In an era where every company has its own app, UX design plays a vital role in representing the brand and building trust around the product. A well-designed app can accelerate your company’s growth, while a product with a poor user experience can ruin the company's image and lead to increased audience churn. To build an app that fulfills its mission and contributes to the company's success, you need a professional design team with the relevant experience, deep understanding of the subject and the right culture fit. Let's discuss a few key factors you should consider as a client before hiring a UX design team for your project.

When do you need a design team?

There may be different scenarios where clients might need a design team, and each of them comes with its own set of requirements. Building a complex software product demands a much higher level of skill and experience than creating a small app or a concise landing page, which means you should choose a design team aligned with your goals. Hiring the wrong kind of professionals may leave you with a poorly executed project and a wasted budget, so you need to clearly define the exact reason you need a design team before searching for options. 

  • You need an app built from scratch
    This is the most typical client scenario, when a company doesn't have an app yet and needs one to be built from scratch.

  • You need to integrate a new technology in your app
    With the rise of AI, VR/AR and agentic tools, lots of companies feel the need to enhance their users’ experience with one or a few of these technologies.

  • You need to rethink and redesign an existing app
    Since UX design requirements change and evolve very rapidly these days, every app needs a regular redesign or at least a thorough update to retain users and stay relevant.

  • You're already building a software product, but need assistance
    Sometimes when the project is too complex or time-consuming, companies often look for an additional team to the one that's already building the product, so they could assist each other and cooperate to launch the product faster.

Key factors to look for in a UX design team

  • Hard skills that your project specifically requires
    Relevant hard skills are the number one factor that determines whether a team can handle a project successfully. The best approach is to search for professionals who already have experience in designing a product of a similar nature to the one you need. A team without the relevant experience might fail to grasp peculiarities and nuances in your product's domain, even if they have strong general expertise. 

  • Strong portfolio
    Studying a team's portfolio is the most reliable way to check their experience and see whether their overall work style matches your expectations. For instance, if your product is fintech-related, ask the team to specifically demonstrate successful fintech apps they have built. Apart from that, portfolio and UX documentation can help you evaluate other factors like the team’s most common design solutions or the average time they take to finish a project.

  • Nice reviews from past clients
    There are still some things that a portfolio can't tell you – for example, if the team's soft skills match their hard skills, how they treat clients and resolve disagreements, if they are open for communication or if any issue might slow down the whole process. The only way to find that out is through their past clients' reviews. It is even better not just to read reviews online, but to have a personal conversation with someone who has worked with the team before. 

Common mistakes when choosing a UX design team

  • Choosing the wrong type of skills/experience
    As we've discussed, the right type of skills and experience is a key factor when choosing a design team. Hiring a team without a specific expertise your project requires can lead either to a poorly designed product with an off-key UX that fails to serve its purpose, or to a serious disagreement between you and the team. All of that can slow down the entire process and leave you with an unsatisfactory product and a wasted budget. It's crucial to choose carefully to prevent any mismatch, even if the team is highly experienced in general, but lacks certain skills in the specific area you need.  

  • Choosing the cheapest or the most expensive option
    Clients often opt for the cheapest option they can find, guided by a logical desire to save on design expenses. In reality, however, they often end up getting a design riddled with mistakes. Fixing those mistakes ultimately requires more money than they would have spent initially hiring a more expensive team. On the other hand, some clients believe that choosing the best option means choosing the most expensive one. This is also rarely true, as some companies inflate their prices while delivering a mediocre design. A strong portfolio and the right set of skills should define your choice of a design team first and foremost, regardless of how tight or flexible the budget is.  

  • Choosing too old-school or too innovative designers
    Working on UX design requires a solid understanding of current UX trends and tools, as they change rapidly in today's technological landscape. That's why hiring designers who stick to the old-school style might not be the best choice: even if they have extensive experience, a product designed by their vision might look outdated and lack the features that appeal to a modern audience. At the same time, an overly innovative design is not always a good idea either: some designers overload software products with unnecessary features or make the interface too complex for intuitive use. The best choice is to hire a designer who aims for a middle ground to  make the product both modern and easy to use.

Tips on how to prepare for a conversation with a UX team

  • Clearly define your request
    The exact type of UX service you need determines everything, from the type of team that will work best for you to calculating the time, budget and headcount required to built a product. Do you need an app built from scratch, or do you want to introduce a minor improvement into the existing one? Do you want to integrate a new feature, or is your product badly outdated and in need of a total redesign? 

  • Define the reason behind your request
    Beyond the specific request, it's crucial to explain why you believe the product needs these changes. Is it because you want the product to have a fresh, modern aesthetic, or are there deeper reasons like user churn and losing ground to competitors? Sharing your perspective helps the team choose the best UX strategy for your product and ensures the final design aligns closely with your vision – or, in some cases, allows them to offer an alternative approach that might work even better.

  • Make a list of your ideas
    Every client can envision how they would have designed the product if they were running the project. Write down your ideas in any format you like – there is no need to be overly specific. Just list everything that you want – and absolutely don't want – to see in the final product. This list will help the team clarify your true goals and determine which concepts are technically and strategically viable.

Conclusion

Choosing the right UX design team requires a strategic and thorough approach. Your decision will depend on the specifics of your project – such as task complexity, the required scope of work, and the level of expertise needed. A product crafted by the right professionals acts as a powerful communication tool with your users and drives business growth. Conversely, partnering with the wrong design team can result in drained budgets, delayed timelines, and a product that fails to serve your business goals. Avoiding pitfalls when choosing a design team depends on how well you prepare. By clearly defining your request, understanding your business goals, and preparing a list of ideas, you protect your budget and enable your chosen design team to deliver a truly successful product.