To beat your competitors, you can’t just have any website or web app — you need one with eye-catching design, intuitive for the user, and giving all the necessary information exactly when they are needed.
How to have this taken care of? You need to have someone in your team that is a true expert when it comes to designing web products with UX (user experience) and UI (user interface) in mind. In other words, you have to hire a web developer.
But how to find one that will really fit your project and company and deliver what’s needed within the deadline? To answer this question, we decided to prepare our own piece on how to hire a good web designer.
Web designer vs web developer — what’s the difference?
Should you hire a web designer or web developer? Although the question might seem tricky, when you actually understand the differences between the two, everything becomes suddenly much clearer.
To start with, you should consider the fact that the main job of a web developer is to code. Whether they are working mostly on front-end (everything that a user sees) or back-end (server-side of the web app, everything happening in terms of exchanging data), they still spend most of the time in a code editor, making sure everything works as it should be.
On the other hand, web designers are mostly working in various graphics editors, such as the popular Adobe Creative Suite. A good web designer should be able to code in front-end (HTML, CSS, JavaScript), but in some companies they might not do it all, instead focusing on delivering web developers the assets they need.
When should you hire a web designer?
Another question arises: do you need to hire web designer AND web developer or just one of these is enough? The answer isn’t that simple.
If you are just running a small business that needs a quick website to promote their services, you might simply find a web designer that will set up a site for you in WordPress or on other similar platforms.
However, if you are developing a more complicated product, especially a web app, you will probably need to have a lot of custom code written and a back-end set up, which means you should consider getting web developer and — if possible — a web designer. While we all understand the need to cut costs, a good web designer might truly bring your product to another level, implementing the correct design principles that will help in turning random users into returning customers.
You should also consider the fact that to really win the market, your website must look great on phones and tablets. Professional web designers always take this into consideration, preparing the site with mobile responsiveness in mind.
What does a web developer do?
Here are some of the main things that web developers do in order to turn your web product into a unique online experience:
- Prototyping
Building a prototype of a web app or website is a thing happening at various stages of the development process. In the beginning, rapid prototyping is performed so you can assess whether the designer correctly understood your basic vision. Later, high-fidelity prototypes can be prepared and presented to potential customers so feedback can be gathered before the actual launch.
- Establishing great UX and UI
Establishing great UX and UI for your web product means making the user stay with you for a longer time. Developing a clean and pleasant customer journey is, therefore, a crucial part of the web designer’s job
- Maintaining your visual branding
When choosing a web designer, always look for those with great self-organization skills. In the end, they will probably be responsible not only for the initial look & feel of your product, but also establishing design guidelines for future projects and keeping your visual branding unified.
- Creating unique visuals
Infographics and other unique content can make your product stand out from the crowd. A good web designer should be able not only to use existing stock visuals, but also design their own. This will be helpful especially for your marketing team — they can spread the infographics around social media, giving your brand and website boost of popularity.
Most important web designer skills
What should your new web designer be able to do? How should they approach their work? Here are some of the most important web designer skills you should look for in your candidates.
- Experience in using various CMS (content management systems), such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla
- Knowledge of front-end technology (HTML, CSS, JavaScript)
- Understanding of differences between browsers and the ways they display content
- Being able to design mobile responsive web products
- Proficiency in popular web design tools (e.g. Adobe Creative Suite, Figma)
- Ability to prototype on various stages of the project development (sketches, wireframes, high-fidelity prototypes)
- Expert understanding of best UX/UI practices
- Understanding of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- Creativity in terms of unique design solutions
- Great time management and self-organization skills
- Previous experience working with web developers
- Experience with creating content for social media
Running a web designer job interview
While having an interview is important when choosing a web designer, there is nothing that shows the skills of your candidate better than their portfolio. Many web designers juggle between working full-time and as freelancers in order to have their portfolio filled with multiple various projects.
Take this into consideration and always focus on reviewing the candidate’s portfolio before actually inviting them for an interview. This will not only give you an idea of whether their style fits your needs, but also will provide you with a chance to ask about the most interesting projects during the interview itself. Questions you might consider asking, in this case, would be:
- How did you approach working with this specific company? How did you implement their requirements and comments in the final project?
- Did you work on this project by yourself or with other web designers?
- Did you work on this project with a web developer or coded the site by yourself?
You can follow these with a set of more general web designer interview questions:
- What’s your favorite CMS and why?
- What are some examples of bad web design that come to your mind?
- What colors would you use for a project like ours? Why these colors?
- What’s your favorite set of tools for web design? Why are these your favorites?
Choosing a web designer that fits your company and product
When you want to hire a web designer, you should prioritize candidates that have experience with businesses and products similar to yours. A person who has already worked with another company from your industry will probably already understand the customer group you are targeting, and, hence, be able to propose design faster.
There is a rule of thumb to follow when you want to hire web designer — you should be either looking for people who are focused on working on your industry or, if the first option is not possible, try to find a web designer whose portfolio is filled with so many different designs that you can be sure they will able to approach even the most unusual project.
Beyond look & feel
Even the most appealing design is not enough to make your website or web app actually useful for customers. The technical difficulties might need to be overcome by experienced web developers, data gathered and analyzed by data scientists, and the whole project coordinated by a project manager (and possibly as product owner as well).
To get all the necessary people on board fast and make sure you deliver your product on time, contact our experts at Ideamotive. We’ve established a large network of top IT talents of various professions, ready to take on the next challenge. Connect with them today with our help.
