Freelance Skills for UI/UX Designer: How to Choose the Right Projects, and Selecting Clients Carefully?

Hi everyone! I'm Simon, currently working as a designer in Tokyo.

It took me quite some time to start writing this article. Since May 2016, I began engaging in UI/UX design related work. In over a year, I was fortunate to have continuously received quite a number of projects, including web design, App UI design, and even dynamic imaging related work.

During this period, due to some gaps between job transitions, I became a full-time freelancer for about half a year. Although life without colleagues was somewhat dull, I indeed learned a lot through the process of being a freelancer, including task management, time management, communication skills, and so on.

Being a freelancer might be "indescribable" for some people, including how to find cases, how to quote reasonably, and the actual working conditions, etc. There seems to be less discussion about this on the internet. And perhaps many people might envy the seemingly beautiful life of freelancers, who can sleep in every day and freely choose their work location, but in fact, there are also many unknown hardships behind it.

After making quite a few mistakes and facing many challenges, I can finally talk and share my experiences and insights into the life of a freelancer over the past year.

This article will share with everyone:
1. What you should know before being a freelancer
1. The cost of taking on a project
3. How to quote properly
4. When it comes to contracts, what should you be aware of
5. How to successfully close a case
Bonus 1: Where to find case sources
Bonus 2: The way of self-management for freelancers

Since this article might be a bit lengthy, I will divide it into two episodes, to share with everyone. Let’s get started!

Mental Preparation Before Being a Freelancer

Most people became a freelancer primarily for two reasons: "earning income" or "gaining experience". Of course, it would be great to achieve both, but often, in the early stages of working as a freelancer, things don’t always go as smoothly as expected.

If your initial experience is not very good, you might start blaming others and feel that there are no good clients out there, believing that all clients are difficult to deal with.

However, the reality might be due to the lack of mental preparation and insufficient freelance experience, making the collaboration not as expected.

I also understood this later on and gradually began to establish the correct mindset for being a freelancer . Unless you are a partner in a studio, an individual freelancer usually requires one person to do the work of multiple people. So, how do you determine whether you are "suitable for being a freelancer"?

You should first ask yourself a few questions:
Do you have a thorough understanding of your professional capabilities?
Do you have the ability to work independently and deliver the complete results required by the client?
Are you confident in managing your time well and delivering results as scheduled?
Do you have enough confidence to persuade clients to adopt your designs?
Can you still produce quality work under time pressure?
Do you have the ability to work with the client and the team members of the client's company and communicate effectively?

There are actually many more questions like these. Freelance is not like completing tasks assigned by supervisors in a company and then receiving a salary every month.

Most of the time, you have to communicate, understand requirements, execute designs, calculate costs, etc., on your own. Freelance is a very flexible work method, but it also requires a high level of self-discipline. Therefore, asking yourself these questions before taking a project can help clarify whether you are suitable for it.

Of course, if you have the opportunity to be a freelancer, I still encourage everyone to be brave and try it. It will definitely make you advance by leaps and bounds!

Should I Accept This Project or Not? Is It Worth Accepting?

I believe that if you are just starting to be a freelancer, you will want to seize the opportunity of every project. But please be cautious before accepting a project; once you have accepted it, you have the responsibility to do it well (at least in accordance with the conditions agreed upon by both parties).

I’ve experienced taking on projects and then realizing that the communication with the client was poor and cooperation couldn’t continue, or my time management was not good and communication took longer than expected, seriously delaying progress, ending up in a lose-lose situation.

After several experiences, I began to realize: getting ''right'' projects is much more important than getting numerous projects.

Therefore, choosing the right client is crucial.

A good client not only makes cooperation much more effective but also has a high chance of bringing you other clients of similar quality. Generally speaking, common clients may fall into several types:
1. Acquaintances but Not Very Familiar Clients
2. Completely Unfamiliar Clients
3. Close Friends

Firstly, we need to understand the mindset of both the client and the designer, and what each party is thinking.

Different from items with clear pricing, where you pay money for direct consumption, taking on a project often resembles a back-and-forth process of each party probing each other’s bottom line, with both sides hoping to maximize their own benefits.

Whether it's the client or the designer, both want to benefit from the process. This is a supply and demand relationship, cooperating to meet each other's needs. Clients want to solve their problems in the most cost-effective way, while the designer's mentality is to exchange time and professional skills for reasonable (or even higher than regular employment) compensation.

Taking on cases is actually like working in a company. The client entrusts the projects to you because they have enough trust in you. I believe that no businessman would hire someone unprofessional to produce subpar results.

However, there is currently a phenomenon in Taiwan : there are more and more people becoming freelancers, including experienced professionals and those who switched careers, leading to mixed quality and price-cutting competition. Coupled with some clients not having enough judgment or sense, they often choose the cheapest person to do the job, resulting in outcomes that do not meet expectations, or paying a lot for completely unsatisfactory results, leading to related disputes.

Returning to the main topic, let’s discuss these common types of clients:

1. Acquaintances but Not Very Familiar Clients

Such clients are usually introduced by other friends or previous collaborators, hence they might have a basic understanding of your information or abilities. Communication can be mostly rational with a touch of personal understanding. However, proper contracts and confirmation of requirements are still essential. Since there’s a level of familiarity, there usually is a flexibility in cooperation modes, but be mindful. ‘Trust’ and ‘commitment’ are still crucial in collaboration. Don’t act hastily just because of familiarity.

2. Completely Unfamiliar Clients

These clients usually find you through freelance platforms or personal channels. They might be aware of your work, but there is almost always a need for re-adjustment in terms of working styles and workflows.

I’d suggest meeting for coffee and having a chat 1-2 times before understanding the requirements better, observing the client’s way of speaking, thoughts on their products/services, and respect towards designers.

The most crucial part is whether they know what results they want and what a designer can accomplish for them.

The ‘feeling’ is essential. If casual conversations don’t leave a good impression, working together might be even more challenging.

3. Close Friends

Since they are close friends, communication should ideally be smooth and without barriers, right?

However, I must say that such collaborations often face the most problems. You might have Talking about Money hurt feelings. Unless you’re close enough to settle budgets and objectives from the start, and since close friends often avoid signing contracts, there usually isn’t a basis for negotiation when disputes arise. I’ve heard many instances where original friends ended up in broken relationships due to collaboration, so it’s better to be cautious.

Be careful, the free stuff is often the most expensive.

I believe many designers might have heard the following dialogues:
"Just do something simple for me~ It shouldn’t take much of your time, right?"
"This doesn’t seem hard, right? Can it be done in the simplest way possible?"
"Why do you charge me for something so simple?"
"Can you try making a few more styles for me?"

If my eyes weren’t too small, I’d roll them 360 degrees (just kidding).

I believe that everything comes with a price, even what is considered the ‘simplest’ task. It still has its time cost. Time isn’t free. If a friend doesn’t intend to pay you money, then friendship is the cost, but even friendship can be overdrawn. Here’s a common example, would you ask a doctor friend to treat you for free? Would you ask a lawyer friend to fight a lawsuit for free? I guess not.

Often, the ‘design’ profession is undervalued. They might not realize the time and effort it takes to become a designer. If you encounter friends who want free services next time, consider it an opportunity to educate them!

The Client Says This Project Is Very Urgent, Should I Accept It?

My suggestion: Please think carefully and judge before accepting, but if it's really urgent, it's best to charge extra fees.

Based on my own experience , usually more than 5 out of 10 clients will say that the project is somewhat urgent, and whether it is really urgent or not, one really needs to inquire indirectly. Generally speaking, ideal clients should plan the schedule well during project planning, and even reserve some buffer time for communication, execution, and delivery.

Projects becoming very urgent, causing the pressure of project timing to be pushed onto outsourced designers, are likely due to poor time management of the client's team or some internal collaboration problems unless there really was a significant unexpected issue in the project.

So, it is recommended to clarify the status of the other party's project and consider seriously whether to undertake it. Don’t force yourself. If you really accept it, it’s also recommended to inform the client that due to urgency, it will compress more time, and to maintain a certain quality, the price will reflect your time cost.

The Client Has Paid, Should I Do Everything They Say?

Of course not.

Often I hear that some clients will point fingers at the designer’s design, thinking that since they have paid, they can instruct the designer "how to design". But I believe that the value of being a designer is "to meet the needs of clients within a reasonable range", and understanding needs and communication is an inevitable part.

Design is definitely a profession, and professionalism itself is built on mutual trust, to make clients believe that your design can solve their problems. Many times, clients actually don’t know what they want, and they will subconsciously say some very "abstract" needs, and then expect the designer to try several versions/styles to see which one happens to hit their preference. This is actually like buying a lottery ticket, very much reliant on luck.

To avoid this problem, my method is to continuously ask the client why, to guide the clients to express their real needs. Or use mature products on the market as the basis for discussion, ask clients to find the ideal design in their minds, and not be blinded by abstract needs, and then start spending time "trying", and finally spend far more time than the project cost.

For example, when encountering: Can this page feel a bit more lively? This font seems a bit too small, I think users don’t want to click this button, etc... You can ask back: "May I ask what the lively feeling in your mind is like, are there actual case references?" "May I ask, how important is this text on the entire page?" "May I ask, what part makes you feel that users don’t want to click this button? Is it color, shape, or other reasons? Or can you provide some data on the past user website click buttons?"

Asking why more and finding the real reasons behind the client's needs can help you communicate and solve problems more effectively.

But if you encounter clients who are unwilling to communicate and have a "paying money is the boss" mentality, my suggestion is not to continue to take it because this will definitely be a painful and long process, mutual respect and trust are definitely the best solutions to maintain a long-term cooperative relationship.

Phew~ I accidentally typed a lot, so let’s talk about it in the first episode. In the next episode, I will share with you various details about taking projects, such as costs, how to quote, and how to write contracts, etc., see you next time!

The next episode: Freelance Skills for UI/UX Designer: Calculating Costs, Quotations, and Contracts

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This article is reprinted from：Simon Lin (article)

(This article is translated by the Digital Nomad editor group.)