Who is a UX Designer?

A UX designer is someone who aims to make products/services accessible and enjoyable for users. Its focus is on meeting user needs by making the design user-focused. A UX designer performs many functions in the design process. They range from research to creating user personas, prototyping, and wireframes to design testing. Their focus is on the user’s journey, and they strive to create designs that intuitively direct users toward their goals.

Who is a UX Consultant?

UX consultants are UX experts whose job is to identify and solve business problems. Their goal is not to improve the UX of a product/service, but rather to improve the UX of the company as a whole. UX consultants perform a design audit, UX coaching, UX research, etc. They create a roadmap of user experience strategies to get an overview of the user journey and identify problem areas. Their goal is to ensure that a company’s overall UX performance remains solid.

What are the Distinctions Between a UX Designer and UX Consultant?

As I mentioned earlier, there is some overlap between the responsibilities of the UX designer and the UX consultant. But everyone also has unique characters. Let’s take a look at what they are.

UX Designer

• Focuses on aspects of a product’s user experience
• Understands UX design principles and their impact on the UX design process
• Analyses research findings and UX data and integrates them into design work
• Works under the direction of business leaders
• Iterate and enhance upon product’s design over time

UX Consultant

• Suggests strategies and tools for measuring UX improvement
• Performs big picture prototyping and usability testing
• Conducts evaluation and auditing of a company’s products/services
• Provide expert leadership and guidance to the organization’s UX efforts
• Equips stakeholders and staff with best UX practices knowledge

So these are the critical differences in the priorities and functioning of a UX designer and a UX consultant.

Why Hire a UX Designer?

When you become a UX designer, you play a role in the design process from the start. They work closely with UI designers and programmers to develop the user-friendly design of products/services. There are several advantages to employing a UX designer, such as

• It increases the accessibility of a product
• Creates an intuitive and engaging user interface
• Guide users towards actions, decreasing bounce rates and increasing leads
• Increase customer loyalty but meeting their needs through design

Why Hire a UX Consultant?

A UX consultant comes into the picture when a business needs some expert help. It can be discovering a business problem, creating a solution, helping transform a business, or guiding a user experience team. They work in cooperation with the entire organization to improve the business environment. Some of the benefits of hiring a UX consultant are:

• Improve your business ROI
• Provide insight to make transformative business decisions
• Detect usability issues quickly and provide diagnosis
• Develop UX strategies to boost your business

UX Designer or UX Consultant?

Whether you want a UX designer for your business or a UX consultant depends on what stage your company is in right now and your needs. A UX designer can help build the user experience from scratch, while a UX consultant can help solve problems in a project. UX consultants don’t work on creating a design from scratch, but rather on improving an existing design. The services of both are indispensable for an organization.

Feel free to reach out to me if you need help with what is right for you, using this link.

Cheers!