Even during that time, you might collaborate with client teams, but you will not get the opportunity of hanging out with them, participate in team events, celebrate achievements together, etc.

So, if you enjoy working as part of a group, you may find the freelance lifestyle difficult. Moreover, freelancers are often expected to solve their problems on their own. You might not have a partner to bounce off ideas or brainstorm with, limiting your creativity in many ways.

If you’re looking to build a freelance career, it’s essential to carefully consider these cons and build support systems to overcome them.

How do I Hire a Freelance UX Designer?

1. Toptal

Toptal takes the traditional freelance marketplace to the next level. With significant screening and testing for freelancers to even join the network, Toptal has eliminated the time it usually takes to sift through masses of profiles.

With its personalized matching service, Toptal is one of the leading matchmaking services in the freelance world. Still, Toptal is accessible to small businesses and startups in addition to large enterprises. Use Toptal to hire freelance UX designers, UI designers, software developers, or web designers.

Key Points

• Toptal’s selective screening process means that some of the best UX designers for hire make it into the network.
• Toptal will custom match you with UX designers for your project, so you’ll hopefully save time and energy searching for candidates.
• Toptal provides a no-risk trial period, so if you find you don’t work well with the designer you were matched with, you can switch or stop the project at no cost.

2. Upwork

Upwork is the result of the merger between the two largest freelance marketplaces at the time, Odesk and Elance. The platform hosts millions of users and jobs posted annually. Upwork has worked to provide clear project management tools and transparent payment systems that attempt to protect both the buyer and seller. Upwork Pro and Enterprise provide access to more qualified talent and additional resources.

Key Points

• One of the most well-known freelance marketplaces, Upwork boasts a high customer retention rate.
• Hire a UX designer that meets your budget.
• The system of milestones ensures that you do not pay until elements of the project have been met.

3. Dribbble

Dribbble tags itself as “the community for designers”. The Dribbble community platform facilitates discussions, creativity, and inspiration for designers and now includes a job board. Originally invite-only, Dribbble has a reputation for hosting talented and designers. The platform is driven by portfolios, so it’s visual while also focused on the design’s technical aspects.

Key Points

• Dribbble is a community of designers, so you can find UX designers with various skills.
• Dribbble designers provide each other with feedback and source ideas from one another.
• With Dribbble Talent, you can receive pre-vetted UX design recommendations and access more candidates ready to work with you.

4. Working Not Working

Working Not Working (WNW) is a job board unto itself. Calling itself an “UnJobBoard”, WNW is geared towards creatives looking for larger jobs and permanent work. With the option for freelancers to mark their calendars and their status as Working or Not working, you can determine which UX designers to hire for your schedule.

Key Points

• Working Not Working has UX designers for hire looking for different kinds of design work.
• WNW does not charge a commission, so for large-budget or long-term projects, it can be an inexpensive way to hire.
• Human, WNW’s concierge service, can help you save time when selecting a UX designer for your project.

5. Behance

Adobe created Behance to allow creatives using the Adobe Creative Suite to display their work. Behance is a portfolio format that allows designers of different kinds to display their artwork and products. The platform requires membership to access hiring, or an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription to start out. The platform is also structured as a social network for creatives to provide feedback and work together.

Key Points

• With an infrastructure for animated and video presentations, designers can show off UX functionality.
• Artists of different types and levels use Behance, so you can find a UX designer for your budget and needs.
• Designers pay a fee to post portfolio work, which helps ensure that the UX designers are committed and receiving work.

6. Freelancer

Freelancer is one of the largest freelance marketplaces with millions of registered users. The platform is a bit different in that it charges a flat fee for most projects or a flat fee for freelancers hired from the Preferred Freelancer Program. The Preferred Freelancer Program provides a better pool of candidates. In addition, both parties pay fees for initiating a project, whether or not the project is completed.

Key Points

• There are various ways to find a UX designer for hire including holding a contest, posting a job, or using a filtered search.
• You can hire UX designers that fit most budgets.
• You can pay according to completed milestones.

7. UX Hires

UX Hires is a platform dedicated to matching UX designers with projects. Curated, the platform provides options for long-term hires as well as freelancers. An initiative of the company, Motivate Designs, UX Hires creates the opportunity for Motivate Designs to scan for some of the best UX designers as well as procure business when it is a fit. When it’s not, they get you set up with a designer for you.

Key Points

• With a focus on UX design, you can find UX designers with different sets of skills.
• The team has breadth and depth of experience in the field, so they know the questions to ask to get you a team.
• There is flexibility in the types of hire you make.

8. Envato Studio

Envato Studio is one of a collection of services provided in the Envato community. The Studio hosts companies and individuals that provide different packages of services. You can search the platform by keyword or by price, time frame, and category. Services are also affordable fitting most budgets.

Key Points

• Envato is affordable and has options at different price levels.
• For straightforward projects, the project management side of Envato is simple.
• Envato Studio provides solutions for WordPress web design and other web-builder platforms with UX concepts already incorporated.

9. People Per Hour

PeoplePerHour, PPH, was initially geared towards the European market. PPH uses a tool called workstream to manage your projects and interact with your hires. There is also a focus on hiring through packages called “hourlies,” which have a set price and description.

Key Points

• There are UX designers available to fit most budgets.
• An element of PPH is its focus on small businesses and tailoring solutions to small business needs.
• “Hourlies,” or pre-packaged services, mean that you can save time on hiring UX designers by not developing a job description or sorting through applicants.

10. Fiverr

Fiverr began as a marketplace of “gigs” at only $5. It has since expanded to include customized jobs up to $10,000. The site remains focused on smaller jobs, previously running a campaign about custom logo designs at $5. On Fiverr, you can also upgrade to Fiverr Pro, which grants access to vetted freelancers and on-call support. Jobs are posted by freelancers from which you can hire or ask for a custom design.

Key Points

• Fiverr Pro provides access to a select group of UX designers.
• UX designers for hire post “gigs” for you to select from, so you do not have to write a job description.
• UX designers are identified by different levels, so you know how much experience the freelancer has on the site.

How do I Find UI UX Freelance?

1. Broadcast that you are Open for Business

Make sure that you have an updated portfolio and a personal site up. Then go and announce to the world that you are open for business! You will be surprised at how many freelancers skip this step and try to apply to several job boards in obscurity.

There are tons of people out there looking for talented UX freelancers. You should have your work posted in portfolio communities like Behance and Dribbble. Build a freelancer profile on Upwork. Buy your own personal domain, start storytelling around the work you have done and set the best way for people to reach you.

Then reach out to friends, family, community members and people you have worked with before. Get the word out that you are ready for hire!

If you do this right, you will start seeing a trickle of inbound interest that will lead to your first clients. You will also have a growing online presence that will reassure prospective clients, while helping you get even more customers.

2. Start Small

Your reputation is everything. Many UX freelancers short-change their futures by trying to do too much too fast. Be extremely choosy from the beginning. If you take a job you do not want to do, your resentment will show through in the work every time.

Do a few jobs and do them exceedingly well. Future work will grow from repeat business and referrals. Once you have established a quality reputation, you will be able to crank up the productivity.

Your strongest source of work will be referrals from your network when it comes to exceptional work you have done for them. Make sure you focus on your first few clients and knock it out of the park for them so that they will be willing to give you testimonials. By doing so, whey are indirectly referring new business for you.

3. Build Your Network

Consider “network building” as one of your essential tasks. You will find that your network is often your best channel for finding new work. In the future, you will have to pass on work from important clients. You will need talented UX designers that you can be confident in referring.

You may even be in a position to sub-contract work to other designers on bigger projects. Strengthen your network now. Get to know people well and create lasting win-win relationships that can help you with future work.

Go to communities like Designer News. You will be able to create value for people there with smart comments and feedback, and you will quickly get a pulse for incoming freelance opportunities, as well as networking opportunities.

4. Stay on the Job Boards

Job boards are like restaurants and bars. The good ones attract so much business that you eventually have to move in to search for something new and hot. Some of the best sources of work right now are:

• UX Switch – UX Jobs
• Smashing Magazine – Smashing Jobs
• DesignerHangout – UX Job Board

See the point above about tending your network to find the boards favored by your network. Many freelancers spend the beginning of every day by looking for work, even when times are good.

Pipelines can dry up quickly, so book yourself as far out into the future as possible. Remember to leave plenty of room in your schedule for unexpected delays and rush jobs, but do be proactive at seeking work.

5. Do not Burn Out – Outsource Work When You Need To

This is by far, the hardest advice to follow. As a freelancer, your job responsibilities go far beyond UX design. You will be a sales rep, a marketing guru, a project manager, an accountant, a purchasing agent, a legal adviser and a therapist for nervous clients.

Bill accordingly and take lots of time off. Sometimes a beach should be a beach, not an office. Take care of your one employee (you) before they quit for good.

Never forget that UX starts and ends with the user. Keeping the user in the forefront helps you see every single job as fresh and new. Still, that might not be enough to save you from an overwhelming tide of work.

Eventually, if you have followed the steps above and been an active presence in the design community known for doing great design work, you will actually have no problems finding work. In fact, the amount of work offered to you will quickly become overwhelming. At this point, look to outsource and automate as much as you can.

Consider hiring a virtual assistant to help you prioritize potential clients. Look to create automated systems and templates for scheduling phone calls with potential and current clients. Finally, if the work is truly overwhelming and you have built a great brand with tons of inbound interest, consider reaching out to a few other designers and offering them some of your work with your standards and oversight.

Read Also: Complete Guide On How To Hire Android Mobile Company

You will need to make sure the work is up to the standards you have set, but you will be able to do so much more work than you could ever handle.

What Makes a Good Mobile App Design?

1. Blend Useful and Intuitive Experiences

• Reduce the effort users have to put in to get what they want. Organise information in a way that requires a minimum number of actions to reach the destination
• Break large tasks into smaller, meaningful chunks. Hide secondary actions.
• Offload tasks. Set smart defaults.
• Design for interruption. Allow users to save a state and re-engage later. Users expect to continue the journey from where they stopped.
• Focus on User Goals, but do not overwhelm the user with too much information. Don’t interrupt.

2. Make User Interfaces Invisible

• Make the content the interface and remove unnecessary elements that do not support user tasks. Cards are a great way to display actionable content. Keep the interface light and airy.
• Add breathing Room. Use white space to draw attention to important content.
• The most successful apps are highly focused and present a limited set of features. Limit feature set by prioritising what’s important and trimming nice-to-have features.
• Content prioritisation can simplify the UI and improve the UX.
• Simple and direct language maximizes clarity. Avoid acronyms, brand specific terms, cultural specific axioms, and technical terminology that people might not understand. Use familiar, understandable words and phrases.
• Use a typeface that works well in multiple sizes and weights to maintain readability and usability in every size.
• Use legible font size. Text should be at least 11 points so users can read it at a typical viewing distance without zooming.
• Use sufficient colour contrast for text. Insufficient contrast makes text blend in with the background. Strive for a minimum contrast ratio of 4.5:1 for body text and image text.

3. Cut Out the Clutter

• Cut out the clutter. Reducing clutter will improve comprehension, so get rid of anything in a mobile design that isn’t absolutely necessary. A simple rule of thumb is one primary action per screen.
• Avoid Login Walls. Don’t force early registration; instead, gather data slowly.
• Avoiding Information Overload so the amount of input to a system exceeds its processing capacity. Decision makers have fairly limited cognitive processing capacity, so reduction in decision quality occurs.
• Chunking helps. Break down long forms into pages, progressively disclosing fields as necessary. Streamline this process by integrating autocomplete, spell-check, and prediction text assistance.
• Great user onboarding not only lowers abandonment rates, but can also help boost long term success metrics like user retention and user lifetime value

4. Navigation Should be Simple, Yet Discoverable

• Navigation should inspire users to engage and interact with the content. It should be implemented in a way that supports the structure of the app without calling attention to itself.
• Navigation must be discoverable and accessible, while occupying little screen space.
• Navigation should accommodate the needs of the majority of app’s users.
• Assign different priority levels to common user tasks. Give prominence in the UI to paths and destinations with high priority levels and frequent use.
• Navigation should be available at all times, not just when we anticipate that the user needs it. Minimise the user’s memory load by making actions and options visible.
• Icons and other graphic elements should help users to understand the menu options.
• Communicate the current location using location indicators.
• Make it easy to interact. menu options should be big enough to easily tap. Use recognisable design patterns as well as recognisable icons.
• Hidden navigation drives down engagement, slows down exploration and confuses people.
• Tabs are great because they display all major navigation options up front, and with one simple tap, the user can instantly go from one view to another. Should use labels. Can use segment control when there are a couple of options.
• Reduce Search Effort. If search is a key function of your app, it needs to be in front of people. Either display it at the top of the screen or have a visible reference that activates search mode.

5. Build for One Handed Operation

• Screen sizes are going to keep expanding, 85% of users use their phone with one hand. The bigger the display is, the more of the screen is less easily accessible.
• Place the top-level menu, frequently used controls, and common action items in the green zone of the screen, which is comfortably reached with one thumb.
• Place destructive actions in the hard-to-reach red zone so users don’t accidentally tap them.

6. The Appearance Of Speed Matters

• Don’t make users wait for content. Make the app fast and responsive.
• To make the interaction predictable, it’s essential to provide some sort of feedback in response to every user action. Feedback acknowledges actions and helps users understand the results of operations. Lack of feedback can cause them to question whether an app has processed the action. An app that provides visual feedback eliminates guesswork for the user.
• Let people know that things are going to take a while by using a progress indicator. The progress indicators inform users to wait, so we should replace the indicators with skeleton screens as soon as possible.
• Use a skeleton screen to focus on actual progress and create anticipation for what is to come. This creates a sense that things are happening immediately, as information is incrementally displayed on the screen and people see that the application is acting while they wait.
• Perception can be just as important as raw speed. If users get something interesting to look at while waiting, they will pay less attention to the wait itself. To ensure people don’t get bored while waiting for something to happen, offer a distraction.
• Do things in the background to make imminent actions appear fast. Actions that are packed into background operations have two benefits: They are invisible to the user, and they happen before the user asks for them.
• Pull to refresh to load new content, you simply need to drag a list down with your finger to trigger a refresh action.

7. Thoughtful, Timely Notifications are Essential

• Think twice before sending a message. Users are bombarded with useless distracting notifications. Annoying notifications are the number one reason people uninstall mobile apps.
• Mobile is all about making every message count. Don’t overwhelm the users with push messages.
• The value users get from notifications should be sufficiently greater than the interruption. Don’t send push notifications for the sake of engaging users.
• Personalising content to inspire and delight is critical.
• Don’t send push notifications at odd hours. Send notifications at most convenient times according to the user’s time zone.
• Use different message types: push notifications, email, in-app notifications and news feed updates. Diversify your messaging — your messages should work together in perfect harmony to create a great user experience.
• It’s better to ask for permissions in context and communicate the value the access will provide. Users are more likely to grant permissions if asked during a relevant task.
• Using storytelling to engage with the users. Using short notifications on the page instead of pop-ups and overlays.

8. No Web Experiences

• Don’t replicate web experiences on an app. Users expect certain interaction patterns and interface elements in mobile apps. Maintain visual consistency with the colour palette, typography, and all other design elements.
• Provide seamless experience across all devices. It also builds trust with the brand.
• Avoid using underlined links, instead use buttons.
• Don’t take users to a browser. This increases abandonment and reduces conversion.
• Avoid creating dead-end pages that act as blockers for user flow.
• Error states and empty states should provide instructions and actions to move forward.
• Design for glanceability and quick scanning as user behaviour. Glanceability refers to how quickly and easily the visual design conveys information.
• Make sure your product works when it isn’t connected to the Internet at all. Allow caching of data.

9. Incorporate Security and Trustworthiness at the Outset

• Don’t ask a user to rate your app during their first experience. Don’t ask a user to rate an app when they perform a task. Wait until users prove to be repeat users, and they’ll be more likely to rate your app and provide better informed feedback.
• Make sure you provide transparent permission policies and allow your users to control how their personal information is shared within a mobile app.
• Reinforce credibility by displaying trusted badges of security, especially when users are trusting your brand with their personal and financial information.

10. Personalise the Experience

• Personalisation helps provide a more unique and relevant experience to the user. Whenever possible, personalise the UX by leveraging user data to display relevant content and material in the app.
• Including the user’s name on the screen and in messaging is an easy and effective way to personalise
• Personalisation should push users toward content that they’re looking for and away from content that’s irrelevant to them. It can also eliminate distractions

Bottomline

When searching for a good UX designer, look for a hiring platform, freelance site, or matching service that has skilled UX designers with years of experience. Talent matching services and freelance designer sites offer you high-quality candidates without a difficult interview process. UX designers should be good communicators, comfortable with user research, curious about your product development, and skilled at design solutions.

UX designers will help you analyze the user journey through your product, improve product engagement and retention, and help improve satisfaction with your product.