Ask HN: How to Hire a Designer from Dribble?

[justboxing]

I'm a full-stack engineer, recently built and soft-launched my side-project, but been told by several people that UI needs work.

I went to dribble and used their search * to locate designers that "Are for Hire". But the first few I found appear to be more like Agencies, most of which don't take on a single site or app like mine, and also costs 5 to 10K min.

I want to hire an individual developer so that costs are low (I'm bootstrapped) and also I have a chance of bringing in the designer as a co-founder if things work out.

Anyone have experience with this? i.e. locating and hiring an individual designer from Dribble? How did you go about it? How did you vet them? Were you happy with your results? Costs?

[P.S. If you are a designer and would like to know more, please contact me theblogdoctor (at) gmail. ]

I'm based in San Francisco and this is the site that needs work => http://visaok.in

* Search Page I used: https://dribbble.com/designers?twitter=&dribbble=&sort=popular&for_hire=on&location=&skills=

(I understand they have a job board I can post in, but would like to avoid the 375$ for 30 days costs, as I am bootstrapped and would like to use their search page to find designers if possible :)

[owens99]

The UI of your project does NOT need work IMO. It looks great, functional, and you should be able to bring lot's of revenue in with the current design (assuming the site solves a problem). Your time will probably be better spent doing marketing, user testing and customer interviews.

[pedalpete → owens99]

I agree it is pretty good. I wouldn't spend too much on a designer. What you may be able to do is find students who are trying to get some stuff in their portfolio and contract to them.

You don't need a lot of work, and if I were you, I'd approach it as a learning experience for both of you. You get to learn what it is like to work with a designer, what they need for future projects, what works, and what doesn't. They get some money and a working app in their portfolio.

Your site is nice and clean, easy to understand. But you'd be amazed at what a few tweaks to spacing, font, etc can do to the experience.

I'm not saying it needs to be done. I'm not saying it doesn't. If you decide you want to spruce it up, I think you'll see some benefit, but it may be quite small.

I had the ugliest site on the web back in the day, the comments from people were that the app was amazing, but the UX was aweful. I found a designer on 99 designs (or something like that). He had just started designing. We got on quite well. In a day he had improved my site by a huge margin, and within a few weeks it was on TechCrunch. I put that down to the design changes. It made the whole thing seem more real.

This was just my experience, your mileage may vary.

[adventurer → owens99]

The homepage needs some work. A change/removal to the flags and maybe just a smaller font size. The job results look fine, though. I definitely wouldn't pay someone over a few thousand dollars.

[drinchev → owens99]

Came here to write that. Not a business adviser or anything, but really think design / usability are good.

[justboxing → owens99]

Thank you & others who've reviewed the UI. I appreciate everyone's feedback!!!

I'm glad I asked here. I'll get to work on Marketing and user testing and report back here in a few weeks!

-Shiva

[vortico → owens99]

I agree. Any perturbation away from the current design will make the usability worse, unless the designer is really careful about it and doesn't blindly follow modern web design trends.

[didgeoridoo]

Those people are wrong. Your UI is perfectly serviceable and does not need work at this stage. Do not waste your money on polishing the very decent UI you have — it's unlikely to move the needle compared to other efforts like sales & marketing.

Source: I'm a designer.

[justboxing → didgeoridoo]

Thank you. Coming from a designer this is comforting :)

[franciscop]

Quick tips:

- Icon in the nav should be 2x the final size and scaled down for high resolutions screens. If possible use SVG as that will scale ad infinitum.

- The search appears broken in Firefox, the culprit seems to be the "v" (down arrow). For testing several browsers I recommend https://www.browserstack.com/

- You are missing the "Apply now" inside each individual job, which is IMO the best place to put it.

- I would make the country flags a bit smaller. Maybe put them side by side in a continuous way in a more compact way.

Otherwise, as others said, it looks perfectly fine for a launch. And it also seems like a really useful service.

[justboxing → franciscop]

Thank you so much. I'll get to work on this.

[seales]

Congratulations on shipping! I rather like the UI.

Few quick thoughts

1. I don't like navigating back to the main page to search

* Example: http://imgur.com/XuZSrSR (no search bar here)

2. If a field is not populated, consider not displaying it

* Example: http://imgur.com/9b6UIUv

3. Some pages don't go anywhere meaningful

* http://visaok.in/press

* Sign in / register

* http://visaok.in/not_a_real_page (=> http://imgur.com/Qhue840)

4. Search doesn't handle some input; I get an error page

* Example: http://visaok.in/jobs/search?q=%3Ch1%3Etest%3C%2Fh1%3E

[justboxing → seales]

Thank you so much for testing this and providing screenshots. I was going to reply after fixing everything, but it's taking longer than I thought.

I've fixed 2 of the above. Doing a deploy tomorrow morning...

[brogrammernot]

You have essentially a listing site for Visa friendly jobs.

Your UI/UX is fine.

Similar website to yours - Craigslist.com and their UI is awful.

Focus on how you'll make money, how you can improve the product offering and other things people suggested.

[ninohanif]

I don't know how to hire designers from Dribbble, but I would like to suggest you few things. But first, your UI is not okay, you need to fix them.

1. On copywriting: I don't understand your copywriting, for example: "Top Visa Sponsor Countries", "74 Jobs United States". Hmmm, what? Also, I don't understand some words, like: "sought-after" without dictionary (this is my third language). Remember, when you're writing, any words that you have to see from dictionary is the wrong words.

2. On typography: grey text on white background is pretty, but hard to read. Why do you write them? Right, for people to read. Imagine how painful it is for people with color blind or low vision. And pay attention to hierarchy.

3. On elements: we like to see something that looks neat. Remember: 1) Order and balance. If you use padding top 1em, it's better if you also use padding bottom 1em. 2) Space and group. Orange and apple should be in the same group. Dog and cat. Then, add space to tell people that they're not the same group: fruit and animal. Visit learndesignprinciples.com for quick read.

4. On icons: why Facebook, Twitter, G+, and YouTube at the top? But why LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube at the bottom? Why without text and with text? Remember consistency. Oh, and why hamburger menu? It's not like the cart icon that people already understand without copy.

5. On color: looks like you use three colors for link. Hmmm? Blue, black, and grey. Why? I suggest just blue. Remember, consistency. Why blue and red buttons? Lastly, don't rely on colors, remember color blind and low vision.

Well, I can write more if you want, but I think you understand. And yes, don't spend too much money for designers. Even Buffett doesn't like to spend money to hire designer (berkshirehathaway.com). Here's my suggestions:

1. Learn design, for fun. Because why not. I am self-taught designer. It's easier to learn design than programming. I am currently learning JavaScript, and it's hard. Design is not that hard.

2. If you want a quick solutions: visit some wonderful websites. Then, you take the most wonderful elements (header, button, footer, etc.), combine them to your project.

For more: where to read? NNGroup, UIE, Usability Post, etc. People? Jakob Nielsen, Jared Spool, Don Norman, etc.

[sixQuarks]

I agree with the others, the usability is fine the way it is, I like that it's not cluttered, and it's easy to browse around.

What you really need is a good copywriter. Someone who will ask you the right questions to find out who your users are, what their pain-points and needs are, and then create copy that will pique their interest and guide them on what they should do on your site.

That will be much better money spent.

[justboxing → sixQuarks]

Thank you. I'm planning to do blog posts and maybe youtube "explainer" videos on how to apply for and get various work visas.

[miranda_rights → justboxing]

That would be amazing! I'm personally trying to figure out the EU visa process and keep getting lost trying to understand the most viable way to get a job/visa. I'm definitely going to keep your site bookmarked!

[tmaly]

I have not tried Dribble, but I have had experience hiring designers to help me with UI.

I went through trying to outsource overseas, to using Fiverr. None of this produced good results for me as most of the people I tried could not follow a specification.

I reached out to one of the main contributors of the open source SaSS framework I was using. He agreed to do the work for me for a fixed budget. He was a bit more expensive per hour than the other options, but I got exactly what I wanted. I did not have to go back and forth regarding my specification. If you value your time to market, I would recommend this route.

[OoTheNigerian]

Finally, I get to be an "expert" on Hacker News :).

I have hired a number of great designers from dribbble some of which went on to work in places like Apple.

First step: Get Dribbble pro for $25. It'd worth it.

Step 2: first search for designers based on a similar project. In my 1st case I used keywords like "music" "Spotify" "player" etc. In yours, you can use "classifieds", "Craigslist" "Job Board" etc. People would charge lower if they are doing similar stuff they've done before, or have sampled similar ideas.

Step 3: Based on budget, filter for

A. Designers from everywhere apart from US and UK. For. Skills, people have to charge based on their living expenses and based on what they can get in their vicinity.

B. Solo Designers Available for work

South Africa, Some of Western and Eastern Europe (Holland, Belgium, Poland, Romania etc) have an abundance of great affordable designers.

Step 3: Open up a spreadsheet for up to 30 designers with style you like and put up their names and email addresses. Follow. Them so you know who you've contacted.

Step 4: Sent out individual messages. Some have their emails listed. Some you need to contact via Dribbble.

The email has to be brief an to the point. People.

My email was like this.

-- Subject : Are you available for Freelance

Message: Hi Name.

Great work on Dribbble. Are you available for freelance? What's your rate? I have a well detailed out project that would need design help.

I hope to hear from you.

(you can add, that you're a developer so working with you will be straightforward)

--

Quotes are high because people budget for project creep. Being clear can reduce your budget by 30%.

Step 5: Based on response rate (expect ~50%) filter out. Thank those who are beyond your budget. Sometimes they ask for the progect scope and their total may be lower. For me, I focused on people that charged max of $40/hour. I usually negotiate by showing all the wire framed pages to be designed and getting my quote.

Step 6 : Rinse and Repeat until you get what you're looking for.

Note: Your site looks very good especially as a v1. Focus on traction first. Like others have said you "maybe" need some UX work.

I'm not a designer and do product for my startup and usually do the recruiting. Feel free to contact me. (email in profile)

PS: Put your website on this thread so people can check it out.

[justboxing → OoTheNigerian]

Wow, thanks for the details steps. I learnt a lot from your reply.

I got a lot of response in my inbox from designers, all with stellar portfolios! I'm making the fixes and tweaks some have suggested in this thread, and will likely hire a designer in a few weeks after I do some marketing and sales...

Here's the site: http://visaok.in/

[shark1]

I really liked your website. I also think you don't need to redesign for a while.

[meerab]

Visually, the middle content looks too bold and over the top compared with header and footer. But the UI looks intuitive. Can you share what technology stack you used (backend and frontend) to build it?

[snowc0de]

I think the UI is fine, but the UX could use some work.

[symfony_]

Design looks fine to me. Got an error after clicking on 'C#' on the homepage, might want to look into that? :)

[pan69]

You do not need a "better" design. Visually it looks just fine. Focus on the functionality and marketing instead.

[dabber]

Have you looked on UpWork?

I don't have any experience hiring there but it may be worth a shot.

[ng12]

Why Dribbble? Sites like Upwork seem better suited for your needs.

[pololee]

you mean dribbble :)

[justboxing → pololee]

Yes. Just noticed the extra b.

"Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteers be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe."

[kermittd → justboxing]

Hmmm