What Kind of UX/UI Designer Does Your Company Need?
A UX/UI Designer improving customer onboarding for a SaaS platform has different responsibilities from someone designing a mobile application or bringing consistency to a growing product's interface.
The right candidate depends on your product's maturity, the design problems you're trying to solve, and how much responsibility the person will have from research through development.
| UX/UI Design Focus |
Best For |
Primary Responsibilities |
| SaaS and Product Feature Design |
B2B SaaS companies, startups, and teams building dashboards, portals, and complex applications |
Mapping user flows, designing features, creating wireframes and interfaces, prototyping interactions, and collaborating with developers |
| Onboarding and Conversion UX |
Products experiencing user drop-off during signup, onboarding, checkout, or other important workflows |
Investigating usability problems, analyzing user behavior, simplifying interactions, designing improvements, and validating changes |
| Mobile and Cross-Platform Design |
Companies building iOS, Android, or responsive web applications |
Designing mobile journeys, navigation patterns, responsive layouts, interactive prototypes, and platform-appropriate interfaces |
| Design Systems and Product Consistency |
Growing businesses with multiple product features, inconsistent components, or expanding engineering teams |
Creating reusable Figma components, maintaining design standards, documenting interaction states, and improving designer-developer handoffs |
Some experienced UX/UI Designers can handle several of these responsibilities, particularly when they've worked across product discovery, interface design, and implementation.
However, the strongest fit comes from experience solving problems similar to those your customers encounter.
For example, a company building financial dashboards may need a designer who understands data-heavy interfaces, complex workflows, and information hierarchy.
An early-stage mobile application may benefit from someone experienced with user research, onboarding flows, mobile interaction patterns, and rapid prototyping.
Before hiring, identify which product experiences your designer will own, how much research they'll conduct, and who will make the final decisions about design direction.
How Should a Remote UX/UI Designer Fit Into Your Product Team?
A remote UX/UI Designer can work directly with Product Managers, developers, researchers, and business stakeholders to improve digital experiences.
The arrangement works best when your designer is involved throughout the product development process, with clear responsibilities for research, interaction design, interface execution, and engineering collaboration.
Define Design Ownership and Product Decision-Making
Your UX/UI Designer may be responsible for understanding user problems, designing workflows, creating interfaces, and validating proposed improvements.
However, the company should establish how these responsibilities interact with product strategy and engineering decisions.
For example, a SaaS business may want to redesign its account setup process.
The Product Manager defines the business objective and product requirements.
The UX/UI Designer investigates user difficulties, explores alternative flows, and develops an improved experience.
Frontend developers assess implementation requirements and build the approved design.
Establish who owns product requirements, user research, design decisions, technical feasibility, and final approval.
At a smaller company, an experienced designer may work directly with a founder and take responsibility for a broad range of design activities.
At a larger company, the UX/UI Designer may collaborate with dedicated researchers, product designers, design system specialists, and engineering teams.
Establish Research and Usability Testing Responsibilities
A UX/UI Designer should understand the people who use your product and the challenges they face.
That knowledge may come from customer interviews, usability tests, product analytics, support feedback, or existing research.
For example, a company may notice that many customers begin creating an account but abandon the process before completing setup.
Your designer can investigate the workflow, identify friction points, and develop potential improvements.
Before assigning responsibilities, establish expectations for:
- Research planning: Which user questions need to be answered before design begins.
- Customer access: How participants are recruited and who coordinates research.
- Usability testing: How proposed experiences are tested with representative users.
- Research documentation: How findings and design recommendations are recorded.
- Prioritization: Which usability problems deserve attention first.
- Validation: How the team determines whether an improvement addresses the original problem.
- Privacy: How customer information and research recordings are handled.
For example, if users struggle to understand a multi-step checkout process, a designer may test alternative labels, information grouping, or navigation patterns.
The findings can inform the final design before engineering begins implementation.
Give your UX/UI Designer access to relevant customer feedback and product information so design decisions are grounded in how people actually use your product.
When a company already has a UX Researcher, the designer can collaborate with that specialist to turn research findings into effective interfaces.
Coordinate Wireframes, Prototypes, and Interface Design
A combined UX/UI Designer should be comfortable moving between the structure of an experience and its final visual presentation.
For example, a team introducing a new reporting feature may begin with user flows and low-fidelity wireframes.
Once the workflow is understood, the designer can develop higher-fidelity interfaces, create prototypes, and refine the experience based on feedback.
Your company should define what constitutes a complete design deliverable.
Depending on the project, that may include:
- User flows and information architecture
- Low-fidelity wireframes
- High-fidelity interface designs
- Interactive prototypes
- Responsive layouts
- Design system components
- Loading, empty, error, and success states
- Accessibility considerations
- Implementation specifications and documentation
A complete interface design should account for the different situations users encounter, including incomplete information, validation errors, and unexpected system behavior.
For example, a dashboard may look polished when it contains realistic data, but customers also need to understand what happens when their account has no activity or an information request fails.
Your designer should be able to explain how these states affect the experience.
Establish Design Systems and Accessibility Standards
As a digital product grows, small inconsistencies can accumulate across different features.
Buttons may behave differently, forms may use conflicting labels, and spacing or typography may vary between screens.
A UX/UI Designer can help establish shared patterns that make the product easier to use and develop.
For example, a SaaS company may create reusable Figma components for form fields, navigation elements, tables, alerts, and modal dialogs.
Those components can support consistent designs across multiple features.
Your designer should coordinate with engineering to ensure the design system reflects the components actually used in production.
Accessibility should also be part of the design process.
Relevant considerations include:
- Readable text and appropriate color contrast
- Clear visual hierarchy
- Keyboard navigation and visible focus states
- Understandable form labels and error messages
- Responsive layouts and usable touch targets
- Support for screen-reader interactions through appropriate design specifications
- Consistent navigation and interaction behavior
For organizations working toward WCAG 2.2 AA, the designer should understand the relevant design responsibilities and collaborate with developers and accessibility specialists on implementation.
Prioritize candidates who can explain how accessibility and reusable design patterns influence their everyday decisions.
Create a Reliable Developer Handoff and Design Review Process
A design becomes valuable when customers can use the resulting product.
Your UX/UI Designer should work closely with engineers to ensure that the intended experience can be implemented effectively.
For example, a designer might propose a complex filtering interface for a data-heavy dashboard.
A developer may identify API limitations or performance constraints that affect how the interaction can work.
The designer and developer can then agree on an approach that meets the user requirements within the available technical scope.
Establish expectations for:
- Design specifications and component reuse
- Responsive behavior across relevant screen sizes
- Interactive states and error handling
- Design tokens and shared styles
- Feedback on technical feasibility
- Review of implemented interfaces
- Documentation of approved design changes
The designer should remain involved during implementation to answer questions, review the experience, and resolve gaps between the intended design and the finished product.
This helps the team maintain consistency as new features move into production.
Related Roles to Consider
Depending on your product's maturity and design needs, another specialist may be a better fit or a useful addition to your team.
- UX Designer: Best for companies that need deeper support with user flows, information architecture, interaction design, and usability improvements.
- UI Designer: A strong fit when the product's workflows are already defined and the main priority is improving visual interfaces, components, and design consistency.
- Product Designer: Appropriate when your company needs broader ownership of product discovery, feature design, experimentation, and outcomes throughout the product lifecycle.
- UX Researcher: Focuses on conducting interviews, usability studies, and other research activities that help teams understand user behavior and make informed decisions.
- Web Designer: More appropriate for companies primarily designing marketing websites, landing pages, and other brand-focused web experiences.
- Graphic Designer: Supports visual communication across branding, campaigns, presentations, advertising assets, and other creative materials.
- Front-End Developer: Implements interfaces through HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and frontend frameworks while collaborating with designers on usability and responsive behavior.
A UX/UI Designer is generally the strongest choice when your company needs one professional who can improve user experiences and produce polished, implementation-ready interfaces.
If your main challenge involves understanding user behavior through ongoing research, a UX Researcher may be more appropriate.
If the user flows are already established and the product needs consistent visual execution, a UI Designer may provide more specialized support.
For a broader comparison, see South's Graphic Designer vs. UX/UI Designer guide.
South can help you identify professionals across these roles based on your product, design maturity, and hiring priorities.
How to Evaluate UX/UI Designer Candidates
A candidate may have an impressive portfolio filled with polished Figma screens.
Those examples provide useful context, but the most valuable evidence comes from how they understand user problems, make design decisions, validate their ideas, and collaborate with engineers.
A realistic assessment can help reveal those abilities.
Consider giving shortlisted candidates this scenario:
Your B2B SaaS platform helps small businesses manage customers and appointments. New users must complete a five-step onboarding process before accessing their dashboard.
Product analytics show that many users abandon onboarding before connecting their calendar. Customer support also reports confusion about account permissions, while the interface uses inconsistent form styles and error messages.
Your team wants to improve onboarding without committing to a complete product redesign. How would you investigate the problems, propose improvements, and prepare the designs for development?
Provide a simplified onboarding flow, representative interface screenshots, fictional user feedback, and a few basic funnel metrics.
Ask candidates to explain what they would investigate first, which design changes they would consider, and how they'd validate their ideas.
Use the following evaluation scorecard:
| Evaluation Area |
What Strong Candidates Demonstrate |
| User Research and Problem Definition |
They identify relevant user questions, interpret available evidence, plan appropriate research, and distinguish observations from assumptions. |
| UX and Interaction Design |
They create understandable flows, organize information logically, consider edge cases, and explain how the experience supports user goals. |
| UI Craft and Design Systems |
They apply clear visual hierarchy, typography, spacing, responsive patterns, accessible design, and reusable Figma components. |
| Usability Testing and Product Judgment |
They propose practical validation methods, respond to research findings, and identify useful measures of design effectiveness. |
| Engineering Collaboration and Communication |
They explain decisions clearly, consider technical constraints, prepare usable handoffs, and collaborate effectively with product and engineering teams. |
Pay particular attention to how candidates investigate the underlying user problem before selecting a design solution.
For example, onboarding abandonment may result from confusing instructions, unnecessary steps, unclear permissions, technical errors, or a mismatch between what customers expect and what the product provides.
A strong designer should explain how they'd distinguish these causes.
They should also consider the available development capacity.
If the team can improve only one part of the workflow during the next sprint, the candidate should explain how they'd prioritize changes based on evidence and expected impact.
For the UI portion, ask candidates to demonstrate how they would create a reusable form component with appropriate validation, loading, disabled, and error states.
Their Figma skills should support a consistent experience across the product.
For senior candidates, request a walkthrough of a shipped design project.
Ask them to explain the original problem, the research they used, the decisions they personally made, the trade-offs they encountered, and what happened after launch.
The objective is to determine whether the candidate can connect user needs, product requirements, interface design, and technical implementation.
If a practical assignment requires substantial original design work, use a compensated exercise with a reasonable scope.
What Should a UX/UI Designer Accomplish in the First 90 Days?
The first three months should demonstrate whether your new UX/UI Designer understands your product, can work effectively with developers, and contributes to clearer, more usable customer experiences.
First 30 Days: Understand the Product and Its Users
Your new hire should become familiar with your product, target customers, current design system, roadmap, and development process.
They should review available research, product analytics, customer feedback, and existing design files.
A useful first milestone is completing a focused review of an assigned product workflow and proposing a manageable improvement.
That might involve clarifying a form, improving an empty state, updating a reusable component, or resolving a usability issue identified by customer support.
The priority is understanding the product and demonstrating sound UX/UI judgment.
Days 31–60: Take Ownership of a Complete Design Assignment
By the second month, the designer should begin managing a more substantial feature or experience improvement.
That may involve conducting focused research, mapping the current user journey, producing wireframes, developing high-fidelity interfaces, and validating the proposed changes.
They should also work closely with engineers to assess feasibility and prepare designs for implementation.
For example, a designer may take ownership of simplifying a customer onboarding workflow and updating the related components in Figma.
The objective is consistent, evidence-informed design work that can move through the product development process.
Days 61–90: Demonstrate Measurable Design Value
By the third month, your UX/UI Designer should be contributing regularly to product improvements and taking responsibility for agreed design deliverables.
Useful performance indicators include:
- Completion of assigned design work against agreed requirements
- Findings from usability testing and their influence on design decisions
- Task success rates for targeted workflows
- Changes in task completion time or user-reported difficulty
- Improvement in targeted onboarding or feature adoption metrics
- Quality and completeness of developer handoffs
- Number of recurring implementation questions caused by missing specifications
- Reuse of approved design system components
- Accessibility issues identified and addressed
- Collaboration with product, engineering, and customer-facing teams
Evaluate these outcomes against a baseline and consider the factors outside the designer's control.
For example, a product's conversion rate may also depend on pricing, customer expectations, traffic sources, and technical performance.
The designer's contribution should be assessed through the quality of the research, the design decisions, implementation readiness, and the observed user experience.
A successful first 90 days should establish dependable design ownership, stronger collaboration with engineering, and measurable progress on important product experiences.
How South Helped a Software Startup Hire a UX/UI Designer for $2,000 per Month
A software startup serving personal care and healthcare businesses needed a designer to improve the user experience of its digital products.
The company's software supported operational processes and customer experiences for businesses such as barbershops, cosmetologists, medical clinics, and spas.
Its product team needed someone who could create understandable workflows and interfaces while contributing independent design recommendations.
The Hire
South helped the startup hire Juan, a UX Designer from Argentina, for $2,000 per month.
The search emphasized:
- At least two years of UX/UI design experience
- A strong portfolio of relevant design projects
- Proficiency with Figma and other design tools
- Independent problem-solving skills
- The ability to explain design decisions clearly
- Experience creating user-friendly product interfaces
Juan brought experience across graphic design, creative leadership, and UX/UI design.
His background included visual storytelling, brand development, design team leadership, and digital experience improvements.
The Responsibilities
The position focused on improving the startup's software experience.
Juan's responsibilities included:
- Creating wireframes, interactive prototypes, and high-fidelity designs in Figma
- Conducting user research and evaluating customer feedback
- Developing design recommendations based on research and analysis
- Working independently on product design assignments
- Improving the overall usability of the company's software
The documented results included:
- Role: UX Designer with UX/UI responsibilities
- Location: Argentina
- Monthly compensation: $2,000
- Product environment: Software serving personal care and healthcare businesses
- Primary objective: Improving product interfaces and user experience
The published case study confirms the hire and the responsibilities involved. It doesn't provide a hiring timeline or quantified usability improvements after the placement.
Why this matters: The startup needed someone who could understand its customers, improve existing software interfaces, and communicate design recommendations independently.
South identified a professional whose background combined visual design experience with UX/UI capabilities.
This is a directly relevant UX/UI design placement, making it a strong example for companies considering South for similar product design positions.
Hire a UX/UI Designer in Latin America With South
An intuitive product helps customers understand what to do, complete important tasks, and feel confident using your software.
As your product grows, a dedicated UX/UI Designer can help your team improve customer journeys, maintain consistent interfaces, and turn feature requirements into experiences that work for real users.
South helps U.S. companies hire full-time, pre-vetted UX/UI Designers from Latin America, matched to their product experience, portfolio quality, research capabilities, Figma expertise, and expected level of ownership.
Whether you need someone improving SaaS onboarding, designing mobile experiences, developing user flows, creating reusable design systems, or preparing features for engineering, we can help you identify professionals with relevant experience.
You'll benefit from overlapping U.S. working hours, English-screened candidates, one consolidated monthly invoice, no minimum commitments, and a free replacement if the hire doesn't work out.
Schedule a call with South to find a UX/UI Designer who fits your product team's requirements and hiring budget.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
Should I Hire a UX/UI Designer or a Product Designer?
A UX/UI Designer is generally a strong fit when your company needs someone to design user flows, interfaces, prototypes, and usable digital experiences.
A Product Designer may be more appropriate when the position involves broader product discovery, problem prioritization, experimentation, and ongoing responsibility for product outcomes.
The titles often overlap, particularly at startups.
Choose according to the responsibilities the professional will own rather than the job title alone.
Should I Hire One UX/UI Designer or Separate UX and UI Specialists?
A combined UX/UI Designer can be a practical choice when your company needs consistent design support across research, workflows, wireframes, and interface development.
As your product and design workload grow, you may benefit from separate UX and UI specialists with deeper expertise.
The decision depends on the complexity of the product, research demands, design system maturity, and the volume of ongoing work.
Does a UX/UI Designer Need User Research Experience?
Research experience is valuable when the designer will investigate customer problems, test concepts, or improve existing workflows.
A strong candidate should understand methods such as interviews, usability testing, and analysis of customer feedback.
However, the depth of research expertise required depends on your team.
Companies with dedicated UX Researchers may need designers who can interpret findings and use them effectively rather than lead every study.
Should a UX/UI Designer Know How to Code?
Coding is usually optional for UX/UI positions.
Understanding basic HTML, CSS, responsive layouts, and frontend development constraints can make engineering collaboration easier.
However, designing intuitive experiences, applying strong visual principles, and preparing usable developer handoffs are generally more important.
If the position requires implementation in React, Webflow, or another development environment, define those responsibilities explicitly.
Does a UX/UI Designer Need Advanced Figma Skills?
Figma experience is particularly important for companies that use it as their main interface design platform.
Candidates should be comfortable creating wireframes, interactive prototypes, components, variants, and responsive designs.
For growing products, experience maintaining design libraries and collaborating with developers through Figma can also be valuable.
Evaluate how candidates organize and communicate their designs, alongside their ability to use the software.
Should I Hire a Junior, Mid-Level, or Senior UX/UI Designer?
Junior designers are generally suited to defined interface tasks, wireframes, component updates, and smaller research activities with appropriate supervision.
Mid-level designers can independently manage features and workflows, create prototypes, conduct focused usability testing, and collaborate with engineering.
Senior UX/UI Designers may be more appropriate for complex user journeys, ambiguous product problems, design systems, research planning, and design leadership.
Choose seniority based on your product's complexity and the independence your team expects.
Can a UX/UI Designer Improve Product Conversion Rates?
Yes. A UX/UI Designer can investigate and improve the usability of important experiences such as signup, onboarding, checkout, and plan upgrades.
They may use research, analytics, prototypes, and usability testing to identify friction points and recommend changes.
However, conversion rates also depend on factors such as product value, pricing, audience expectations, and technical performance.
Evaluate the impact using appropriate baselines and measurable changes in user behavior.
Can a UX/UI Designer Build and Maintain a Design System?
Yes. Experienced UX/UI Designers can create and maintain component libraries, interaction patterns, typography, spacing systems, and other reusable design standards.
They may also document the intended behavior of shared components.
For a design system used in production, close collaboration with frontend developers is important to keep Figma components aligned with implemented interfaces.
What Accessibility Experience Should a UX/UI Designer Have?
Relevant experience includes designing appropriate color contrast, readable text, understandable form labels, visible focus states, responsive layouts, and clear error messages.
Candidates should also understand how design choices affect keyboard and screen-reader experiences.
For products with specific accessibility requirements, prioritize familiarity with the applicable WCAG guidelines and experience collaborating with engineers on implementation.
Can a UX/UI Designer Work on Both Mobile and Web Applications?
Yes. Many UX/UI Designers have experience working across mobile and web products.
However, the platforms have different navigation patterns, interaction conventions, and technical constraints.
For a mobile-heavy position, prioritize candidates with relevant iOS and Android design experience.
For complex web software, experience with responsive layouts, dashboards, forms, and browser-based workflows may be more important.
How Should I Evaluate a UX/UI Designer's Portfolio?
Ask the candidate to walk through a shipped project and explain the problem, target users, research, design decisions, and results.
Clarify which parts they personally owned and how they worked with other designers, developers, and product managers.
Look for evidence of usability thinking, visual consistency, accessibility, and the ability to revise designs based on feedback.
Portfolios that explain the reasoning behind design decisions are particularly useful for evaluating real product experience.
Can a Remote UX/UI Designer Work With Our U.S. Product Team?
Yes. Remote UX/UI Designers can participate in product planning, research discussions, design critiques, Figma collaboration, engineering handoffs, and usability reviews.
Overlapping working hours can help designers receive feedback and resolve implementation questions during the same working day.
Your company should provide access to the relevant product information, design files, research, communication tools, and engineering workflows.
What Information Should I Prepare Before Hiring Through South?
Start with your product type, current design challenges, existing team structure, and the work your new designer will own.
You should also identify whether the role emphasizes UX research, UI execution, design systems, mobile experiences, or end-to-end feature design.
Include your preferred tools, expected seniority, industry requirements, and the level of collaboration needed with product and engineering.
South can use these requirements to identify candidates whose design experience matches your product team's priorities.
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