Ask HN: Good Web UI Designers | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Good Web UI Designers

9 pointsucdaz25 comments

Anyone recommend searching on odesk or elance for a good Web 2.0 UI designer? Any particular companies I should consider? What are some good attributes I should look for? Thanks! Nick Leung

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There are some (not many) UI designers on HN, like me for example.

/shameless plug

I would stay away from Elance type sites unless cost is your only factor. 37signals job board will attract the exact opposite candidates as Elance (read: expensive/overpaid)

Ever think of hiring local?

Attributes to look for would be experience not only in creating the 'web 2.0 look' but also solid experience in eccomerce and application development. Too many designers only know how to make something look good, and fail to consider that you're doing business on the web. Avoid designers who rely on wiz-bang features, even a boring business like portfolio is better than one filled with tons of Flash and AJAX.

We do need to do a better job of banding together on both HN and in real life.

One of these days I'd like to actually put together a UI meetup. One day....

I agree.. us UI designers are rare on HN.

Hiring locally could be really good.. In general I think it's hard to find some one with an application portfolio though. Most are advertisement websites and it can be hard to gauge if their portfolio match your values.

Most UI jobs I see are either salary or long term contract. but I might be biased as that is what I look for.

It always surprises me when people go looking for good AND cheap. There is a difference between cost and value.

You frequently don't get what you pay for - there is very little correlation between price and quality.

Take Drupal for example - cheap AND good. Compare with our new Mega Corp CMS which had a 7 figure price tag and a work flow so atrocious it had to be scrapped before deployment was complete.

If you want good products then by picking something that is already good and only requires minor changes you have a pretty decent chance at a fair price (which might be high or low).

"there is very little correlation between price and quality".

to a point. While design can often have a rang of price there can be a clear difference between paying some one a living wage and not. This number can vary international but it's good to know what is considered a professional wage abroad.

Also price can have a high correlation to experience. More experience is good if you care about the details but many rather stay cheap.

the design field is changing and there is a lot of price fluctuation and it can be hard as a company to gauge if a company is worth the price. But to say there is little correlation is a little misleading.

This really depends what you mean by cheap. If you're the end user then yes, it's cheap. However, Drupal has had a lot of time and effort put into it. The important correlation is between that time and effort (and the quality of those putting in that time and effort) and the quality of the product.

Drupal needs work too.

http://buytaert.net/drupal-usability-testing

It went through a usability test and surprise, surprise, the whole Drupal nomenclature is actually off-putting for the average Joe.

Usability is difficult. Very difficult. We'll see the fruits in Drupal 7/8. As a programmer/hacker/ia/ui guy -- I find all fascinating.

The general trend I think is UI is beginning to come of age.

With UI design in particular it's a killer. it actually requite good technical knowledge, good visual sense, good psychology background, understanding of business objectives... It takes that special person who can think in an interdisciplinary way, and that usually isn't cheap or easy.

I've done some posting on elance before and I will suggest to start with the smallest job (i.e. cheapest) first to get used to working with bids and vendors. Start with a logo + business identity for $300-$500, go with only 5-star people with 6+ months of feedback. Once you have that, do a 3-5 page website for $300-$500. By now you should have a good feel for (1) the process, and (2) the people so now's the time to bump it up to a $1000 or $2000 project.

Those places really aren't the place for $2000+ projects IMO.

Can anyone share any other places for $2000+ projects? Much appreciated! =)

http://jobs.37signals.com/ http://authenticjobs.com/

In my opinion 37 signals has the best job board with the best jobs. But personally I think the people applying also expect a better wage\price to come with that. For companies to attract truly the best UI designers I do think they have to pay a bit more for them. Though there are plenty of young cheep talent out there. They perhaps are not the best.

What specifically are you wanting? SEO, web design, SEM - all of those could be separate $5000 projects apiece (or higher).

Actually they can, provided you state that you're looking for that level of work. Many studios operate through these services and simply turn-over the small stuff to the junior developers, or use templates.

In my experience, elance is not the place for large jobs (and I've tried). I would strongly suggest people not start out w/ a large job on elance and instead start w/ smaller piecemeal-type work.

I would say odesk is is good for 1 reason only.... you can see snapshots of what the UI developer is working on as they do it. So you should be able to see if they are going down the right track early before they finish!

It depends if its pure GUI or UI ... I think you should split up the project into 2... GUI is to get design and colour scheme. UI is to get the interactions you want and the flow...

We have used odesk, and we found that we can get GUI design done, but UI is really dependant on your target user market... This is difficult to outsource unless you really direct what you want done...

I am in the same boat as you and am actively seeking a UI designer. We are willing to pay up to $5000 or maybe even more for this service, but it has to be good and the chance of someone getting it wrong or asking for double the money is what's keeping us from taking the plunge.

But I digress, the point of this comment is to try out 99designs.com. I've seen some really good designs on that site if you know exactly what you want.

We plan on experimenting with 99designs once we have our site up and running with UI we can come up with as developers and hope to get lucky!

I'd recommend a listing on the 37signals Job Board (http://jobs.37signals.com/). It costs $300 for a 30-day job listing or $100 for a gig listing, but it'll get you by far the highest quality crop of applicants.

Don't think he's paying for top tier if he's searching around oDesk and eLance.

Yeah I'm looking for something inexpensive but good. Thanks!

Often, the two are mutually exclusive.

In other words, you get what you pay for most of the time.

I've found you'll rarely find something inexpensive and really good, but you'll find really expensive and not good at all very very often.

I saw, recently, a "screen" delivered to a company from a high priced design firm in SF that had ~800px wide text boxes for "Username" and "Password" on a login screen. They paid ALOT of money for that.

yeah I would agree with that...

I think at the way low end you mostly get very inexperienced people who have little to no experience oftain coupled with little to no skill. They may commit to a price but can't deliver on quality. It doesn't seem worth it to waste the money here. Just have your developer do something.

At the mid range there are still a lot of unskilled people but there are now skilled people as well. Here are the people you need to find. Because they are going to be able to deliver something quality and worth paying for. But they are not doing to be able to match the skills of best designed sites.

The high price range there are still the same match of good and bad. the good are really good. Best in the business. The bad are from the mid range or below that are super confident or really audacious.

It's hard to pick out the good ones even though interview in my opinion. you really need a large list of references to get a feel for the "company".

also if you have the design in a psd... you could try http://www.psd2html.com/order-now.html

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