What Essential Skills Do All the Best UX Designers Possess?

If you are looking for Las Vegas UX design services, you first need to know the essential skills that a UX designer should have. Of course, they should know how to produce sketches, wireframes, and prototypes. But what do these terms mean and how do they differ from one another?

In this article, we cover the top essential skills for UX designers and why they matter, including:

• Why outsourcing UX needs is a good practice.
• Seven essential skills needed for UX.

There is a lot to discuss, so get ready to take notes.

Let’s go!

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Why Is It Good to Hire a UX Designer?

A website’s user experience (UX) depends on how well it matches your target market's expectations or preferences. Although it is not possible for your business (or anyone else’s) to create a UX that suits everyone, finding and implementing UX top tips and best practices is not difficult. 

For instance, many experts cite hero images as important to UX, but not everyone wants to see a huge image or graphic upon entering a website. Some users might find it useful for their customer journey, but others would find it over-the-top and possibly distracting. 

This example perfectly illustrates why hiring a Las Vegas UX design agency benefits any business. Their expertise and ability to pinpoint UX designs that users love (specifically your local target audience) takes the guesswork out of designing and implementing your website’s UX features.

7 Essential Skills for UX Designers

Although outsourcing is an excellent step toward better UX, it is a bad business practice not to do your research on what UX designers should know how to do. Any person or agency may claim to be an expert. It is, however, up to you to do the investigating to learn who is the right person for the job to help improve your business’s UX.

Below are seven essential skills that any reliable Las Vegas UX design agency should have.

     1. Produce Sketches and Wireframes

Before modifying your business website with designs to improve UX, you first should have ideas in mind and, hopefully, on paper. Immediately changing your site without a plan could inadvertently harm the onsite UX. A good UX designer knows to draft ideas before moving on to the next step.

They do this by composing an initial pen-and-paper sketch to note the crucial UX design elements you want or ones that they discovered while researching your target market. Then they produce the sketch's wireframe (a black-and-white blueprint) for your review, comments, and edits.

     2. Build High-Quality Page Prototypes

Once the wireframe gets your approval, the UX designer creates a prototype of the page or app that you requested. A good-quality prototype should include everything that you requested. It should also work exactly, or as close to it as possible, as what was discussed with the designer. 

A skilled Las Vegas UX design agency will have the capacity and ability to produce both wireframe and prototype models ranging from low to high fidelity. They should also have the appropriate design tools and software to produce the models for you to review or test. 

     3. Arrange the Information Architecture

Another essential UX design skill to look for is information architecture, or how well they know how to organize your website’s or app's content and pages. This includes how the pages connect, which pages are visible, and how well your users understand what they should do next.

Information architecture often starts with defining your audience and creating user personas for UX because these help identify which pages are most important and require the highest visibility. A good UX designer actively researches to identify what elements work best for you. 

     4. Experience Using Design Software

Las Vegas UX design agencies know that UX determines your business’s value in many ways. A good experience is important to customers: having it draws them towards your business, not having it keeps them away. A good UX designer has top-notch skills and experience in design software.

Ideally, your designer should be familiar with various software, allowing them to produce work that fits your specifications. When looking for the right designer to partner with, ask them about the tools that they use in their jobs. Do not hesitate to ask about the differences between each software program.

     5. Good Interpersonal Communication

Although their job involves many technical aspects, UX designers constantly communicate with clients or other professionals. An excellent designer knows how to explain concepts to clients in simple terms to avoid miscommunication. They should also be patient with clients.

Not all UX designers are trained coders. In some instances, they may have to communicate their design layouts for web engineers to implement. Social skills are just as important to this job as the abovementioned technical knowledge, design skills, and practical experience.

     6. Innovative Thinker and Self-Learner

The concept of UX is dynamic because users' needs and preferences regularly change. A good UX designer should be forward-thinking, innovative, keep current with changes in best practices, and know how to find creative solutions to problems.

Keeping up with best practices and trends is essential because, without doing so, designers’ skills, especially when designing UX, quickly become stale and outdated. When that happens, their clients and potentially their clients' user experiences are poor. No one benefits from the failure of the UX designer to learn new skills.

     7. Flexible and Adaptable to Demands

As a service provider, a Las Vegas UX design agency should know how to appropriately handle temperamental clients. Last-minute changes and indecision are usual, although frustrating, occurrences of the job. Flexibility and adaptability on the part of the UX designer work best for UX.

This does not mean that unreasonable deadlines or expectations on the client’s part are correct or even acceptable. Just as you would expect them to do, compromising and meeting your UX designer halfway is more conducive to having a smooth working relationship.

Summing Up

UX design is a complex and nuanced field best left to specialists. The many steps involved — from research to designing to applying the design — demand a strong and diverse skill set that not everyone possesses. Outsourcing makes good business sense to avoid potential mishaps.

Need help finding the right Las Vegas UX design agency for your business? Contact Digital Authority Partners (DAP) to learn how we can help.