This year in the coming months, were going to be approached by various different companies wanting to recruit us for placements.  One of the key differences between a lot of these companies is that some will be in house jobs, and some will be in an agency.

Daniel mentioned this a lot throughout the lecture, and so I decided to research it a bit more myself, and find out the key differences between them.

 

 

After doing some research and reading about other designers experiences online, I came up with 2 pros and cons lists for each:

 

AGENCY

DESIGN AGENCY PROS:

1.) VARIETY

One of the biggest pluses for agency is the variety of projects you’ll get to work on, this is especially useful for a student as I feel I want to experience as much as possible before the end of my degree.  I’ll be in contact with all different kinds of people, and will get a lot of experience for my portfolio

2.) MENTORSHIP AND OPPORTUNITIES TO LEARN

At an agency, you’ll be in a design team, or even an entire department there to mentor you and tell you useful information.  I’ll gain experience with cutting edge UX tools and

3.) CONSISTENT INCOME AND WORKING HOURS

With an agency job you can usually count on a very stable income and set working hours.  This doesnt mean ill never have to work late, however

 

DESIGN AGENCY CONS:

1.) SHORT TERM PROJECTS

A constantly moving conveyor belt of new clients and projects can sound interesting, however it comes with its downsides.  This also means that once a project is finished, you hand it over entirely to the client, meaning that it’s harder to track the success of the product.

2.) DIFFICULT CLIENTS

You can’t choose your clients – also, you have to adere to exactly what the client is saying even if it goes against your beliefs on what makes a great user experience.   As an in house UX designer, you can chat to the client and tell them your opinions, arguing for and against certain features.  In an agency setting, the client has final say which can be frustrating.

3.) COMMUNICATION CAN GET MORE COMPLICATED

It depends on the size of the agency, but you won’t always be in direct communication with the client, therefore making it tricky to understand their brand and their needs.

 

IN HOUSE

This will allow you to gain a deep understanding of how a specific product works, although it doesn’t offer the same variety that an agency does.

PROS:

1.)DIRECT COLLABORATION ACCROSS DIFFERENT TEAMS:

I could be meeting with the product owner to discuss the vision, or handing designs to a development team, I would be entirely involved in the product development process.  This could have the potential to steamline my work a lot and also make me a lot better with communication in this environment and between a range of different people.

2.) PRODUCT PROXIMITY:

You’ll feel a sense of responsibility and ownership for the products you’ll work on.  If somethings not working, you’ll iterate continuously until its fixed, however with agencies there are so many products to work on you loose the closeness.

3.)BUSINESS EXPOSURE:

As a designer, you can find yourself being in a creative bubble, with no exposure to other parts of the industry.  With in house, you’ll see how a business works, and the ins and out of how achieving user and business goals works.

 

CONS:

1.)THERE MIGHT BE LESS UX CULTURE:

Just because a company hires a UX designer doesn’t mean they’re a design oriented company.  They might get that UX is necessary, but they mightn’t know why.  I would have the challenge of having to make other people in the company understand the importance of the steps I do

2.) LACK OF PROJECT VARIETY:

As a student this could be a major downfall of working in-house.  I preferably would like to work on as many different projects as possible during my placement, so I know what I’m best suited to, what I need to work on, and what I like.

3.)LESS GUIDANCE:

This depends entirely on the size of the company, and its not always the case, however finding a design mentor in house can be sometimes trickier.  This is because at an agency I’d be surrounded by people who live and breathe design, but in house not as much.  I’d need to be more autonomous, meaning I would have to be more resilient, teaching myself and learning on the job – however this could also be a good thing as I won’t be as spoon fed.