UX Designer: evaluation criteria & salary

You have a basic theoretical knowledge of usability patterns and heuristics.

You are able to design an interface that correctly uses theoretical knowledge and industry guidelines such as basic selection and navigation controls, colors, typography. You know what are the best UX writing practices and avoid rookie mistakes.

You are experienced in designing interaction for both mobile and desktop. You have shown that you can use various UX tools like personas, user journey maps, trade-off analysis, heuristics analysis, reference analysis, information architecture. You have seen at least several times how people use an interface designed by you and how people read UI texts.

You’ve proved that you can use your practical experience to prevent interaction problems. You can justify your decision based on your user observations and facts and not on assumptions.

You are a seasoned interaction designer with proven experience in projects with a full development lifecycle: from the strategy to implementation. You learn from your own mistakes and you teach peers how to avoid them by using examples from your past experience with user testing.

You know the theory of marketing research, you know what different types of research are.

You’ve seen someone else doing UX research. You sometimes run a corridor testing of your prototypes.

You can confidently organize user interviews on your own and deliver conclusions to a client with professional deliverables.

You participated in user interviews more than 20 times. You know how to avoid research bias. You have experience with quantitative methods (Google Analytics, A/B testing).

You are an authority in UX research. You can teach others how to do it right, you create articles, presentations with best practices.

You can create a decent looking UI based on building-blocks, library templates. You have a good taste - you are able to tell what looks modern, elegant, premium, cheap, old-fashioned etc.

You can design a responsive UI for multiple screen widths.
You know how to export assets and hand them over to developers.You use platform design guidelines. You keep your projects and materials organized.

You are able to deliver a professional UI design that is easy to maintain and update using such concepts as design system, components, visual hierarchy, typography, UI conventions, platform guidelines.

You can prepare a design specification that is detailed and takes the development and corner cases into consideration.

You are able to follow the graphic design trends and create a professional-looking design based on references.

You are an experienced UI designer that works smoothly and consistently delivers professional UI prototypes.

Your UI mockups are pixel perfect, you can create a design system on your own, you never forget to discuss corner cases, empty states, loading states.

You know how to debug CSS in the browser.

You broaden your horizons in an other creative area e.g.: photography, motion design, cinematography, film editing, painting, illustrating, typography, music, concept art, architecture, industrial design.

You have a portfolio showing world-class UI design concepts that follows trends and inspires others.

You understand the technology behind front-end development (you know what is easy and what is hard to develop).

You have a broad knowledge of different design libraries and how to work with them (Bootstrap, Material, Ant etc.).

You have at least a basic knowledge of CSS and HTML and you can read and edit the code.

You know the theory of the UX design process. You can name the phases of the process and their purpose.

You have practical experience from at least 2 projects that included some of the User Centered Design process methods. You’ve created and maintained at least one deliverable of iterative design.

You can confidently work with the iterative design process, independently plan the process, and select the right methods based on previous experience. You have experience directly collaborating with developers that were implementing your design. Your estimates are based on previous references from your experience.

You can run a design project independently and execute it according to the schedule, without delays.
Your projects finish with good results (high client satisfaction / improved metrics / team portfolio contribution).

You have experience from at least one big project with a full development lifecycle.

You can conduct a Design Sprint workshop yourself and take the responsibility for its outcome.

You have a minimum of three years of experience with JIRA and scrum methodologies.

You have an experience with different technologies so that you know what is “doable” and what is “impossible”.

You have at least 8 years of experience in a similar UX position in multiple companies.

You’ve worked on both B2B and B2C products and have an in-depth understanding of their differences.

You have experience with a broader ownership of a software product - e.g.. being a start-up Co-Founder or a Product Owner.

You co-create Espeo services, you contribute to methods of our work, you propose changes.

You have a good practical understanding of the software development concepts and phases.

You can create a set of mockups demonstrating a process. You use the basic features of graphic design software without getting into more complex features.

You can use basic prototyping tools to connect several images together (ex. Figma, Sketch, Invision, Axure).

You know at least 2 design tools (ex. Photoshop, Illustrator, Figma, Sketch).
You use supporting tools that help you organize your work (ex. Creative Cloud, Google Drive Sync, Adobe Bridge).

Your prototypes are polished so that it is possible to use them during a user testing session.
You can work with reusable components in your prototyping tool.
You know the limitations of your tool so that you know what is not worth prototyping.

You know several tools and very often fluently switch between the 2 of them (ex: modify an image in Photoshop and paste to Figma).

You constantly improve your productivity: you use keyboard shortcuts, templates, icon libraries, and plugins.

You use the advanced features of prototyping tools (e.g. states, conditional logic, variants, hovers, components, component overrides, plugins, animations, overlays).

Your prototyping file is organized and enables you to easily make changes without lots of work and introducing bugs.

You have professional experience with at least one specialized tool going beyond UX/UI (video editing, audio production, photography, 3D, web development).

If there is a need, you can easily learn a new tool without a loss of productivity.

You consider yourself an expert in one of the tools so that you know its nuances to an extent that you could run a course and teach other people how to use it.

You know multiple prototyping tools and used most of them at some point in your career - you can quickly switch between tools.

You are able to find workarounds for limitations in the prototyping tools.
Your prototypes have some basic architecture and consistent structure.

You are able to use some custom code in your prototype.

You are still learning and often require help.

Although you are capable of handling most standard tasks, you need help with larger issues.

You are a self-sufficient person who does not require help/supervision.

You can handle all tasks, including non-standard ones, without help. You can also help other team members.

You introduce new ways of handling issues in the company You conduct internal and external workshops and trainings or effectively support other teams with expert knowledge.

You are learning.

You have skills good enough to complete most tasks in the current project.

You are more skilled than is needed for a particular project.

You have skills that exceed an average level in one or more fields, and they lead to the acquisition of new projects.

You are an expert in more than one programming language/domain/technology. You introduce/continue innovations in the company.

No experience

You have been an agile project team member.

You have already performed the role of a leader/mentor/Scrum Master at least once in a project.

You have experience in managing a team in more than one project.

You have extensive experience in managing/supporting a team.

No activity

You have been an agile project team member.

You are making first steps in the open-source world.

You are actively involved in the open-source community, providing valuable input.

You have regularly and continuously (for at least about six months) been involved with the open-source community in a variety of ways.

You haven’t been working in a project team yet.

You know what your duties in the team are. You take active part in meetings.

You have an influence on the course and the outcome of the team meetings. You have substantiated ideas and you can apply them in practice.

You are proactive and supportive, offering help when such a need is noticed.

You conduct team meetings effectively and present constructive feedback to the team. You are able to diagnose the team’s dysfunctions and suggest solutions.

You have no experience in contacts with the clients.

You have occasional contacts with the client.

You have an established contact with the client and specified tasks. You are able to advise the client, suggest and explain a solution.

You take an active part in the meetings with the client, can diagnose the client’s needs and suggest particular solutions. You are fluent in English.

You have extensive experience in working with clients on numerous projects. You are able to take an active part in pre-selling meetings.