Hiring a UX/UI designer is an exciting time, but it doesn’t guarantee success. It’s important to know how to search for and identify the perfect designer who can help your product thrive, rather than hinder the process.
This guide will support you in finding a competent, experienced and skilled UX/UI designer for your SaaS business on Upwork. By the end of the article, you’ll know the traits of a good designer, the biggest problem with hiring UX/UI designers in today’s market, how to choose and interview the right people, and more.
Let’s take a look at some of the most valued traits of a good UX/UI designer for your SaaS product.
A good UX/UI designer is, first and foremost, a problem solver. Your designer should know the importance of putting their focus into solving your problem, rather than simply creating a user interface that looks impressive.
Problem-solving is a key trait that not every UX/UI designer has. Your designer should be quick at identifying problems in the first place, and define any issues clearly in order to begin the process of solving them.
As much as a good designer is a thinker, they’re a doer at their core. After all, if great thinking isn’t distilled into a concrete, tangible output through actions, then nothing successful can be achieved.
A doer mentality is exactly the attitude a UX/UI designer must have when assessing stakeholders’ feedback and user research insights, to enable them to create suitable design solutions.
It is vital for SaaS applications that your UX/UI designer is in communication with various influencing people during the design stage, including users and stakeholders.
Therefore, a UX/UI designer should have impeccable listening skills, as they need to take on board information and requests from product managers, engineers and other people within a broader product team. This will give your designer a deeper, more accurate understanding of product requirements, constraints and business context, which will enable them to produce a product that is perfectly in line with your expectations.
When a designer communicates with users during research, it becomes even more important to focus on listening rather than simply trying to show off their prototype. A skilled UX/UI designer will incorporate feedback from your product’s users as much as possible.
People often sidestep the fact that UX is still a big part of business - and the costs involved should be considered carefully.
A great UX concept that hits it off with test participants isn’t automatically your ticket to success. This concept simply won’t work in reality if it’s too expensive to build under your given constraints. For this reason, your UX designers should have a solid understanding of how UX impacts business, and shouldn’t propose unrealistic product ideas or solutions just because they’re a big hit with users.
Most UX/UI designers have web design backgrounds. This has its benefits, but there are several setbacks to be aware of, too.
For instance, a UX/UI designer with a background in web design might have great taste, but it’s unlikely that they will be experienced in designing a complex tool. SaaS tools are some of the most demanding to build, and it’s more important for a UX designer to have systematic and problem-solving skills for such a project than the ability to produce something that looks and feels good.
It’s essential that the layout of a SaaS tool is very flexible and forward-thinking towards later features that will likely be added. A good SaaS tool also needs to support masses of functionalities, and huge variables of data, so it will need many dependencies between its pages and modals. If your UX designer is too focused on appearances, they may not offer the level of complexity you require.
Furthermore, designing a SaaS tool needs serious commitment, out-of-the-box thinking, autonomy and leadership skills. Even the most skilled SaaS business owners don’t know everything, or they have the wrong impression about important focus points, and the designer needs to highlight these things.
The best UX/UI designer will be capable of presenting visions of the product’s future potentials, which you may not have even considered yourself. Unfortunately, most designers in the market are more executors than leaders, which can slow down the growth of your product considerably. Many designers also need micromanagement, which will distract you from your own focus.
Finally, many UX designers are juggling multiple clients at once, which prevents them from focusing the right amount of attention on each product, resulting in many opportunities being left on the table.
Now that you’re aware of the issues with searching for a UX designer, you might be concerned that you’ll never find an expert that fits the bill. But don’t worry - if you look for designers on freelancer platforms like Upwork, you’re guaranteed to find at least one gem among the stones.
Dealing with masses of proposals on Upwork can be overwhelming. This later section of the guide will discuss the best means of filtering and interviewing applicants to find your ideal UX designer for the job you require.
To avoid the time-wasting task of sifting through irrelevant applicants, you want to make sure that the right people are taking an interest in your job posting and applying for the position.
Follow the below tips to filter applicants before the interview stage:
Write a thorough job description detailing exactly what you’re looking for in an applicant. This will allow candidates to propose how they can cater to your needs, rather than focusing on themselves too much. Keep in mind that a quality job description attracts quality designers, so make sure you thoroughly edit and proofread your job posting before submitting it.
A good tip is to insert a word at the end of the job posting and ask the freelancer to use it at the beginning of their application. This approach will tell you who took the time to read your job description in full. Believe it or not, most people won’t, and this trick will eliminate around 70% of your applicants.
It goes without saying that all applicants should provide you with a portfolio. Discard any that don’t before you move on.
When scanning your applicants’ portfolios, look for examples of SaaS tools rather than mobile apps and websites that might look good, but tell you nothing about the designer’s capabilities to handle complex projects.
You may need to reach out to your applicants and ask them to send relevant work directly to you. Often, with SaaS tools, the designer isn’t allowed to showcase behind-the-scenes works to the public, so you probably won’t find these examples on their profiles.
It’s also worth asking applicants for case studies, as this will help you to understand a designer’s thinking process.
Using these methods helps you reduce the sheer volume of Upwork proposals - usually between 50 and 100 - to a much more manageable number of between 3 and 5. You’ll never carry out quality interviews with any more than five applicants, which is why this reviewing and filtering stage is so important.
Now you’ve selected the freelancers you want to interview, you can move on to the interview process itself.
Follow the steps below to interview your candidates successfully.
Your first job is to give the interviewee more information about your job vacancy and what you want to achieve with it. Focus on the essence of your project; don’t spend any longer than five minutes on this discussion.
Now that your designer is aware of your project, you can ask them to explain their own experience. In previous projects, what did they find challenging and why? How did they reach a solution? There’s no right or wrong way to approach a particular challenge, but having a clear strategy to facilitate an end goal is essential.
Next, ask the applicant about their design process and how they would approach your project. You can learn a lot about the interviewee by how they respond to your questions, whether they ask any questions of their own, and if they’re already making suggestions. This tells you that a designer is proactive and has the ability to take the initiative - two key traits to have.
Freelancing websites like Upwork will let you choose whether to pay your designer by the hour or on a project-by-project basis. Keeping in mind the complexity of SaaS projects and that the most proactive designers will likely generate extra work for themselves based on their ideas, you should pay your designer per hour.
The exact hourly rate is your decision. Of course, you need quality work and commitment, so you shouldn’t find a freelancer who seems too cheap to be true - as they probably are. Aim to hire one of the top third of designers on your chosen freelancer platform. These people are usually experienced, know their market well, and position themselves accordingly. You want the same from them regarding your product.
On the other end of the scale, you don’t always need to choose the most expensive freelancer. There comes a point in which the extra money spent per hour won’t actually give you more value.
The graph below highlights the sweet spot of UX designer rates.
SaaS companies have unique business needs and require specific skills from their vendors and service providers. That’s why you should opt for someone with the right expertise to advise, guide and implement your design and marketing strategies.
As a complete UX team, SaaSXpert can provide the support you need to deliver the most impressive and innovative SaaS product to your customers. Our team of specialist UX researchers and designers focuses specifically on SaaS/PaaS/IaaS platform customizations. We know all about the complexities involved in producing a comprehensive, multi-functioning SaaS application, so please get in touch if we can help you in any way.
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