

Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging? - sandGorgon

I qualify as senior tech management and have held that role in several companies - large and small. Yet, whenever there was a startup (hell, someone randomly writing in from the internet) I have always spent an inordinate amount of time helping them out - even fixing bugs.<p>I have taken a lot of help myself - from other engineers, hackers, etc. People here take it for granted that you can ask people to help you with their code and they will not ask for money. Hell, I have lawyer friends who help out for free.<p>Yet, that is missing from the whole UI&#x2F;UX design community - we are a small startup and needed some design help. Yet, all the designers that I seek even a bit of help from, take it as a personal affront that I am not paying. Somehow the inability to pay has morphed to a feeling of unwillingness to pay. There seems to be a general defensiveness because (and I&#x27;m guessing here) that design was a second class citizen at some point in technology&#x27;s evolution.<p>Am I doing something wrong by expecting help for free as a friendly gesture ? this is a genuine question and I&#x27;m truly flummoxed.
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MalcolmDiggs
Just out of curiosity, are you coming to the table with anything to barter, or
just asking for a hand-out?

I don't think it's useful to pretend that all us engineers are completely
altruistic. Some are, sure...but a lot of us are self-interested "rational
actors".

When I help another engineer, or when they help me, there's sort of an implied
quid-pro-quo. If you helped me out, I'm definitely going to take your call
when you need me, etc. I'll gladly help you out without even knowing if I'll
ever need your advice, because, as people who do the same work, it's very
likely that you'll be useful to me in the future.

If a designer, or a CEO, or an attorney approached me and asked for advice,
would I be so open and available? Probably not. When you're reaching out to
someone of a completely different skill-set, it might be harder for that
person to conceptualize how it would be worth their time to help you.

Back to your situation: When you reach out to a designer, ask yourself: Am I
at-all useful to this person? Will they ever need my advice? If not, you're
going to need to work extra hard off-the-bat to make sure they understand your
value (and why helping you will pay dividends).

~~~
sandGorgon
excellent point - thanks. That makes absolute sense - I'm still wondering how
to overcome that though.

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Bahamut
Historically, those in creative professions will be asked to do things for
free for exposure - graphic designers still see this quite a bit today, and it
is quite common amongst musicians. When they are paid, it usually isn't at a
level that properly values their time and service either.

I do some UI/UX work for free, but only for a hobbyist community of musicians
I am a part of since it is a community centered around a love of particular
content. I also offer some help for free on IRC on solving simple problems.
Otherwise, I charge for my services since my time is valuable.

------
zacoder
Time costs money. And you want free time from other people. That little piece
of advice you really really need might take a half an hour for an UI designer
to write or talk about. And that half an hour can easily be charged to someone
else who is willing to pay for it.

It's just supply vs demand. UI/UX design is in very high demand. Every startup
and entrepreneur wants a logo, graphic design or a website. Why waste time
helping someone out for free when you can charge for it?

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rajacombinator
Why would you expect anyone to work for free? That's great you have some
friends who are willing to, but expecting it from anyone is very bizarre.

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mc_hammer
i dont think its quite that -- you can tons of great
ui/fonts/layouts/everything else for free on sites like deviant art/dribbble
or freebbbble/themeforest etc, and also weve gotten bootstrap fontawesome etc.
were definitely in a better place than 10 yrs ago; theres also more than a few
people who give away ui design art by request on reddit devart and twitch.tv.

------
vitovito
Hi, UX designer here.

First, when you say UI/UX, that's a red flag to me that you don't understand
the kind of design you need. There isn't a "UI/UX design community." They're
two different specialties, with a handful of subspecialties in each. If you
don't understand your problem, and you're asking a stranger for help, I can
completely understand that stranger wanting to make sure you're prepared to be
taught all the things you don't know so you can understand your actual
problem, and that means they have to invest time in you, which means they want
to be paid for that.

Second, I don't work for free. That typically means anything resembling
facilitation or a deliverable: a wireframe, a color scheme, conducting
research. I'll talk all day long, though, if you're exerting all the effort.

Third, I help people out a lot for free, but I also do it within very narrow
guidelines. I see it as a professional obligation, to build a positive
understanding of design, to grow the ultimate market for my services.

I help out companies, startups and non-profits mostly by doing pro bono design
office hours. I'll do them casually, if someone is referred to me. I'll also
do them formally twice a year, helping dozens of startups in a single day,
through IxDA Austin and Austin Startup Week. Perhaps there are similar events
in your area. Try checking with co-working spaces and startup incubators, for
example.

I'll also give pretty much anyone an hour of time on the off chance it turns
into an interesting bit of contract work. I'll roll the cost of that hour (or
whatever) into the contract, if one happens. It rarely does, however, because,
there are very few times where the design question you think you have is the
design problem you actually have. I've had people walk out of meetings because
I'm asking them questions they don't have answers to. They thought they had
one "UI/UX" problem, and I helpfully point out all the other problems they
have, and they just weren't prepared to hear that.

I'm guessing when you ask for help with your code, you're not expecting
someone to develop an entire application for you, for free. There's a very
narrow problem you need help with, and, as engineers both, you and the person
you ask can speak at the same level and come to a solution in short order.

It's not typically so with design.

You might "just" want to know what the "best" color for a button should be, or
get help with color palette for an entire page so it "pops" more.

If I give you a color for your button, you'll walk away happy, sure, and think
I'm swell. And then you'll implement it and your conversion rates will drop
30%, because statistically, you probably don't get enough traffic to know for
sure for months. Do you know that, or will you panic? Is it the button color's
fault? Is it an anomaly? Am I a bad designer? Are all designers frauds and
hacks? I made you happy in the moment but have zero control of your opinion of
me and of the situation afterwards.

The best thing for you would be for me to sit down with you and go over the
entire page, maybe even all of the marketing for your entire product, to
understand where this page fits in. Maybe you don't need a different color
button, but a different placement. Or different copy. Or different images. Or
a different campaign. Or a different product.

I don't know.

And if you're asking me about a button color, there's a better than even
chance you don't know, either.

What I do know is, I'm not helping either of us by giving you a color instead
of trying to understand your problem. And the only way I can be sure that
you're interested in actually solving a problem, is to see if you'll pay for
it.

If I'm right, and you don't know what kind of design help you need, I'd be
happy to get on Skype or a phone call with you this week and help you figure
out the kind of design help you need so you can find the right sort of design
community to ask help of.

But, I don't work for free, and I don't know anyone who does.

~~~
sandGorgon
in your very first line, you have just proven my point. I do understand what
UI/UX is - and I'm not conflating them together, but talking about a common
behavior inherent in both. Forgive me, but I see your reply as fairly
vitriolic, whereas my question was anything but (I hope!). You are still
thinking of me wanting to get a whole design for free. Where did I insinuate
that ?

But I'm generally curious on why you bristle when I ask for design help - I
think from your answer that you believe that I'm asking for an inordinate
amount of help a.k.a a whole design for free. If that is indeed the case, then
your answer is immediately very helpful because it helps me finetune my
request for help !

I have another question for you - as developers, we are pretty comfortable
with people asking us to look over code and share opinion. In a lot of ways
Dribble is just that. Is it impolite to show someone an existing, badly
designed MVP and ask for some open ended design help - whether it be in
colors, typography or layout ?

Or do you fundamentally believe this cannot be done without engaging in a
contractual discussion.

~~~
vitovito
You didn't insinuate it, but you also aren't being specific about the kind of
help you're asking for. You're making enormously broad statements about at
least two different professions that solve different problems in different
ways. I don't believe I am being unfairly critical of your phrasing.

I'm guessing you're reading into my statement, "I'm guessing when you ask for
help with your code, you're not expecting someone to develop an entire
application for you, for free." I'm not suggesting you are personally asking
for an entire design for free (although you would not be the first if you
were).

Rather, I'm saying that, if you don't understand your design problem well
enough to ask a narrow-enough question of the right sort of designer (as you
might with an engineer about a technical issue), then the person you're asking
has to understand -- and potentially educate you about -- a much larger
portion of your project. That sort of time investment only comes with payment.

I was a developer once, a long time ago, and I don't recall ever asking
strangers or even friends to review my code. At least, not successfully. Are
there actually places you can go and have random programmers look at your
code? How do they run it? How do they build it? How do they understand your
business logic? How are they able to duplicate your production environments? I
feel as if your counterexample is a straw man. Code reviews amongst other
people on your production team is not the same thing at all.

Dribbble is not a place for critique. It is a place for praise, specifically,
between visual designers and artists. Only some of that overlaps with UI. Most
people don't post in-progress work there, and Dribbble is not designed to
facilitate critique of in-progress work when they do. So, that's not a great
example.

Also, it's rare to actually be seeking "open-ended design help." If you have
an MVP already, then you're already talking with a designer too late. There is
a limited amount of change you will be willing to tolerate to your MVP, in
very particular places, dealt with in very particular ways. It's the button
color example from my first post again. Your MVP might not need a button color
change. You might need to throw your whole MVP away. You are probably not
prepared to do that.

I have talked with perhaps a hundred different startups through office hours
in the past three years or so. Most startups want a pat on the head. They're
not prepared to make any design-related changes at all, not to colors, not to
copy, not to anything. Some startups are prepared to make superficial,
cosmetic changes, but most designers aren't interested in helping you put
lipstick on a pig. Designers do that all day long as their day job; they want
a bigger impact if they're doing it for fun. Nearly no startups are interested
in understanding how to figure out the real design problems in their product
and how to solve them; that is, how to find product-market fit, and are
willing to throw away all their existing work if necessary to do so. I could
probably count those startups on one hand.

I have absolutely had people get up and walk out mid-sentence when I pointed
out irredeemable problems with their idea, MVP, or launched application. That
is not the kind of feedback most people are willing to hear "for free."

And if you _are_ prepared to throw your MVP away, then you're stuck, because
if you ask anything else of the designer at that point, that's real work, and
they're not going to do that for free.

I think good free help can be obtained if you can ask a narrow-enough question
of the right sort of designer, absolutely.

In my experience, though, that question is hardly ever the right question you
should be asking.

~~~
sandGorgon
I see. Thanks for taking the time to write this out - and the answer to your
question is yes: there are many places for people to look and review your code
(not limited to
[http://codereview.stackexchange.com/](http://codereview.stackexchange.com/)
and IRC).

From all your answer(s), I get the feeling that UI/UX designers tend not to
spend time for free because of one of three reasons:

1\. a quick design help cannot be done and the alternative is too much effort
to be justified

2\. if you have an MVP before you are taking design help - its already too
late

3\. You really dont want design help - you want platitudes

Let's say, for argument's sake, that I dont fall in any of these categories -
built a MVP, took it to market, started generating revenue already. But I
think I understand design (but am unskilled at it) and I can take a complete
trashing of my current work. However, for certain startup-survival reasons, I
need to make something incrementally better (both UI _and_ UX). It's not the
promised land, but just one teeny step towards it.

How can I frame my request for help to not piss you off, not waste too much of
your time and still not kill my startup ?

~~~
vitovito
Your second-to-last paragraph is a good framing, and your final question is a
good question.

It's also a good example of why quick design help is hard, because there is no
way for anyone _but you_ to know what would be incrementally better or not
_for your users_. All an outside designer can do is suggest things that might
be interesting to test. You still have to try them and measure the change over
time. A given designer has no specific knowledge about your market, and
something can be well-designed in general but still have a lot of potential
for market optimization.

( In fact, a colleague runs a service that is just that: he'll try something
new for you, every month. [https://draft.nu/revise/](https://draft.nu/revise/)
)

Since only you have the data on your MVP, start there. Put together your
customer lists. Make sure you understand their demographics and their usage
patterns and why they purchased and what they were considering instead. Make
sure you have ways to contact them for research interviews and if it's
possible to go on-site to see them use your product live. Document how your
competitors present and discuss their products.

Then, pick something. One small thing. A landing page. A particular form. A
headline. Copy for a Google Adwords ad. Something you can measure your current
performance on, and measure a change to afterwards. If you're not high-volume,
this might be harder to find than you think, but go through the exercise of
figuring out what you can collect enough data on now, and what can wait to
change until you can measure it later (or what you don't care about
measuring).

Then, you can take that one thing to a designer and say, "I'm looking to
experiment with different changes to <X>. What are some things you think might
be interesting to try? Anything goes."

You're not asking them to do any work. You're not asking them to stake their
reputation on the line. Your language ("experiment," "different changes
(plural)," "interesting," "try," "anything goes") all says you're willing to
respect their time and level of engagement and also that you're prepared to
handle their advice properly, that you're not looking for a silver bullet,
you're looking for all of the lead bullets.

Say you ask for help with a landing page. A designer might suggest some copy
or visual design tweaks for clarity (specific changes), but also suggest you
test different headlines (without providing any), and also changing your
format from short form to long form or vice versa (definitely without
providing any content to you, but maybe they would be interested enough to
sketch out some varied layouts). These are all great ideas. You should read up
on A/B testing and test all of them in isolation, and also all together. You
should test big dramatic changes even more frequently than you test small copy
changes, because you don't want to be stuck looking for a local maximum. A UX
person might also suggest ways to find out other things to test, research
questions to ask, and suggest books or other resources so you can collect that
data well.

A startup that came to office hours that well-prepared would basically almost
not need design help at all.

~~~
sandGorgon
This was hyper useful. Thanks!

