Yesterday I spoke with a software company that is strongly motivated to improve their interface design. They asked me where good software UI designers come from and who could I recommend to help them out.
From my little bubble, I couldn’t think of anyone to recommend outright. I know some good folks who are already employed. But a “go to” consultant? Not really. A school with good curriculum to scout at? Couldn’t think of one of those either.
So I tweeted to a sizable circle on Twitter. In response, I got less than ten actionable leads. I figure it’s time to cast a wider net.
Who out there is doing great UI consulting for software businesses? Who is doing UI training? Where is the good UI curriculum?
If you know of somebody, help me out and post a comment here—preferably with a personal experience. Thanks.
John Pisciotta
on 05 Jan 12Justin Davis has been super helpful in the UI UX space.
https://www.facebook.com/jwd2a
Andrew Sather
on 05 Jan 12Best UI / UX consultants I’ve worked with:
Jen Wolf Ryan Freitas Alder Yarrow
All three are based in San Francisco.
Dan McGrady
on 05 Jan 12I’m a self-taught UX/UI designer and I tried moving to SF where theres huge demand for what I’m doing, from Toronto.
But apparently you can’t get a TN visa unless your diploma is directly related to graphic design (which mine isnt) and having a ton of experience + a job offer isnt good enough.
We’re available remotely. But theres few good remote design jobs.
Cory
on 05 Jan 12Sorry, I can only corroborate that it’s terribly hard to find them.
We just train all of our developers to think about UI, and hope to improve their awareness of usability issues over time.
Dan
on 05 Jan 12@37signals
There is a web site exactly for this called Sortfolio.
I think you guys even created this site :)
Ryan
on 05 Jan 12@Dan, Sortfolio is for finding web designers, not UI consultants/trainers.
Geof Harries
on 05 Jan 12Forgive me for the shameless self promotion, but we’re one of those supposedly top-secret software design consultants. Most of the interfaces we produce are for enterprise software products, whether commercial or for internal use, and range from GIS web mapping software to your more typical business applications.
Andrew Mitton
on 05 Jan 12What about the Nielsen Norman Group http://www.nngroup.com/
Justin Jackson
on 05 Jan 12I’ve been impressed with Gene at nForm: http://nform.com/ (although he usually deals with overall user experience). I’m pretty sure he is available for consulting.
I’ve also heard really good things about Steve Fisher: http://hellofisher.com/
IMD Student
on 05 Jan 12what about the web standardistas?
Alex Marcy
on 06 Jan 12My company does UI design/implementation/training for industrial processing operations. We have to delineate a lot of data to operators at a glance and allow them to interact with their process and equipment simply and swiftly.
It might not be the best fit for all types of software, still we could provide insight and solutions to issues people are having with their UI.
MikeH
on 06 Jan 12These guys seems to know their stuff: http://www.uie.com/
Brian L
on 06 Jan 12Cooper in San Francisco. As well as being one of the best interaction design consultancies, they have a top notch training curriculum.
http://cooper.com/
http://www.cooper.com/#training
Jonathan Irwin
on 06 Jan 12It’s a great question. The consulting community is small, and really good training for up and coming designers is even harder to find. I’ve been doing UX and Product Management consulting for consumer and enterprise software companies for almost 3 years, having come from a background in design, IA, UX, and Agile Product Management. And I love consulting. As a consultant it’s easier to focus 100% of your effort on delivering exactly what the client needs…insight, innovation, and excellent work.
Brook Riggio
on 06 Jan 12I’ve really enjoyed working with the folks in Seattle at Blink UX: http://blinkux.com/.
Great vision, great results.
Yakov
on 06 Jan 12http://ThinkPixelLab.com worked with us on a very complex project, and did a great job. Robby is an ex-Microsoft engineer on the WPF team who started his own boutique agency.
They know UX inside out.
Mad Hemingway
on 06 Jan 12I usually recommend Steve Krug (his books are “Don’t Make Me Think” and “Rocket Surgery Made Easy”).
Ben Hanna
on 06 Jan 12Zurb in SF is a great company, and they host some educational sessions every now and then.
“Design for people. We’re a close-knit team of interaction designers and strategists that help companies design better.”
http://www.zurb.com/
Nate
on 06 Jan 12Ryan, would you be able to list the 10 actionable leads you got here, or in a follow up?
Ryan Keefe
on 06 Jan 12UI design does not get the respect it deserves (hence no specific curriculum dedicated to it). In my experience the only way to get a great UI designer is to find one that is engulfed in the specific culture your website/software is targeting. The only workaround I have found to this rule is to find someone inside the company that lives/breathes the specific culture, and pair him/her up with the UI designer as a project guardrail. The UI designer can filter down to the final two options, but only the true enthusiast can spot the fake.
When it comes to UI design, “industry” is too broad of a term. I don’t want someone who has designed butcher shops to design my organic cupcake website!
Lisa Wade
on 06 Jan 12Some more shameless self promotion…
Stamford Interactive offers a whole range of UX-related training courses throughout Australia. Includes accessibility, mobile design, writing for the web, as well as many others. And we’ve got 30 UX consultants in Melbourne, Canberra, Sydney and Brisbane.
Dave Malouf
on 06 Jan 12Hi Ryan, I’m reading your post and looking at the answers and I’m not sure people are understanding your question exactly.
I’m confident you know all the great big organizations out there, so I doubt that’s not news. you also talk about consultant.
As or schools with “good curriculum”. I think this is really up to what is good curriculum. There are outstanding programs in IxD, HCI, usability, interactive design, information architecture, etc. that all cover User Interface Design &/or Development in some way shape or form. Way too many to mention.
Many answered you though thinking that you wanted possibly continuing education options, which are smaller in amount but also good: Adaptive Path Cooper Human Factors International N/N Group UIE To name a few.As for a straight up consultant that includes UI in his arsenal, I’d go with Luke Wroblewski at the top of my list right now.
It might be good for more background in exactly what the person and you are talking about.
—dave
MJ
on 06 Jan 12I worked for a process engineering consulting firm who focuses on customized software solutions in Detroit focusing on UI design. I love UI design and would like to get back into the mix.
My background is a Bachelors and Masters in Industrial and Operations Engineering from The University of Michigan. IOEs pick up UI design quickly and have an ergonomic background.
Hope this helps.
kasey
on 06 Jan 12Over a decade ago my UI design education came from Prof. Martin Siegel at the Indiana University School of Informatics. He got deep on the subject and nothing I learned from him has become outdated.
Bradley Smith
on 06 Jan 12I think there are lots of firms out there (and I’ve seen many mentioned in the comments before). I work for a company that provides user experience consulting services called Habañero Consulting Group (www.habaneros.com). I’m a bit biased, but I think we’re a good fit for a variety of clients. Also, we put on a two-day course called User Experience Done Right (www.uedoneright.com) that is a good kickstart to learning more about design, etc. Many of our clients take the course to learn how they can better create first class experiences internally on their teams.
Kent Langley
on 06 Jan 12I work for SolutionSet. I will put you in touch with our UI/UX team/gurus to evaluate. They are very good and efficient. Give me a call if you’d like at 415.448.6563. Please just reference the 37s comment if you have to leave a message.
Cheers!
Anonymous Coward
on 06 Jan 12DePaul University in your own city of Chicago offers an MA in Human Computer Interaction – worked with a few grads from there a while back and they knowledgeable and easy to work with…
Michael
on 06 Jan 12Quora is a good place to start. For example: http://www.quora.com/Top-UX-Designers and http://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-best-UI-consultants-and-or-teachers-in-the-world
ctrlspace
on 06 Jan 12http://nform.com/
Rem
on 06 Jan 12There are no great designs unless great people do it. Errrr ! unless simple people can do simple and complex things easily. So we try to stick on ease at http://webcastletech.com/ . Let us know how can we get your client too to benefit from our knowledge
Tim Marsh
on 06 Jan 12Ben Hunt of Web Design From Scratch fame. Wrote “Convert”. Personal experience with him for VeloNomad.com. He does training and consulting.
tuan.kuranes
on 06 Jan 12Nielsen Norman Group, lead being Jakob Nielsen and their website http://www.useit.com/ Has scientific approach against “popular” beliefs and trends, all actions are tests/studies/results/goals based, etc… site is a must read (approach & results).
John O'Keith
on 06 Jan 12Try hiring a graphic designer who has done magazine and web design. Put them in a room with a developer and analyst and see what happens.
A designer can often take care of aesthetics and usability, the others will take care of flow and content.
Most people don’t know they need a UI designer so they are very rare but you can build one by using several people in the right disciplines.
To hire a designer give them an existing UI and a design brief and see what happens. They may have the design skills but not the label for them.
Drew McKinney
on 06 Jan 12Hi All,
Graduate of an HCI/design grad program here (Indiana University) . I’ll try my best to not blow this discussion up past what you’ve asked.
Most HCI and design curriculums don’t actually teach “UI”, graphic design, or anything else discretely tactical. What they teach is a wide range of problem-solving techniques and ways of thinking (‘design thinking’). Granted, these are largely research institutions, but I have yet to meet one that actually has topics such as UI design on their curriculum.
I routinely hire UI designers to help me flesh out the work that I’ve sketched (I make iOS apps for a living). A common trend I’ve noticed amongst all of them is a desire to learn how to program and get away from graphic design, or do both as a design/development “superman”. They note that there isn’t a lot of consistent work for UI designers.
TL;DR All that said, I think there are some individuals in specific fields who are excellent at UI. In the mobile space, Josh Clark (@globalmoxie) is a great example of what I’d consider a UI go-to guy. So is LukeW (@lukew).
Gary Bury
on 06 Jan 12Never worked with them personally but Clearleft in the UK specialise in User Experience, write books on it, and run conferences. I understand they know their stuff.
http://clearleft.com/
Neil
on 06 Jan 12I love UI design, I find it hard to find a job that is based on UI design only. I eat it up when I get a chance!
Christophe
on 06 Jan 12I’m currently creating a website with former colleague Tom Knowles (www.lwyd.co.uk) doing the UX. Great collaboration :)
Matt
on 06 Jan 12For a good curriculum I think the best bet is just having a good reading list from someone who knows their stuff, (how did they learn?). I read the books I could find from these guys:
Cederholm, Zeldman, Krug, Marcotte + the others from ALA
But my background is more programming than design.
There’s the archive’s of ALA or recently I’ve been tempted to sign up to www.thinkvitamin.com thier spin-off for UI looks like it’s now at teamtreehouse.com
David Watson
on 06 Jan 12MAYA Design http://www.maya.com/
Disclaimer: I worked there.
David Watson
on 06 Jan 12On the academic side, most of the best design people I’ve worked with have some connection here:
http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/
Sacha Greif
on 06 Jan 12Why exactly should you hire a consultant? Isn’t that just another way of saying “freelance designer who charges twice as much”?
In any case if it’s a designer you’re looking for, I really launched Folyo, a design job board specialized in high-end UI & web design.
On the other hand I completely agree that there’s a void in the UI teaching space. Hopefully the guys at Treehouse can fill it a little.
Sharky
on 06 Jan 12Ryan, Could you or someone provide the basic distinctions between UI, UX, and Web Design? Thanks
Andy
on 06 Jan 12I’ve been using Catalyst Group out of NY for a couple of years. They’re top-notch UI consultants!
www.catalystnyc.com
Caleb
on 06 Jan 12Check out Gabriel White at Small Surfaces – www.smallsurfaces.com. He just finished up a round of UX research and design around one of our products… He’s excellent at facilitation and helping to align business and user needs.
Himanshu Sahani
on 06 Jan 12We have struggled with this question from the time we founded our UI design firm here in Bangalore, India.
I have worked with graduates from both NID as well as IDC at IIT Bombay, the two top schools in India. Unfortunately the experience has been mixed. I think schools still have to catch up with what is currently required by the industry. A lot of people still confuse between good aesthetic design and good UI design. The former is often a prerequisite of the later, but not always.
Over a period of time we have evolved a framework to evaluate someone’s abilities and potential. We cycle through 50-100 applications to hire one candidate and even then we are not sure whether the guy would turn into a great UI guy or not. We cast our net wide – web designers, program/product managers, BFA/MFA graduates, thinkers, architect graduates, graduates in visual communication. Usually it takes upto an year to impart the training and another year before the guy is ready to be called a UI designer.
We have not formalized our training but it’s usually mentorship + experience.
John
on 06 Jan 12You can check us out for Chicago: www.weareakta.com :)
J.J. Kercher
on 06 Jan 12I’m surprised no one has mentioned Adaptive Path. I’ve found their resources (books, articles, etc.), conferences, and professional workshops extremely valuable as both a UX/UI consultant and (currently) a full-time employee.
www.adaptivepath.com
Founder Janice Fraser works with startups on a 10-week residency program through LUXr.com in the spirit of lean/agile startup techniques.
Finally don’t underestimate the power of research behind any successful UI design. Check out the good folks at boltpeters.com (they also do UX design)
Samantha Louras
on 06 Jan 12Mad*Pow www.madpow.com
Chelsi B
on 06 Jan 12Hi there!
Just wanted to give a quick note. I am a teacher at Full Sail University in the Web Design and Development degree. I would suggest if someone is looking for a great UI designer they could certainly scout upcoming graduates from Full Sail.
There are students graduating every month, both from our online degree as well as our campus program. I would love for you to contact me so I can tell you more about them and point you in the right direction if you would like to see what they have to offer.
Patrick McElhaney
on 06 Jan 12UX Stack Exchange is a great place to ask questions and get expert answers, backed by research and real-world experience, from people who are passionate about user interface design.
It was just officially launched this week, by the makers of Stack Overflow. As a moderator, I’m biased, but I think we’ve matched if not exceeded the standard of quality in answers found there.
If you’re looking to hire someone, browse the users page or post a message in the meta section.
Tim
on 06 Jan 12There are many small, excellent UX/UI firms/boutiques and independent consultants- but it’s not clear what you mean by “UI designer.”
That said all of these folks/firms are small or independent UX/UI consultants with a tremendous amount of experience:
Kim Nies, Berkeley, CA
Lucie Moses, Berkeley, CA
Tim Gasperak/Red Hot Office LLC, San Francisco
Katrina Alcorn, Oakland, CA
Smith, Austin, TX
Rainey Straus, San Rafael, CA
Mary Piontkowski, San Francisco
Laura Haertling/Percolate, Amsterdam/San Francisco
Gretchen Atwood, San Francisco
Valeria Maltoni
on 06 Jan 12Hello Ryan and 37Signals team. I also started a thread on G+ and there are several suggestions there – https://plus.google.com/u/0/112326867483489579883/posts/6Ctn7Srb8U9
Anonymous Coward
on 06 Jan 12The MS in HCI from DePaul has a lot of good instructors who are also practitioners(from Usercentric, Manifest Digital, etc)
Fuzzy Math does good consulting work from what i’ve seen.
There is a lot of stuff going on in chicago, the UX master class was here last year, sketch camp, ixda chicago, and random meetups between people. Show up at an event or joint a mailing list/discussion board. It’s not like the community is stagnant, you just need to look harder…
kyle
on 06 Jan 12I’ve worked with some incredibly talented folks who started Eightshapes(.com). Dan Brown and Nathan Curtis are insanely talented guys.
Generally speaking though, great writing on UI seems to have dried up, which is what I miss most.
Deb Arora
on 07 Jan 12Without hesitation, Kristina Pifer:
http://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinavpifer
I’ve worked with her full time. I’ve done consulting gigs with her. I’ve started a company with her. She’s the best UI strategist I know, and she’s a heck of a designer, as well. Most important, she’s smart and fun.
Jonas Bruun Nielsen
on 07 Jan 12I haven’t worked with him, but Stephen P. Anderson seems like a very clever guy: http://poetpainter.com/
Dustin Sapp
on 07 Jan 12In the Midwest, you won’t find anyone better than Kristian Andersen + Associates (kaplusa.com).
Greg
on 07 Jan 12AQ Works, located in Tokyo but working with international brands, just started offering UX consulting services. http://www.aqworks.com/en/lift/
Dan Croak
on 09 Jan 12Nielsen Norman, Steve Krug, and Adaptive Path are all good suggestions from previous comments.
thoughtbot has 5 UI teachers and consultants on staff.
Teaching: http://workshops.thoughtbot.com Consulting: http://thoughtbot.com/design
Fredrik Doberl
on 09 Jan 12Inuse (www.inuse.se) is one of the bigger players in Europe. They have some clients with world wide known brands (not only in Sweden) where they are in charge of building organizational UX capabilities (web, mobile, internal systems), not only single projects/products. Besides being really strong in interaction design, they also have a systematic method and training programs for capturing business benefits and connecting them with design elements. Contact Darja Isaksson, their CEO for more info.
Lucas
on 09 Jan 12Another vote for the Nielsen Norman Group.
Jakob Neilsen literally wrote the book on HCI.
In the early days of Intranets and later the web he designed systems for Sun and IBM. His group has done more usability studies than anyone in the world. He was conducting intranet usability and UI studies studies before there was an internet.
Rahul
on 09 Jan 12Another vote for Stephen Anderson! What Stephen does best is help you figure out how to seduce your users with the right UI. That could be an aesthetically attractive design or simply using the right words or the right experience. He wrote a book called Seductive Interaction Design and sells the Mental Notes card deck that you can use to brainstorm with clients during design sessions. Definite +1 from me – I’d hire him myself if I could afford it :)
Ronnie
on 10 Jan 12I can’t really speak from experience, but as a design student I’ve always admired the work of Tom Kelley’s book on innovation in group projects, and they are really effective in generating a culture of creativity.
Daniel R.
on 10 Jan 12Steve Krug from www.sensible.com. He’s written 2 very good books on usability and he’s doing consulting and in-house training on those topics.
Mark
on 10 Jan 12Jared Spool & Team @ User Interface Engineering? http://www.uie.com/
Taylor Ling
on 11 Jan 12+1 on Jared Spool and Co. @UIE. They have some pretty awesome stuffs and people there.
Pascal
on 11 Jan 12I’ll have to say look at students from the HCI Design program from Indiana University…especially if you are looking for UX designers. It’s one of the best HCI Design schools in the nation, with world renown and distinguished professors. Graduates of the program are very successful. We have graduates that worked or are currently working for Accenture, Adaptive Path, Adobe, Autodesk, Cerner Corporation, Disney, EA, Epic Systems, Google, Hewlett Packard, Intuit, Lexmark, Lextant, Manhatten Associates, Microsoft, Oracle, Pearson Education, Siemens, SAP, Volkswagen Whirlpool, just to name a few.
Side note: we have a recruiting event coming up on January 20th. To list only a few: Adobe, Apple, HUGE, Oracle, and other great companies will be at this event recruiting from our program.
Rachel Keslensky
on 11 Jan 12Georgia Tech has a brilliant HCI program, with the Interactivity showcase coming up in a couple months: http://interactivity.cc.gatech.edu/
It’s an interdisciplinary program combining digital media, computer science, and psychology. Just about anybody associated with that program is bound to be what you want.
Audrey
on 11 Jan 12Can’t believe no one has mentioned Hugh Dubberly at Dubberly Design Office, who also speaks and teaches at many places, including Standford, IIT’s ID, and CMU.
Andre
on 12 Jan 12I feel bad tooting my own horn on the internet, but at Medullan I’ve built up a pretty reliable UX design practice, and we’ve done some stunning work for web and smartphone UIs for leading companies in the health care space. Check us out at www.medullan.com .
Nerkles
on 12 Jan 12Check out School of Visual Arts in NYC, which has an MFA Interaction Design program.
This discussion is closed.