linkedin.com/in/Anshu Bhat 
Over the past years, the need for products to be more and more user-centric has only grown. It is no longer enough just to have a great product. The product should also be easy for your target user to utilize regularly. This has led to a redoubled focus on the user interface (UI) and user experience (UX).
As per a study by Forrester Research, a better user interface is capable of improving the conversation rate of your website by 200%. At the same time, a better UX can improve this conversion rate by more than 400%. A study by Amazon Web Services showed
These statistics only underscore the importance of UI and UX for online businesses.
The Responsibilities of UI/UX Designers
UI designers are supposed to understand the interaction between users and products. These interactions can be understood through market research or by installing tools on your websites and apps that can help you determine the regions of each web-page that your customers frequently use. Based on this data, UI designers are supposed to design a user interface that is intuitive and improves the revenue of the business.
UX designers need to have a slightly deeper understanding of users. They need to understand the core reasons that users come to a particular website. This can be done by creating hypothetical personas or dummy users. Once this understanding has been gained, UX designers are supposed to design user flows that make it easy for their ideal customer to purchase the product that needs to be sold. UI and UX designers generally work in close engagement and can often be the same person.
How To Hire Remote UI/UX Designers
The above responsibilities of UI and UX designers can seem daunting. Let us look at how you can hire the best remote candidates who can fulfill these responsibilities best.
Make a List of Requirements
The first step toward hiring a remote UI or UX designer is to determine what will be the job deliverables. Just as you expect the candidates to be fair and honest with you, you need to be honest with the candidates as well. Make a list of the qualifications you are looking for in the candidate. Similarly, develop an understanding of the skills that a candidate might need to do well in the job. You may divide both of these sections into required and optional parts. Next, jot down a job description, informing candidates what they will be doing and learning as a part of the job.
Publicize Your Open Position
Once you have created the above job posting and developed an image of who your ideal candidate is going to be, talk to your human resources team and have them publicize this position. If you are looking for a freelancer, you can publicize the position personally as well. HR managers and recruiters will generally approach recruitment agencies or post the listing on the company career website. They may approach online job boards and websites looking for candidates. For freelancers, there are several different websites that allow you to hire them on a short-term, long-term, or permanent basis.
Start Hunting Candidates
When creating an initial long list of candidates, there is generally no need to browse the entire profile of the candidate. Instead, use simple filters to determine the candidates that qualify for consideration. This is due to the fact that there can often be hundreds of candidates interested in the same job, and manually going through each CV and portfolio can be irrational.
Based on the job description and the requirements that you had listed as essential, develop a list of candidates that you will be looking at closely. For UI and UX designers, it is generally recommended that educational qualifications not be considered as strictly as experience, but each company can have its own needs and requirements.
Shortlist Candidates
Once you have created this initial long list, you can proceed to shortlist candidates after considering their files closely. In general, for a UI or UX designer, there will be three main components to the file – personal information, resume, and portfolio. Among these, the portfolio and resume are the most important. The portfolio of a UI or UX designer may be in the form of a PDF or a website link. It tells you about the kind of work that the candidate has done previously. Based on the portfolio, you can determine whether the work of the candidates matches your requirements and call them for further rounds.
Technical Rounds
In collaboration with your recruitment team, you need to decide the number of technical rounds that will aid you in assessing a candidate. Furthermore, you also need to design these technical rounds to bring out the best qualities of a candidate.
For a remote UI or UX designer, the technical round can include a number of different creative tasks. You may ask your candidates to create a rough user flow for a given use case. You may also give them a certain amount of time to design a web page as per basic UI principles or on the basis of given data.
Video Interview
The candidates that make it through the technical rounds can then be called for an interview. You can determine, in collaboration with your HR team, the number of candidates that need to be interviewed. This number depends on the number of candidates required and time constraints. At the end of the process, you will have your ideal remote UI or UX designer.
5 Qualities to Look for When Hiring a Remote UX Designer
When looking to hire a remote UX designer, apart from knowledge, there are also certain qualities you need to look for. Here are five such qualities.
- Empathy: The designer needs to understand the motives of the users in visiting the website or app.
- Strategic Thinking: The designer must have a mind for business and be able to think about revenue maximization through design.
- Facilitation: UX designers must be able to teach others their crafts and aim for a broader knowledge base.
- Research: The UX designer must have the capability for user research and result interpretation.
- Agility: The designer should be able to implement agile methodologies and improve process efficiency.
5 Must-ask Interview Questions
The interview is an important part of the UX designer hiring process. Here are five questions you can ask to make the best choice.
- What is the greatest value project you have been involved in?
- How do you implement a good UX design?
- What qualities drive you while designing?
- What do you do if you disagree with your team?
- What sort of problems excite you?
Should You Hire a Remote Freelancer Designer or Hire Someone From an Outsourcing Agency?
Each of the above approaches has its own pros and cons. The decision of whether to hire a freelancer or to outsource depends on the circumstances of the company hiring.
If you are looking for a designer to fulfill resource requirements for just one project, you would be better off hiring a freelancer. Additionally, freelancers can cost less, and your association with them is largely informal.
When you hire from an outsourcing agency, you generally hire for the longer term. If you are looking to hire a good number of designers, this approach might be much more useful.
What Cost Will You Pay for a Remote UI/UX Designer? Why India Can be an Ideal Place
Remote UI/UX designer rates can vary widely depending on the location. In North America, rates can go as high as 150 USD/hr. Rates in both Western and Eastern Europe are regularly over 100 USD/hr. In comparison, India provides a much more economical option at about 30 USD/hr. In addition, India provides great expertise in the form of qualified designers and engineers who have studied associated subjects for long years and can hence deliver expert services for a low cost.
10 Takeaways
- The importance of UI and UX in online businesses has been increasing year by year.
- UI designers are generally associated with the interaction of a user and an interface, while UX designers look at user motives and design user flows.
- The process for hiring a remote UI or UX designer proceeds from the job description to video interviews.
- Most of these processes are carried out in conjunction with your HR team.
- When looking for a remote UI designer, you must pursue empathy, strategic thinking, facilitation, research, and agility.
- If you are looking for a UI or UX designer for a single project or the short term, hiring a freelancer could be the better approach.
- If you are looking for several designers, or for the long term, you may approach an outsourcing company.
- Remote UI/UX designers in the US can cost as high as 150 USD/hr.
- India provides a much cheaper option with an average rate of about 30 USD/hr.
- India also provides skilled and qualified design experts at lower rates.
