If I were to hire a UI/UX artist for my ReadSync prototype

Note: This is an idea draft, not a professional advice. I’m just planning ahead

If I were to hire a UI/UX designer, I would…

Let’s take my prototype ReadSync I built. It is an event tracking and sharing application, which publishes or syncs onto the signed in user’s Google Calendar.

I have specific goals in my mind. The goals that drive my application to be used by the audience as visioned.

Creativity vs Commercial outcome

Creativity awe will speak for the artist’s vision and talents. But, for the application to sustain itself, by being the platform it speaks and serves it users. It longs for the commercial direction.

Judging their Portfolio Pieces

During a hiring process, I would be asking for the artist’s portfolio pieces. So, I may be able to judge on how I would be able to onboard them onto the project and find the best benefits that can be “extracted”.

Portfolio pieces often consist of UI designs that were designed as a concept or for actual commercial projects. Most commercial projects would often have an NDA policy in place that would limit these artists to reveal their contribution they were part of. But there might be ways in which they would be able to bypass this policy and still talk about their contribution, without revealing too much of the company’s IP (look more into this before trying to bypass the NDA policy, conduct an expert or a lawyer, I’m not a professional in this).

But, just by seeing their final concept design, is not enough to judge their future contributions I may accept. I need their thought process, the whys for the design they did. Just so, I may be able to vision what all places of the pipeline they could be involved in. I would let them shoot their potential. And in the end, I would direct them to only work on the tasks of the pipeline where their contribution would matter for the end goal of the project.

The good ones explain their decisions.

Unfair, Unrealistic & Impossible Order Handling

The other thing, I need to look for is for how they would be able to work along other team members. How they will be able to handle disagreements and unfair, unrealistic or impossible orders.

One of the interview questions I am absolutely in love with is, asking them to do something that’s impossible. In reality, what has been put forward is not entirely impossible, but framed in such a way as to stress the interviewee out. What is expected from them is to communicate back, by listening to what the company actually wants them to do in relative to the order they have been requested to find a solution to.

What interviewee needs to understand is, not always does the tasks they are assigned to, will clearly define what the company would want them to do. Most initial task orders would be abstract, and it is the job of the employee to understand and communicate it back. So, the company can stay on track and be realistic in its ambition and limitations.

Rejections are a weapon, use them as you see fit.

It is about how you communicate with the other people who work along with you. If you are only good to communicate your work with other designers and not others with zero design background, you are not a good fit. As this would bring forth problems. You need to be able to communicate what a good UI/UX is in a language that makes sense to you as well others who are not designers.