A user experience (UX) Specialist is in charge of all aspects of qualitative and quantitative user experience research, including setting up, running, and reporting. The UX Specialist’s mission is to understand Institute clients better and deliver findings that can be used to take action.

To develop solutions, UX Specialists collaborate with marketing, product management, and development leaders. They assist in establishing and documenting the user experience vision and acting as a client advocate to ensure the highest level of usability, desirability, and client satisfaction. It is accomplished by creating and delivering compelling studies that bring the client’s voice to life. They use their broad knowledge of user experience and methodological expertise to design and execute usability studies and other user research.

The UX Specialist will conduct user testing and other user-facing activities as the project progresses to validate the design, interaction, and content.

This position requires users to be user-centered, analytical, and have excellent verbal and written communication skills. To share information and collaborate on solutions, UX Specialists must also work in a team environment.

Analytical Thinking: 

• An analytical thinker can simplify undefined problems and raw data into specific components, identifying the issues at hand.  
• He can make logical conclusions, anticipate obstacles, weigh the pros and cons of various approaches to decision-making.

Communicates for Results: 

• The UX specialist expresses technical and business opinions, concepts, feelings, and ideas in writing and makes conclusions. 
• Listens intently and uses human body language and tone to reinforce words.

Customer Service Orientation: 

• Customer service-oriented individuals identify internal and external clients’ continuing needs.
•  Assures are met or exceeded.

Influencing Others: 

• Persuasively communicates ideas or positions. 
• While maintaining company objectives, develops counter-arguments, and provides compromises.
•  In the face of dispute, maintains assertiveness and makes agreements that enhance mutual interests and maximize commitment.

Collaboration: 

• Works with others in official and informal groupings to achieve joint missions, visions, values, and goals. 
• Places the interests and priorities of the team ahead of personal needs and includes others in decision-making that affects them. 
• Makes use of colleagues’ skills and acknowledges others’ efforts and accomplishments.

Learning Openness: 

• Assumes personal responsibility for personal development and develops strategies for acquiring new knowledge, habits, and abilities. 
• Builds on and utilizes current knowledge and seeks out further information from both inside and outside the company. 
• To learn from work tasks, he tries new ways and broadens his field of work.
•  Anticipates, recognizes, and defines problems to solve them, looks for the source of the problem. Creates and implements timely and practical solutions.

Information Gathering and Analysis: 

• Collects and analyses information or data on current and future best practice trends. 
• Seeks information on issues affecting the progress of organizational and process challenges and converts current information into performance-enhancing continuous improvement actions.

How to bill for UX works

There are three major approaches for independent UX designers and creative contractors or agencies to charge for a project:

1. Hourly: In the hourly ratings, you charge a fixed fee per hour or per day depending on the task you or your employees are performing; you may have varying prices depending on the nature of the project.
2. Retainer: In the retainer kind of billing, you have an established relationship with the client and are paid regularly a set sum per period (usually a month) to offer specific services or agreed-upon activities.
3. Fixed project fee: In this case, you already have a detailed and scoped project estimate. You’re going to charge an amount for the entire project, regardless of how long it takes or how many hours it takes.

The best billing method, however, is that which is most Goal-Oriented?

There’s a misconception that those who charge hourly are not goal-oriented and exchange settings for their time, complete tasks, and turn in timesheets. None of this is true: no matter how you bill, any unpleasant aspect of a project can make you feel like a hamster on a wheel.

It would be best if you kept your goal in mind regardless of how you bill. Each project should have clear goals, objectives, key results (OKRs), initiatives, and KPIs (KPIs). Projects may have specific, measurable objectives.” Projects can also have non-quantitative goals, such as inventing something that puts us ahead of our competition and has everyone talking about us.

Another myth is that those paid a percentage of the profits from their input are more goal-oriented, while the rest are unconcerned about whether or not the project succeeds. Any good UX or creative professional is invested in the project. On the other hand, caring does not necessitate being compensated in the form of commissions, which represents an indefinite quantity of money in a possible future.

How to invoice for UX work?

When trying to design clean-looking bills that are paid on time, there are a few basic procedures to follow:

1. Create an invoice structure

Take some time to figure out the structure of your invoice template before you start designing it. You’ll want to make it fit within an 8.5 x 11 page’s typical margins. Although most of your clients will leave your invoices in digital format, you’ll want to make it as simple as possible for any clients who prefer to print the documents you give them. Make room on your invoice for all relevant facts, such as a header, contact information for your clients, an itemized summary of your services, and payment terms and deadlines.

2. Don’t Forget to Mention Your Brand and Style

Invoices are more than simply business paperwork; they’re an opportunity to show off your company’s personality and professionalism. It is especially crucial if you work in a design-related field, such as graphic design or web design, but small businesses, in general, should have consistent professional branding. If you already have a business website or business cards, you may want to match your invoice’s typefaces, logos, and colors to your other marketing materials.

3. Make the data readable and understandable

The most crucial aspect of your invoice design is that it allows clients to receive all of the information they need to prepare for your payment fast and conveniently. The capacity to read is crucial. Consider creating a simple grid with separate columns for each piece of information for your itemized descriptions. Colour may assist draw attention to the essential information in a grid.

4. Make sure there’s enough room for descriptions.

If you opt to use a grid to organize your services on your invoice, you may want to add more rows for service descriptions, especially if the job you do for clients is sophisticated and requires more detailed explanations.

5. Draw attention to deadlines and payment totals.

Two of the most crucial pieces of information you’ll include in your design are the invoice amount due and the payment due date, as these tell your clients how much they owe and when they must pay you for your services. It can help motivate clients to pay you faster if those two pieces of information are clear and stand out from the rest of the data. Both the deadline and the payment totals should be bold and displayed in a large font.

6. Make Payment Terms Clearly Stated

Although your payment terms shouldn’t be the most prominent piece of information on your invoice, it’s essential to leave room in your design for them so you can specify the payment methods you accept and any late fees you may charge. To show your clients, you appreciate their business, including a friendly thank-you note with your payment terms.

How much to bill for UX

When it comes to determining your price, there are no hard and fast guidelines to follow.

Asking the company what their budget is for the job is a great way to figure out what to charge. It relieves some of the pressure on you to participate in discussions with a set number of people.

They might come back and ask you how much you think a job of that magnitude will cost. So, just in case, you can come up with your ballpark range. Before meeting with a company, we recommend that you do your research to understand better how much they could and should offer you.

Hour by Hour

This chart is being used if you charge by the hour. Upwork revealed the most recent data on how much people charge for freelance UX work in the United States. Here’s what they discovered:

UX DESIGNER RATES EXAMPLE (Estimated billing rates charged by beginner-level, U.S.-based specialists)

• Type of Project Average Cost (per hour)
• User Experience Design (General) $25-$75
• $15-$30 for wireframing
• $10-$25 for user research and 
• $20 – $35 for storyboards/personas

UX DESIGNER RATES EXAMPLE (Estimated billing rates charged by intermediate-level, U.S.-based specialists)

• Type of Project Average Cost (per hour)
• User Experience Design (General) $25-$75
• $30-$60 for wireframing
• $25-$65 for user research and 
• $35 – $75 for storyboards/personas

UX DESIGNER RATES EXAMPLE (Estimated billing rates charged by Expert-level, U.S.-based specialists)

• Type of Project Average Cost (per hour)
• User Experience Design (General) $25-$75
• $65-$150 for wireframing
• $70-$95 for user research and 
• $70 – $120 for storyboards/personas

While these ranges are pretty broad, they’re an excellent place to start if you’re unsure what to charge. Take into account how much time you expect to spend on this assignment, as well as any non-billable labor you completed to get it (personal branding, searching for jobs, interviewing).

Per Week or Per Project

When it comes to pricing freelance UX work, there are no hard and fast standards. But, like Jared, you’ll get more knowledge about what to charge as you gain expertise. If you work on a project-by-project or week-by-week basis, you may calculate how long a project will take and multiply it by an hourly rate. Alternatively, you might follow our advice and undertake independent research, considering the company’s size and location, before coming up with a price on your own.

Some extra hints

Danielle of the Freelance Travel Network has been working as a freelancer for more than seven years. Her best advice is to concentrate on the value you provide to clients rather than on upskilling or arbitrary income targets. Danielle says that it’s easier to know how much you can securely charge for each assignment when you focus on market value. You’ll also be less concerned about bringing in money and more focused on the job itself and providing outstanding results.