Ask HN: Recommendation for a good UI/UX expert?

[richesh]

We are an Atlanta based startup looking for an UI/UX expert to help us build for our Beta. We are self-funded and have the budget allocated for this work.

After hours of looking on the web, the one thing I've realized is that for this type of work you really need someone who comes with recommendations. So I turn to you guys for help.

Thanks!

EDIT: We are an angel-funded startup, building a web-based research aggregation tool. We have a budget of up to $5000. We are looking for someone to help come up with a clean design, branding, and layout. We have 4 unique pages, and a bookmarklet that needs the creative touch. We are implementing using the JEE stack (Struts2, JSPs, etc.), and have been using Blueprint CSS for layout.

EDIT AGAIN: We have 3 developers on staff, we have been able to come up with a basic site layout, color scheme, and know how to wire it up. What we want is someone to give us a new logo, CSS, header, footer, graphics for certain controls on the page, and maybe if they have a better idea on how to present certain data (but this isn't as important).

[alaskamiller]

Should leave your email or contact info.

Also, good UI/UX experts would already be busy with ongoing projects, your solicitation barely registers anything on an excitement scale. Should divulge a bit more info about your project, or industry, or what you want to do.

[tptacek → alaskamiller]

There are thousands of competant UI people who will do a small site for $5k. Most of them don't care about your industry or your excitement scale. On the flip side of that, your product probably needs to be pretty f'ing awesome to get Firewheel to do it for $5k.

[richesh → alaskamiller]

Thanks for the advice, I updated the post.

[tptacek]

I'd say Blue Flavor --- http://www.blueflavor.com --- they wrote Blueprint. I liked them a lot; excellent consultants. They may be out of your price range though. For the shops that you've heard of, for projects that include IA and UX in addition to pushing pixels, a small project falls in the 10-20 range.

It does not sound like you want UX --- it sounds like you want a designer. If you just want to look nice, that's a $1500-$4000 project. My advice, based on our experience: post to Craigslist and compare portfolios.

[boucher]

The best way to find a designer is find something you personally think is beautiful and well designed (or, if you think you have no taste, substitute your opinion for someone's you trust).

Contact those people and try to convince them to work with you. Be prepared to spend a lot (which is going to be worth it if they're good).

[luchandy]

Amy Hoy. She's amazing. She made twistori and Color Wars among other things. She's spoken at lots of conferences, so you can see her thoughts about UI right out in the open via her slides. Aside from knowing UX/UI, she seems to be an accomplished hands-on Ruby programmer, Javascript programmer, and graphic designer. http://www.slash7.com

[luxstyle]

Are you looking for a designer or a developer? UI folks like myself tend to come in 2 flavors. One is skilled at the wireframes, architecture and look and feel and can do pretty mockups and prototypes. The other is a programmer whom is familiar with the latest AJAX, JSPs etc and implements the design created by the former person.

Also if the company is important to you as it should be you might want to hire someone familiar with branding to do your branding. Having a UI person do your branding is like having a programmer do your UI. They might know a bit about it but are definitely not the expert.

Lastly, if you're looking for someone with recommendations but don't know anyone personally try linkedin.com. Check out some profiles, look at their recommendations and check out their website. You can see my profile as a starting point.

,Jose Benavides

[tptacek → luxstyle]

Jose --- from what I can tell, there are in fact 3 categories:

(1) The look/feel designers

(2) The UX/IA people who spend most of their time in wireframe

(3) The "developers" who hook things up and get things running.

The difference between (1) and (2) is pretty huge. I've been disappointed on projects that needed strong look/feel but got mostly IA/UX. Here's more advice to readers: you're going to feel like you're "supposed" to want IA and UX. Fuck that. If you want to look cool, clearly communicate that that's what you want.

[luxstyle → tptacek]

1 and 2 can be separate, but there are a lot of people whom can do both well. That's not to say that there aren't also a lot of people whom are horrible at one and great at the other. the "look/feel" designers are more of graphic artists then UX/UI people. A good team should be composed of people from each of the 3 elements you described.

No matter whom you decide to go with look at the portfolio first. I can't emphasize this enough. If you don't like what they've done before then chances are you won't like what they'll do for you. If you want a "cool flashy site" find a person that builds great "cool flashy sites". Don't go for the person that loves minimalism.

Whenever I build a UI team I look at the portfolio first. If I like what I see then I look at the credentials and where they've worked. Otherwise I pass.

Richesh, From reading your updates it sounds like you want a graphic designer and not a UI designer. If you have a structure and layout that you like and just need someone to make shiny buttons and give you a good color palette then a graphic designer is what you're looking for.

[richesh → luxstyle]

I'm looking for the "look & feel" designer. We have 3 developers on staff, we have come up with basic site layout, and color scheme but we need to make it easy on the eyes and "attractive".

[tptacek → richesh]

You don't want UX/IA. Putting UX in this request will add several thousand dollars to the project cost and probably diminish the value of the deliverable.

[boredguy8]

"web-based research aggregation tool"

I personally know of at least two other in-the-works tools like this. I'm interested to see what the competitive space looks like for this market in the next 6-18 months.

[richesh → boredguy8]

which two are you thinking of?

[boredguy8 → richesh]

"two other in-the-works tools". Sorry.

And I should have said "That fit this description". I have no idea if they're like your solution.

[guy_davis]

Kaaren Schulz at Practical Usability (http://www.practicalusability.com/)

Disclaimer: She's my cousin. :)

[izak30]

I have a guy.

He did the UX for our CMS, and has just quit his day job to do Freelancing full time (and work for Servee)

Check out http://demo.servee.com for some UX work and http://kkellydesign.com for general Design

(also highlandpr.com/portfolio for branding work)

[izak30 → izak30]

wow. downmodded for answering his question.

[nextmoveone]

Hey man I need to find a good one too. Too bad Tony Wright isnt for hire!

[swombat]

I hear the guy who does Apple's products is pretty good.