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Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

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Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#1
I qualify as senior tech management and have held that role in several companies - large and small. Yet, whenever there was a startup (hell, someone randomly writing in from the internet) I have always spent an inordinate amount of time helping them out - even fixing bugs.

I have taken a lot of help myself - from other engineers, hackers, etc. People here take it for granted that you can ask people to help you with their code and they will not ask for money. Hell, I have lawyer friends who help out for free.

Yet, that is missing from the whole UI/UX design community - we are a small startup and needed some design help. Yet, all the designers that I seek even a bit of help from, take it as a personal affront that I am not paying. Somehow the inability to pay has morphed to a feeling of unwillingness to pay. There seems to be a general defensiveness because (and I'm guessing here) that design was a second class citizen at some point in technology's evolution.

Am I doing something wrong by expecting help for free as a friendly gesture ? this is a genuine question and I'm truly flummoxed.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#2
Hi, UX designer here.

First, when you say UI/UX, that's a red flag to me that you don't understand the kind of design you need. There isn't a "UI/UX design community." They're two different specialties, with a handful of subspecialties in each. If you don't understand your problem, and you're asking a stranger for help, I can completely understand that stranger wanting to make sure you're prepared to be taught all the things you don't know so you can understand your actual problem, and that means they have to invest time in you, which means they want to be paid for that.

Second, I don't work for free. That typically means anything resembling facilitation or a deliverable: a wireframe, a color scheme, conducting research. I'll talk all day long, though, if you're exerting all the effort.

Third, I help people out a lot for free, but I also do it within very narrow guidelines. I see it as a professional obligation, to build a positive understanding of design, to grow the ultimate market for my services.

I help out companies, startups and non-profits mostly by doing pro bono design office hours. I'll do them casually, if someone is referred to me. I'll also do them formally twice a year, helping dozens of startups in a single day, through IxDA Austin and Austin Startup Week. Perhaps there are similar events in your area. Try checking with co-working spaces and startup incubators, for example.

I'll also give pretty much anyone an hour of time on the off chance it turns into an interesting bit of contract work. I'll roll the cost of that hour (or whatever) into the contract, if one happens. It rarely does, however, because, there are very few times where the design question you think you have is the design problem you actually have. I've had people walk out of meetings because I'm asking them questions they don't have answers to. They thought they had one "UI/UX" problem, and I helpfully point out all the other problems they have, and they just weren't prepared to hear that.

I'm guessing when you ask for help with your code, you're not expecting someone to develop an entire application for you, for free. There's a very narrow problem you need help with, and, as engineers both, you and the person you ask can speak at the same level and come to a solution in short order.

It's not typically so with design.

You might "just" want to know what the "best" color for a button should be, or get help with color palette for an entire page so it "pops" more.

If I give you a color for your button, you'll walk away happy, sure, and think I'm swell. And then you'll implement it and your conversion rates will drop 30%, because statistically, you probably don't get enough traffic to know for sure for months. Do you know that, or will you panic? Is it the button color's fault? Is it an anomaly? Am I a bad designer? Are all designers frauds and hacks? I made you happy in the moment but have zero control of your opinion of me and of the situation afterwards.

The best thing for you would be for me to sit down with you and go over the entire page, maybe even all of the marketing for your entire product, to understand where this page fits in. Maybe you don't need a different color button, but a different placement. Or different copy. Or different images. Or a different campaign. Or a different product.

I don't know.

And if you're asking me about a button color, there's a better than even chance you don't know, either.

What I do know is, I'm not helping either of us by giving you a color instead of trying to understand your problem. And the only way I can be sure that you're interested in actually solving a problem, is to see if you'll pay for it.

If I'm right, and you don't know what kind of design help you need, I'd be happy to get on Skype or a phone call with you this week and help you figure out the kind of design help you need so you can find the right sort of design community to ask help of.

But, I don't work for free, and I don't know anyone who does.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#3
I suspect that this can have something to do with designers thinking themselfs as kind of artists. Primadonnas do beautiful things and expect gratification for it. I must say i have small but the same experience with asking for small help without keeping cash in other hand.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#4
post #2

Hi, UX designer here. First, when you say UI/UX, that's a red flag to me that you don't understand the kind of design you need. There isn't a "UI/UX design community." They're two different specialties, with a handful of subspecialties in each. If you don't understand your problem, and you're asking a stranger for help, I can completely understand that stranger wanting to make sure you're prepared to be taught all th…

in your very first line, you have just proven my point. I do understand what UI/UX is - and I'm not conflating them together, but talking about a common behavior inherent in both. Forgive me, but I see your reply as fairly vitriolic, whereas my question was anything but (I hope!). You are still thinking of me wanting to get a whole design for free. Where did I insinuate that ?

But I'm generally curious on why you bristle when I ask for design help - I think from your answer that you believe that I'm asking for an inordinate amount of help a.k.a a whole design for free. If that is indeed the case, then your answer is immediately very helpful because it helps me finetune my request for help !

I have another question for you - as developers, we are pretty comfortable with people asking us to look over code and share opinion. In a lot of ways Dribble is just that. Is it impolite to show someone an existing, badly designed MVP and ask for some open ended design help - whether it be in colors, typography or layout ?

Or do you fundamentally believe this cannot be done without engaging in a contractual discussion.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#6
post #2

Hi, UX designer here. First, when you say UI/UX, that's a red flag to me that you don't understand the kind of design you need. There isn't a "UI/UX design community." They're two different specialties, with a handful of subspecialties in each. If you don't understand your problem, and you're asking a stranger for help, I can completely understand that stranger wanting to make sure you're prepared to be taught all th…

in your very first line, you have just proven my point. I do understand what UI/UX is - and I'm not conflating them together, but talking about a common behavior inherent in both. Forgive me, but I see your reply as fairly vitriolic, whereas my question was anything but (I hope!). You are still thinking of me wanting to get a whole design for free. Where did I insinuate that ? But I'm generally curious on why you bri…

Hey there, nobody is picking a fight. You sounds quite condescending.

I'm a developer and I have lots of designer friends. They are always very helpful with "small" tasks. However, what a developer thinks is a small item equivalent to looking over code may be actually substantial for a designer. Sometimes it's hard to tell and you may come off as rude asking for substantial work to be done for free.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#7
Time costs money. And you want free time from other people. That little piece of advice you really really need might take a half an hour for an UI designer to write or talk about. And that half an hour can easily be charged to someone else who is willing to pay for it.

It's just supply vs demand. UI/UX design is in very high demand. Every startup and entrepreneur wants a logo, graphic design or a website. Why waste time helping someone out for free when you can charge for it?

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#9
post #2

Hi, UX designer here. First, when you say UI/UX, that's a red flag to me that you don't understand the kind of design you need. There isn't a "UI/UX design community." They're two different specialties, with a handful of subspecialties in each. If you don't understand your problem, and you're asking a stranger for help, I can completely understand that stranger wanting to make sure you're prepared to be taught all th…

in your very first line, you have just proven my point. I do understand what UI/UX is - and I'm not conflating them together, but talking about a common behavior inherent in both. Forgive me, but I see your reply as fairly vitriolic, whereas my question was anything but (I hope!). You are still thinking of me wanting to get a whole design for free. Where did I insinuate that ? But I'm generally curious on why you bri…

You didn't insinuate it, but you also aren't being specific about the kind of help you're asking for. You're making enormously broad statements about at least two different professions that solve different problems in different ways. I don't believe I am being unfairly critical of your phrasing.

I'm guessing you're reading into my statement, "I'm guessing when you ask for help with your code, you're not expecting someone to develop an entire application for you, for free." I'm not suggesting you are personally asking for an entire design for free (although you would not be the first if you were).

Rather, I'm saying that, if you don't understand your design problem well enough to ask a narrow-enough question of the right sort of designer (as you might with an engineer about a technical issue), then the person you're asking has to understand -- and potentially educate you about -- a much larger portion of your project. That sort of time investment only comes with payment.

I was a developer once, a long time ago, and I don't recall ever asking strangers or even friends to review my code. At least, not successfully. Are there actually places you can go and have random programmers look at your code? How do they run it? How do they build it? How do they understand your business logic? How are they able to duplicate your production environments? I feel as if your counterexample is a straw man. Code reviews amongst other people on your production team is not the same thing at all.

Dribbble is not a place for critique. It is a place for praise, specifically, between visual designers and artists. Only some of that overlaps with UI. Most people don't post in-progress work there, and Dribbble is not designed to facilitate critique of in-progress work when they do. So, that's not a great example.

Also, it's rare to actually be seeking "open-ended design help." If you have an MVP already, then you're already talking with a designer too late. There is a limited amount of change you will be willing to tolerate to your MVP, in very particular places, dealt with in very particular ways. It's the button color example from my first post again. Your MVP might not need a button color change. You might need to throw your whole MVP away. You are probably not prepared to do that.

I have talked with perhaps a hundred different startups through office hours in the past three years or so. Most startups want a pat on the head. They're not prepared to make any design-related changes at all, not to colors, not to copy, not to anything. Some startups are prepared to make superficial, cosmetic changes, but most designers aren't interested in helping you put lipstick on a pig. Designers do that all day long as their day job; they want a bigger impact if they're doing it for fun. Nearly no startups are interested in understanding how to figure out the real design problems in their product and how to solve them; that is, how to find product-market fit, and are willing to throw away all their existing work if necessary to do so. I could probably count those startups on one hand.

I have absolutely had people get up and walk out mid-sentence when I pointed out irredeemable problems with their idea, MVP, or launched application. That is not the kind of feedback most people are willing to hear "for free."

And if you are prepared to throw your MVP away, then you're stuck, because if you ask anything else of the designer at that point, that's real work, and they're not going to do that for free.

I think good free help can be obtained if you can ask a narrow-enough question of the right sort of designer, absolutely.

In my experience, though, that question is hardly ever the right question you should be asking.

Re: Why do UI/UX designers not help without charging?

#10
i dont think its quite that -- you can tons of great ui/fonts/layouts/everything else for free on sites like deviant art/dribbble or freebbbble/themeforest etc, and also weve gotten bootstrap fontawesome etc. were definitely in a better place than 10 yrs ago; theres also more than a few people who give away ui design art by request on reddit devart and twitch.tv.
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