More than ever, companies are having to build digital solutions for the changing wants and needs of users. Whether this solution is a mobile application, e-commerce site, or corporate software, it needs to provide a meaningful user experience. Thus, an optimal UX design is vital for the success of your digital solution.
In order to tackle UX design needs, a company can take different approaches:
- Build an in-house UX design team
- Outsource UX design needs
- Hire a UX design freelancer
While each of these options has different advantages and disadvantages, outsourcing UX design has become a popular approach by companies of all sizes. The biggest reason for this popularity is the massive cost savings outsourcing brings. As a company, you save up on employee salaries, onboarding costs, insurance, retention, and training programs.
However, apart from being a cost-saving strategy, there are other reasons for the popularity of outsourcing UX design services. Let’s take a look at those other reasons.
1. Boost scalability
UX design workloads are bound to fluctuate throughout the year. When starting a new project, the workload will be high for UX designers. As time goes on, the workload usually decreases. This fluctuation makes it difficult to decide when to scale an internal team, or even if it is necessary to do so.
The great aspect of outsourcing is that you can scale up and down the size of your team as needed. This can be done in much shorter times than with an internal team or freelancers. Companies gain flexibility and increase scalability, which allows them to allocate their internal resources more efficiently.
2. Make the most of their expertise
The expertise needed for UX design is very vast. UX designers are constantly learning new skills due to constant innovation in the field. Necessary skills include user research, wireframing, prototyping, visual design, UX writing, interactive design, user empathy, user testing, and many more. A single UX designer, whether internal or freelancer, may not be sufficient to encompass all that is needed in a single project. Collaboration is also crucial for a successful UX design, as it merges expertise from different perspectives.
Outsourcing your UX design will bring more collaboration, expertise, and talent to the table. On top of that, given the nature of outsourcing, their team has probably already worked for a company in your industry. This brings a proven portfolio and experience which will impact positively your project. Having good UX design expertise from the start will set a solid foundation for your digital product’s future.
3. Keep up with new UX trends
UX design is constantly changing with new trends appearing every year. Some of them die down with time, but others are here to stay. With this in mind, UX designers and teams have to stay up to date with ongoing trends. It is not about overloading the design with every possible trend, but knowing if or when to use each of them. This makes the job even more time-consuming, as constant monitoring is needed.
Outsourcing allows companies to keep up with new UX trends, without investing as much time and money. Training in-house designers on these trends may not pay-off as the learning curve is steep and there is always the risk of them leaving the company with the gained expertise. By outsourcing your UX design, you will gain capable specialists that will deliver an intuitive and easy-to-use digital experience, according to useful new trends and usability principles.
4. Save time
Creating or scaling up an in-house UX team takes time. You will have to recruit, interview, test, onboard, train, and maintain them. This sounds fine if UX is your core business, but if not, it is a huge time investment. Hiring a UX design freelancer may reduce this time investment, but the risk of low commitment and missed deadlines may increase.
Working with an outsourcing company saves you time as you can scale up or down your team at any moment. On top of that, experienced UX specialists working solely on your project allow you to optimize your time to market, which is beneficial for businesses. You spend less time on administrative tasks that delay results.
5. Focus on your core business
One of the biggest reasons to outsource your UX design is that you can fully focus on your core business. Whatever your company’s size, your time is better spent focusing on innovating and growing. With outsourcing, you can rest assured that a team of experts will deliver great results by your product’s deadline.
The main goal of UX design is to deliver an exceptionally great user experience to your customers. This responsibility will fall on the outsourcing company, leaving you with the time to concentrate on your products or services, business strategies, and processes. Even reducing your time to market.
User experience is very valuable to your business and thus needs to be done right from the start. Although it is tempting to start your own internal UX team, it is very costly, time-consuming, and hard to do successfully. Outsourcing your UX design is a smart choice that allows you to focus on your business goals while delivering a great user experience in your digital products.