How to hire designers

How to hire designers(insideintercom.io)

69 points by zzzsh 12 years ago | 17 comments

rmrfrmrf 12 years ago |

I've learned over the years as a creative director that there are just some clients who get it and some that don't.

The clients who do get it will invite the design team to their production meetings; they'll include us on key decisions (for example, "should we have feature x?"), and they'll expect us to contribute to the overall product, NOT just in design, but also in functionality.

The clients that don't get it? You get a stack of content and a list of demands, along with phrases (that we now use freely around the office) like "jazz it up" and "make it more FUN!" Those are the clients that think great designers are found on Dribbble and that my team always needs to be "pushed" to produce "fun, exciting, INNOVATIVE" design. In reality, we just take our effective, well-executed design and practically roll the dice to see which Dribbble style du jour we can slap on it.

So, in a kind of weird way, Dribbble makes my job a lot easier in terms of showing me how to make my work shittier so that it's accepted by dumbass clients. For that, I am thankful.

sgdesign 12 years ago | |

Great designers are found on Dribbble. It seems you're making a leap from "Dribbble has bad designers" to "All designers on Dribbble are bad".

Just because some designers on Dribbble choose to focus on visuals doesn't mean that they haven't mastered the other components of design as well.

Dribbble and similar sites like Behance are great to evaluate visual design. For other components, you have other media (writing, videos, case studies, etc.) Why can't we just leave it at that instead of acting like this is somehow Dribbble's own fault?

dylanrw 12 years ago | | |

As usual people find visuals distracting. People just can't understand that while graphic arts can be a part of product design, it does not constitute the entire process.

ryguytilidie 12 years ago | | |

Sorry they designed a medium for a specific purpose but it wasn't the poster above you's ideal specific purpose so therefore it is worse than useless.

ryanSrich 12 years ago |

Great post and a great follow up. I think dribbble's co-founders intended the site to be a show and tell of actual work (pure speculation) but has become more of a showcase of flashy unrealistic photoshop designs.

I think the divide in the design industry is going to be short lived as companies start to realize that they don't really need a a graphic designer, a product designer, a UI designer and a UX strategist. They need one (or several) competent designer that can understand all of these roles.

I wrote a short blog post discussing the issue: http://generalist.io/designers-design

psweber 12 years ago | |

I dunno. That is pretty general. The needs of each company varies widely, and, like the author said, the master of all 4 of those categories is a rare find. Defining your company's needs will help you figure out what kind of designers to look for.

My preference for a product team structure is this: Interaction designer (product manager), art director, front-end developer, back-end developer(s)

I read your post. UX designers that "scoff at the visual design because that’s not part of their job" drive me crazy, too. In my opinion, outside of a one person design department, an interaction designer need not be able to create Dribbble worthy visual design, but they should absolutely have a strong understanding of layout, hierarchy, grids, color theory, etc.

crucialfelix 12 years ago | | |

"UX designers that "scoff at the visual design because that’s not part of their job"

These people are far outnumbered by the graphics designers who simply upgraded their resume to add UX and yet cannot name any of the main roles of that position.

seanmcdirmid 12 years ago |

The post is a bit misleading about PS monkeys. There are actually jobs out their that specialize in image production (e.g. Doing lots of red lining); or even producing grid layouts. Production really isn't design, but often junior visual designers are tasked with doing it (or even senior ones...because someone has to do it). Large organizations will hire people specifically for these roles who aren't really designers.

Interaction and visual design roles are separated not because the division is natural, but because visual and interaction design require specific skills that are rare to find both in individuals, especially on the visual side (interaction designers have diverse backgrounds, while visual designers require specific training).

rquantz 12 years ago |

design was not about how something looks, but how it works.

One of the worst things for me as a developer is having deal with "designers" who don't know this. They think they produce a flashy looking mockup and then they're done. I've dealt with design or marketing companies who literally produce a few PSDs and say, "This should do something cool when you click on it." Which then makes me the designer. Which, I mean, I'm flattered, but that's probably not the situation the client intended to be in.

read 12 years ago | |

Not only is it not about how something looks, but design under this premise sets you back.

You are forced to make a conscious effort not to focus on looks to finally focus on how it works. You are better off without looks.

I've heard of a usability study that found people are afraid to interact with pretty websites. They prefer ones that look simpler. I wish I could find a reference and read it myself.

IlPeach 12 years ago | |

yes, this. Interaction design can't be separated by visual design.

The worst of the misconceptions here is that the designer is unable to see further than this point, it's basically a key to failure.

gfodor 12 years ago |

This post says some obvious (but good and valid) stuff but doesn't propose a solution. Images almost by definition showcase visual design not other types of design. Images are a incredibly convenient medium to produce and transmit. Nice visual design can be digested and appreciated nearly instantly. Hence image-oriented design showcases are at the center of the zeitguest of app design.

Come up with a low-friction, high-speed way to share other facets of design, like interaction and information hierarchies, and then the macro-discussion will reach further into those areas. Currently the best medium for this is launching a prototype in an app store or web and publishing it around. You can see how this compares to "uploading a png" to understand the downstream effects.

notduncansmith 12 years ago |

Oh my god. I cannot upvote this article enough. So many times in my office, my job as a Designer (with a capital D) is dismissively referred to as "making things pretty".

"Hey man, can you add a little design flair to this?"

Fuck that shit. Our job is more than "make things pretty". Designers should have input on every step in the product cycle, not slap a coat of paint on a project that wasn't designed properly from the beginning.

I've been asked numerous times to fix this or that interface, and implement said design changes (since I'm also a developer). This requires me to set up a dev environment for said project, get fully caught up on the project, constraints, etc, then navigate my way through the code and actually make said changes (without breaking anything on the backend, because as a developer it'll be my job to fix that too).

Going back and making a "band-aid" style fix can take almost an entire day, when it could have been a 5-minute discussion during the planning phase.

Oh, and to top it all off: our graphic artist sits in on those meetings.

Apparently this is the norm.

thefreeman 12 years ago |

So where was the advice about hiring designers? As far as I can tell the post should be titled "Why not to hire designers based on dribbble". While it may be true, it really doesn't help those of us not in the field who are looking to bring in talent.

exo_duz 12 years ago |

This article diversified what I thought a good designer was. I always thought that a designer should be able to find the right font, design, colour and icons for a project.

Looking further into it there are a lot more to consider and more important points such as UX and interaction. I agree that UX and interaction is important but didn't realise it is that highly rated.

dylanrw 12 years ago |

"This is about design education, and above all else, the idea that design is fundamentally about how something works, not how it looks." This cannot be said enough. Much like when you have to relearn how to see the world while learning to draw, you have to relearn how to think about problems while learning to design.

Do not confuse graphic arts or even graphic design with product design.

LiweiZ 12 years ago |

To put it simple and generalize a little bit, every function in a team ideally has good understanding of what is supposed to be delivered as a whole and is equipped with that specialized skills set for that function. I have to say it's not easy to have a team even close to this. But this is a correct direction. And each function has different weights in different product building processes.