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> "building websites for a particular industry with a very specific technology that only a handful of people really know". Do you have an example of that in ac

> "building websites for a particular industry with a very specific technology that only a handful of people really know". Do you have an example of that in action? It would be interesting if we could see a freelancer's landing page vs consultant's landing page. A side by side comparison of what the differences are.

ryanSrich 12y ago
Sure thing (note: some of these are consulting firms vs. agencies - which are really just scaled versions of consultants vs. freelancers): - consulting: http://www.nngroup.com/ http://www.nngroup.com/ - agency: http://www.akqa.com/ http://www.akqa.com/ - consulting: http://www.cooper.com/ http://www.cooper.com/ - agency: http://www.elpassion.com/ http://www.elpassion.com/ - consultant: http://andrewhinton.com/ http://andrewhinton.com/ - consultant: http://jessicahische.is/ http://jessicahische.is/ - freelancer: http://www.danielaa.me/ http://www.danielaa.me/ - freelancer: http://owltastic.com/ http://owltastic.com/ You'll see with the examples above that both the agencies (freelancers) and consulting firms (consultants) offer similar services. However the consultants are mostly focused on a small set of skills (research, UX, etc.) whereas the agencies keep it broader.
- curiously 12y ago
  Thanks for that! I'm definitely seeing a pattern here. The consultants pages I immediately get a sense of the business value, there's a lot of focus on value that people can easily understand while the agencies and freelancer websites are specific languages, technologies, 'hire us', labor for money. It would be interesting to know if you gave an agency, freelancer, consultant the same project, what they would do different, what they would charge differently, what the output would be and the time frame. Is UX = User Experience? How do you self proclaim yourself that you are a UX/UI expert? What do these consultants do that is different from what a freelancer would do (ex. fixing UI, creating UI, using template UI, split testing). Is there value in using vague languages vs specific activity (ex. user experience optimization vs use a javascript library to split test and measure optimizations)? Agency vs Consultants is also an interesting comparison. Agencies seem much like Freelancer websites, fancy, artsy, will-do-anything-for-money while the consultants page seem more sane, narrowly focused and use much more business speak. For developers and freelancers, it would be nice if we can work with a business vocabulary. I think any freelancer can whip up a page like nngroup.com and present themselves as a consultant, or is there more to it than just the surface? So essentially it's a sales technique. On one end of the spectrum, highly technical, frameworks, languages, stuff technical people understand, solves technical labor, the value is reduced cost. On the other end of the spectrum, non technical, business centric, stuff non technical people understand and most technical people shun as 'bullshit' is actually aims to solve business problem or provide business values in a word they can understand and measure. It reminds me sort of like selling to different market segments with SaaS. On the lower end, you sell to the small guys, with small needs, price sensitive. On the enterprise end, you sell to large guys, with bigger needs, people's career depend on the success of the project, bigger pockets. So is it safe to conclude that becoming a 'consultant' is essentially you are now selling to people with money, people with business problems or needs, people who don't speak tech, thus the higher command in pay? I think it would be very helpful for technical people if we could learn the business linguo and training to speak client's language. I understand that not everyone is cut out for this but for those of that are, it would be extremely valuable to be able to speak and write in such manner.
  - ChuckMcM 12y ago
    Agreed that the comparisons are excellent. To this question: > How do you self proclaim yourself that you are a > UX/UI expert? The answer is you just state it, the client will either believe you or not but you can't control that. Some folks will argue that only a PhD in HCI can make you a UX/UI expert but generally the people who say that are the ones with the PhD :-)
  - Silhouette 12y ago
    I think any freelancer can whip up a page like nngroup.com and present themselves as a consultant, or is there more to it than just the surface? In a practical sense, that is true. Any half-decent web hacker could produce the sites these consultancies use. However, the point is that it would never occur to most of them to do so, any more than for example they would think to hire someone who speaks the language of their prospective client base to do their copywriting. There are two distinct skill sets in play here. A technical freelancer might have better technical skills than a consultant when it comes to, say, designing a web site or unit testing a module in a software project. But the consultant understands how to speak the client's language, understand the client's needs, and translate that into technical work that will solve that client's problem. This skill set is much more about various types of management and marketing activities, and it's a world that most geeks never think to enter, and where there's no guarantee that just because you're good at technical work you'll also be good at the other side. This is why I sometimes disagree with HN posters who advocate becoming more of a consultant to boost your income if you're an independent developer: most geeks don't have the skill set to do that, and plenty won't want to learn the rest and change the type of work they do, or they simply don't have the aptitude for it anyway. However, those other posters are right that the consulting side can command much higher rates for those willing and able to make the jump, simply because it's a more valuable proposition from the client's perspective.
  - sombremesa 12y ago
    UX and UI aren't always the same thing. For example, you can a very pretty looking button - that's good UI. However, if no one knows what happens if they press the button before they've pressed it, that's bad UX. It is extremely rare to find someone who can make good UX right off the bat for a new problem, so I would say that a UX expert is someone who can iterate efficiently and constantly improve user experience (and, indirectly, business metrics) and a UI expert is someone who can make things look exactly like they were supposed to (in their heads or their clients' heads or in the mockups).
- findjashua 12y ago
  From the links, it seems like consulting is primarily focused on UX, and agencies are responsible for the implementation. As a developer, I'm really hoping this isn't the case. Edit: another thing I notices is that consultant firms seem to deliver intangibles like teaching clients best practices or ideas gleaned from cutting-edge research, while agencies are just focused on delivering the tangible product.
  - ryanSrich 12y ago
    > From the links, it seems like consulting is primarily focused on UX, and agencies are responsible for the implementation I would say that's mostly true. A lot of the "pure" consulting I've done has been in the form of teaching, critiquing and building reports/style guides that other designers and developers use internally to build products. I will say that finding consulting work like that is exponentially harder than finding your typical freelancing gigs (which is expected).

ryanSrich 12y ago

Sure thing (note: some of these are consulting firms vs. agencies - which are really just scaled versions of consultants vs. freelancers): - consulting: http://www.nngroup.com/ http://www.nngroup.com/ - agency: http://www.akqa.com/ http://www.akqa.com/ - consulting: http://www.cooper.com/ http://www.cooper.com/ - agency: http://www.elpassion.com/ http://www.elpassion.com/ - consultant: http://andrewhinton.com/ http://andrewhinton.com/ - consultant: http://jessicahische.is/ http://jessicahische.is/ - freelancer: http://www.danielaa.me/ http://www.danielaa.me/ - freelancer: http://owltastic.com/ http://owltastic.com/ You'll see with the examples above that both the agencies (freelancers) and consulting firms (consultants) offer similar services. However the consultants are mostly focused on a small set of skills (research, UX, etc.) whereas the agencies keep it broader.

curiously 12y ago
Thanks for that! I'm definitely seeing a pattern here. The consultants pages I immediately get a sense of the business value, there's a lot of focus on value that people can easily understand while the agencies and freelancer websites are specific languages, technologies, 'hire us', labor for money. It would be interesting to know if you gave an agency, freelancer, consultant the same project, what they would do different, what they would charge differently, what the output would be and the time frame. Is UX = User Experience? How do you self proclaim yourself that you are a UX/UI expert? What do these consultants do that is different from what a freelancer would do (ex. fixing UI, creating UI, using template UI, split testing). Is there value in using vague languages vs specific activity (ex. user experience optimization vs use a javascript library to split test and measure optimizations)? Agency vs Consultants is also an interesting comparison. Agencies seem much like Freelancer websites, fancy, artsy, will-do-anything-for-money while the consultants page seem more sane, narrowly focused and use much more business speak. For developers and freelancers, it would be nice if we can work with a business vocabulary. I think any freelancer can whip up a page like nngroup.com and present themselves as a consultant, or is there more to it than just the surface? So essentially it's a sales technique. On one end of the spectrum, highly technical, frameworks, languages, stuff technical people understand, solves technical labor, the value is reduced cost. On the other end of the spectrum, non technical, business centric, stuff non technical people understand and most technical people shun as 'bullshit' is actually aims to solve business problem or provide business values in a word they can understand and measure. It reminds me sort of like selling to different market segments with SaaS. On the lower end, you sell to the small guys, with small needs, price sensitive. On the enterprise end, you sell to large guys, with bigger needs, people's career depend on the success of the project, bigger pockets. So is it safe to conclude that becoming a 'consultant' is essentially you are now selling to people with money, people with business problems or needs, people who don't speak tech, thus the higher command in pay? I think it would be very helpful for technical people if we could learn the business linguo and training to speak client's language. I understand that not everyone is cut out for this but for those of that are, it would be extremely valuable to be able to speak and write in such manner.
- ChuckMcM 12y ago
  Agreed that the comparisons are excellent. To this question: > How do you self proclaim yourself that you are a > UX/UI expert? The answer is you just state it, the client will either believe you or not but you can't control that. Some folks will argue that only a PhD in HCI can make you a UX/UI expert but generally the people who say that are the ones with the PhD :-)
- Silhouette 12y ago
  I think any freelancer can whip up a page like nngroup.com and present themselves as a consultant, or is there more to it than just the surface? In a practical sense, that is true. Any half-decent web hacker could produce the sites these consultancies use. However, the point is that it would never occur to most of them to do so, any more than for example they would think to hire someone who speaks the language of their prospective client base to do their copywriting. There are two distinct skill sets in play here. A technical freelancer might have better technical skills than a consultant when it comes to, say, designing a web site or unit testing a module in a software project. But the consultant understands how to speak the client's language, understand the client's needs, and translate that into technical work that will solve that client's problem. This skill set is much more about various types of management and marketing activities, and it's a world that most geeks never think to enter, and where there's no guarantee that just because you're good at technical work you'll also be good at the other side. This is why I sometimes disagree with HN posters who advocate becoming more of a consultant to boost your income if you're an independent developer: most geeks don't have the skill set to do that, and plenty won't want to learn the rest and change the type of work they do, or they simply don't have the aptitude for it anyway. However, those other posters are right that the consulting side can command much higher rates for those willing and able to make the jump, simply because it's a more valuable proposition from the client's perspective.
- sombremesa 12y ago
  UX and UI aren't always the same thing. For example, you can a very pretty looking button - that's good UI. However, if no one knows what happens if they press the button before they've pressed it, that's bad UX. It is extremely rare to find someone who can make good UX right off the bat for a new problem, so I would say that a UX expert is someone who can iterate efficiently and constantly improve user experience (and, indirectly, business metrics) and a UI expert is someone who can make things look exactly like they were supposed to (in their heads or their clients' heads or in the mockups).
findjashua 12y ago
From the links, it seems like consulting is primarily focused on UX, and agencies are responsible for the implementation. As a developer, I'm really hoping this isn't the case. Edit: another thing I notices is that consultant firms seem to deliver intangibles like teaching clients best practices or ideas gleaned from cutting-edge research, while agencies are just focused on delivering the tangible product.
- ryanSrich 12y ago
  > From the links, it seems like consulting is primarily focused on UX, and agencies are responsible for the implementation I would say that's mostly true. A lot of the "pure" consulting I've done has been in the form of teaching, critiquing and building reports/style guides that other designers and developers use internally to build products. I will say that finding consulting work like that is exponentially harder than finding your typical freelancing gigs (which is expected).