Advice when hiring a UX Designer
Alice Sowerby
![Alice Sowerby]()
Alice Sowerby
Leader | Strategist | Mentor | Developer Relations | Open Source | Startups
A founder in my network is scaling their company and reached out to me to ask what they needed to know to make a UX Designer successful in their Developer Tool startup. The company is developer-heavy, like many tech startups and so there are particular challenges that I think they would encounter.
I made some notes using a technique called Backcasting and Pre-mortem, which is quite self-explanatory when you see what I did.
I'd love your additions to this list (and hot takes!) - please comment :)
Backcast = imagine the successful outcome. What did you do to optimise for it?
- Spent time looking for someone who has the right mindset & skills
- Really understood what a UX designer is, what the adjacent roles are and what the company actually needs.
- Access to users: idea = Hire a Community Manager - You will need an inexhaustible supply of new test and interview participants (don’t re-use the same ones again and again). The community is a resource for you but you need to ensure that your work in the community is focused on providing value to the user above all (see The Trust Equation). Not to be Machiavellian but it helps to ask yourself "How can I build the goodwill that will create users who want to help me again and again for free?". This has to be approached relationally, not transactionally. Put the user needs first and the rest will follow.
- Administrative support - contacting users, organizing tests and interviews, managing the participant experience, recording and transcribing calls, administering thank you notes and rewards. All of this can be done by someone else to free up the time and brain cycles of the UX designer.
- Get them whatever tool they ask for. (It may be expensive, but it’s worth it. They will be happier, more productive and less constrained.)
- Give them a voice within the company and back them up. There may be quite a well-entrenched way of looking at things internally and they may be the first to look at things a different way.
- Changes will need to be made in the way you run development. How are you going to incentivise the development team to use your UX designer to add value? You will need to set the stage for the UX designer to take time to recommend (and be supported to introduce) new process. Others in the business will need to be prepared to make time for this, and be ready to learn.
- If there is one designer and 20 developers you can quickly get a pile on. The developers will assume that design is a matter of opinion OR will want hard facts to back it up. Both are wrong. UX design draws on a blend of an accumulation of heuristic knowledge, “small” data (qualitative) and best guessing. Don’t allow your big hairy developers to undermine this by insisting that changes must be proven by big data.
- Listen to what they are saying. If they say there are fundamental problems, don’t dismiss them and ask them to do a local fix - at least not always.
- Give them the highest amount of strategic insight you can
- Provide strong Product leadership
- They will think in user goals - The user comes in, achieves a goal and goes away again.
Pre-mortem = imagine the worst outcome. What did you do wrong or fail to do?
- Expected them to be able to do way more than advertised (e.g. visual design, coding) - know what the role comprises and work with them to explain your desired outcomes. Let them shape the role.
- Asked them to fix everything - your product has a UX that accumulated over time. You need to be clear about bounded, manageable pieces of work you want them to do. Again, let them help you define this.
- Set one person (UX) against a large, settled culture (Development) and expected them to carve out their own space. The current culture grew over 5 years without a UX designer. Your designer will fail unless YOU redesign your culture to help them succeed.
- Gave them too small/local things to design. It's really hard to meaningfully fix the symptoms of larger systemic UX issues.
- Asked them to make Product/market decisions. Your UX Designer can help users to succeed in their goals, but it's Product's job to know which goals the users care about - UX Designers are not market mind readers.
UX researcher - formerly a Linux software tester - who is focused on helping make non-consumer tools easier to use and understand. Interest in accessibility, highly technical.
3yI'd have to say it depends a little on what their goals are - do they want someone to help them know if (and how to adjust it as needed) the thing they want to make will solve the problems for those who have the problem they are solving? Do they want someone to make it look nice? Do they want someone to fix an existing product? If they can, I strongly recommend both someone on the research side and someone on the visual design side - preferably both of whom have enough knowledge to be able to communicate with each other about their respective specialties. This would mean that they have someone to identify areas to talk to customers about and then do the interviews/usability tests/etc and someone to make something that relies on that info as well as general best practices. Far too often, research does not happen or happens far far too late. If they want to bring someone on to fix an existing product - make that _very clear_ in their job description. Some people enjoy doing that, and others hate it. You want to get someone who wants to do what you need so they stay and you don't have unnecessary churn.
Coach to CEOs
3yThere are two problems with having a single owner of UX. 1. Everyone should own the UX, not one individual, everyone should care 2. They become a bottleneck. So you hire another and soon you have a UX dept amplifying problem 1. Peter Coles is right, you need a designer *and* a researcher. They can be both part time but they have different skills.
Building the right thing at the right time to maximise value
3ySage advice here Alice, thanks for sharing! +1 for the strong product leadership and providing the constraints and vision within which to work. "UX Designers are not market mind readers" (good points already made about research) but neither can they read product leadership or product developer minds. Very valid point re opportunity to rethink the culture and how the 'discovery" world flows with the development world. 👍🏼
UXpert & Coach :: Human-Centred Design :: Listener :: Endineer
3yHi Alice Sowerby, I think it is increasingly difficult to pin jobs to job titles. A better approach is writing a profile of known needs, gaps and ideas, even if not 100% accurate. For me, it is more about what is the current situation and to find out if and how can I help with that. The goal is matching skills and needs and less about the label of the box they are in. If you interview somebody this will create a constructive dialog and you will get a better idea if the person can help your company forward. This dialog should include discussing 'culture' issues.
Senior manager, Digital Design at Equinix
3yIncredibly broad title right now i think as companies adjust to the needs of a good UX process, coupled with bringing design to the table at decision level for product. Theres a great talk that Joe Leech shared recently on the subject, which does a great job of walking this out further. My take, is that its too wide for just one person, and when hiring I think people need to think about what they need in terms of research / psychology / analysis / leadership / graphic design / coding / prototyping etc... and build a team accordingly. More experienced folks in the field might have feet in many of those camps, but im willing to bet they'll specialise on a sub-set. I guess my TLDR would be decide on what fits your needs right now, and advertise accordingly. I think the discipline is incredibly diverse now, so finding a do it all unicorn 🦄 is less achievable