Clients often ask about the right time to hire full-time UI design help. Is it possible to do it too early?
Interesting fact: part of the reason Slide UX came into existence is because Brant was working with a dev team that didn’t really need a full-time designer.
In his day job back in 2012, he was the UX design lead for a particular product team within his organization. Each sprint, he prepared a stack of thoughtful and complete designs. And each sprint, they would implement a fraction of his work because they didn’t have the capacity for more.
As time passed, the stack of undeveloped designs drew thicker and thicker, and Brant realized that there was enough design specced out to keep the dev team busy for a year.
People like to feel useful. Seeing his work shelved sprint after sprint was demoralizing. At the same time, I was overwhelmed with potential UX work and facing the prospect of turning away great clients. So he left full-time work to join me, and Slide UX was formed.
Throughout the past decade, we have worked with many clients for a long time. Why don’t they hire in-house designers?
When an organization’s UX or UI design needs are steady and ongoing, hiring makes sense. But often times, especially for smaller teams, the needs ebb and flow.
UX work can be intense while we’re figuring out problems, and designing and testing solutions. but smaller teams often tap the brakes on new UX work while they are in implementation mode. Our support might wane during that phase to just answering questions or addressing unanticipated scenarios.
And later, they turn the faucet on again, and we’re back to firing on all cylinders.
Our designers get the benefit of variety and feeling useful as they roll from one account to another, and back. Our clients get the advantage of continuity, while avoiding the hefty costs associated with full-time UX experts who are underutilized (and therefore, more likely to leave).
If you have not-quite-full-time design needs, we can talk to you about resourcing strategies. Just book a consultation.