Every startup understands the need to launch a product quickly in order to stay ahead of the competition. You know what product you need but want someone to bring your idea to life. This is why hiring a product designer is important for every startup.
However, many options are available to you when hiring product designers. To make it easy, we have written this article that provides tips on hiring a product designer for your startup.
We also explain the skills and the options available when you want to hire a product designer. Continue reading to learn the 5 steps to finding product designers for your startup.
Do you want to jump in and hire product designers from the best team? At Expert-Hire, we have a team of expert product designers who can create the ideal product design for your startup.
What Is a Product Designer?
As the name suggests, a product designer is a specialist who designs eye-catching and easy-to-use products. The product designer aims to bring your ideas to life by creating a product for your business to solve users’ problems.
To succeed in this role, a product designer must work with developers, engineers, marketing managers and tech leads to determine the desired outcomes of the product. Product design specialists play a significant role in guaranteeing success for a product during the entire product lifecycle.
What Is Product Design?
Product design is the end-to-end product creation that solves a specific problem for the user. The process of designing a product begins with problem definition and idea creation.
At this early stage, a team of designers will seek to better understand the issues users are facing and develop solutions that will solve the customers’ needs within the constraints laid out by the business.
After defining the problem and generating ideas, the designers will focus on feasibility. This stage includes determining the cost of the product, the potential problems it might face, and how hard it is to manufacture. They will develop a prototype at the end of this stage and prepare for testing.
In the testing phase, the designer finalizes the product through continuous improvement, and customers are engaged to test the product. Changes are made at this stage until it improves, and the product is eventually ready for the market.
In a successful product design timeline, the finished product will meet the business specifications, build the brand, make a profit and solve users’ problems.
Key Responsibilities of a Product Designer?
The responsibilities of a product designer vary depending on the product. Here are some common ones.
- Performing market research
- Analyzing business requirements
- Writing technical specifications
- Performing user research to determine what problems the product will solve
- Creating user journey
- Ensuring that the products meet customer expectations
- Work with developers, engineers, business managers and project managers to develop the design
- Coordinate the developers to ensure they follow the design guidelines
- Convert the concept or idea into a functional prototype
- Testing the prototype and conducting user testing
What Are the Skills of a Product Designer?
Before hiring a product designer, you must ensure that the person has the right skills to do the job. Product design skills are used to create products based on the consumer’s needs and business objectives. Here are some skills you should check before hiring a product designer.
Computer programming skills
A product designer may develop software products or user experience designs using programming languages. Programming skills allow the designer to write code to instruct the software to perform a specific task or function. Common programming languages product designers should know include C++, Java, Kotlin, JavaScript, and more.
Visual design skills
You should hire a product designer that has visual design skills. Product designers use these skills to create aesthetically pleasing products for customers. Visual design skills will help the designers to build product prototypes for their clients. Elements of visual design include layout design, color theory and typography.
User interface design
Visual design skills will help a product designer to create a good user interface. You should find a product design that has user interface skills. This will make the expert implement UI design skills to build visually appealing and user-friendly products.
An example of user interface skill is frontend development using programming languages like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, as well as frameworks like Bootstrap, React, or Vue.js.
Product research skills
Product designers must research the product to ensure it meets your customers and your business’s needs. This will help them to design a product that provides a solution for users and appeals to your customers.
Some research skills product designers must have include planning, survey to collect feedback about users’ experience, and auditing to review a product to determine its brand consistency for marketing purposes.
Communication
Communication skills are necessary if a product designer must collaborate with other specialists working to build your product. While designing a product, the designer may communicate with a team to delegate tasks and complete the project before its deadline.
Also, communication skills will allow the designer to communicate with the clients to understand their guidelines for a product and learn their business objectives.
Teamwork
A product designer often collaborates with other experts like developers, project managers and testers to produce a functional product. The designer may also communicate with team members to form solutions for product functionality and design.
Visual design tools
A product designer should be able to use technology to create an aesthetically pleasing user interface for clients. This means using visual design tools like Figma, Sketch or Adobe Creative Suite.
Project management
Having some practice seeing the bigger picture of a process, strategizing and knowing how to execute vision can come in handy as a product designer. You should hire a product designer with project management skills.
Where to Find Product Designers?
Ready to find product designers to start creating awesome product designs for your business? There are several hiring models you can try when hiring a product.
You can hire in-house and freelance product designers or find product designers from an outsourcing company like Expert-Hire. Any option you choose will affect your product’s cost and quality.
In-house Product Designers
One way to find product designers to work on your project is by hiring in-house. In-house product designers will work from your office space and get familiar with your business quickly, making it worthwhile because they can design a product that meets your business needs and customers’ expectations.
Also, since they work from your office, you can easily communicate and get tasks done hitch-free. No communication issues, and the risk of the designers not understanding your business culture is reduced. However, hiring in-house programmers comes at a cost.
From spending money to advertise the job position to setting up extra office spaces and paying for vacation and bonuses, all these extra expenses may not work in favor of startups looking to cut costs. While hiring in-house product designers guarantees high-quality design if you hire the right experts, the extra cost is why businesses are looking for alternatives.
Freelance Product Designers
Freelancers are plentiful. If you explore any freelancing websites, you will discover many ready to start working for your business immediately.
Aside from that, most freelancing platforms handle the contract, so you don’t have to bother creating long contracts when hiring product designers. And if you want experienced freelancers, you can always hire them.
Another advantage of hiring freelance product designers is that they work cheaply. They usually charge less for their services because most are in countries with low living costs, hence the low charges. This makes it easy for startups to save money while hiring the best product designers.
However, the setback of hiring freelance product designers is that most are unreliable. Since freelancers handle different jobs, they tend to multitask and may not get your tasks done the way you want them.
In line with that, most freelancers are unreliable, meaning they may not finish designing your product before the deadline. Also, managing freelancers is not easy, especially if you want them to work with your team. These are reasons businesses are turning to an outsourcing company like Expert-Hire to find product designers.
Outsource Product Designers
Hiring product developers from an outsourcing company like Expert-Hire is best if you want reliable designers to design products that meet your business needs and exceed customers’ expectations.
Outsourcing companies take it upon themselves to vet their product designers to ensure the best quality services for their clients. Also, they will match the right designer with your project.
One advantage of hiring product designers from an outsourcing company is that you can choose onshore, offshore or nearshore designers, depending on your needs.
Also, you don’t have to manage the designers because a project manager will be assigned to ensure tasks are done on time. Businesses can save costs when they choose to hire product designers from an outsourced team.
How to Find Product Designers
Once you have decided on the kind of product you need, what goals you want to achieve, and who would be best suited to design your product, it is time to find and hire a designer. Here are 5 tips for hiring a product designer.
- Prepare a Clear Job Description
When you want to hire a product designer, you must write a clear job description to shortlist the candidates to those best suited to the position. Your project scope and budget will help you create more specific requirements. Ensure you include the job title, summary, responsibilities and requirements in the description.
- Search for Candidates
Where do you want to hire product designers? What kind of hiring model do you want when hiring a product designer? Do you want the design to work in-house or from a remote location?
The answers to these questions will determine how you hire. If you want to hire in-house product designers, you can send your job description to various job portals, and they will advertise the position.
Hiring product designers from an outsourcing company like Expert-Hire is the fastest way of getting an expert because they are pre-vetted and have the right experience.
- Explore CVs and Portfolios
If you want to hire using online job portals, you have to screen CVs and examine portfolios to ensure you are dealing with the right candidate. Make sure the designer has the right skill for your project.
- Interview
If you have shortlisted the best candidate suited for your project, you should interview them to confirm their technical and soft skills. This process requires some preparation because you have to ask the right questions.
Questions to ask when hiring a product designer for a startup are
- How do you define product design?
- What is UX research?
- Can you briefly explain design thinking?
- What is a product persona?
- What tools do you use for wireframing?
- What is your experience with user testing?
- What do you think makes a great product design?
5. Sign Contracts
When you are certain you have the right product designer, you can proceed to sign contracts. The contract should include the work that must be done, the working standards, the payment methods and the engagement model. Also, you should sign an NDA to protect your product.
Find Product Designers from Expert-Hire
At Expert-Hire, we make it easy for startups to hire all the experts they need to build their businesses. If you have a product idea and want the right designer to help you design it, our team of experts can help you. You can hire our product designers hourly, per project, or hire a dedicated team. Get in touch with us today.
Conclusion
The 5 tips for hiring a product designer for a startup are
- Write a clear job description
- Search for candidates
- Explore CVs and portfolio
- Conduct interviews
- Sign contracts.
You can find expert product designers from Expert-Hire who will help you design the right product that meets your business needs and exceeds your customers’ expectations.
Frequently Asked Questions
The cost of hiring a product designer depends on the location and the experience level. You should prepare to spend between $50 and $150 per hour to hire an experienced product designer.
To find someone to design your product, you can hire freelance designers in-house or from an outsourcing company. Hiring from an outsourcing company like Expert-Hire is the best idea because you will work with pre-vetted product designers capable of handling your project.
