Hiring a web designer is a procurement decision, not a portfolio contest. The right partner must translate a buyer journey into a maintainable website, show how decisions will be tested, and leave your team in control of the asset.
Before contacting candidates, run a pre-redesign website audit. It separates problems that need design work from problems caused by positioning, content, measurement, or operations. That prevents a visual redesign from becoming the default answer to every growth constraint.
1. Define the decision before the deliverables
Write a one-page brief that names the audience, the business decision the website must support, the current constraint, the required integrations, and the evidence that will count as success. Include the pages and user journeys in scope, but do not prescribe a visual solution before discovery.
A useful brief answers five questions:
- Who is the primary buyer, and what must they understand or trust?
- Which action should a qualified visitor take?
- Which content, claims, and proof already exist?
- Which systems must the website connect to?
- Who will own content, measurement, and maintenance after launch?
If those answers are unclear, ask candidates to scope a discovery phase rather than quote an undefined build.
2. Match the team to the actual work
“Web designer” can describe several different responsibilities. A visual designer may not own information architecture, copy, development, analytics, accessibility, or migration. Ask each candidate to name the people responsible for each discipline and the boundary of their work.
For a smaller B2B site, one experienced generalist may cover several roles. For a complex migration, the risk usually sits in coordination: content inventory, redirects, integrations, permissions, and acceptance testing. Evaluate the operating model, not the size of the supplier.
3. Review evidence, not screenshots
Open the live sites in a portfolio. Test navigation, forms, responsive layouts, content clarity, and basic performance. Ask what the candidate personally delivered and which parts were handled by other contributors.
Request one walkthrough of a relevant project. A useful walkthrough explains the original constraint, alternatives considered, trade-offs, acceptance criteria, and what changed after testing. Screenshots prove visual output; they do not prove maintainability, accessibility, or a reliable delivery process.
Accessibility should be evaluated during the work, not added at the end. The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative notes that automated tools help, but no tool alone can determine whether a site is accessible; knowledgeable human evaluation is still required.
4. Use an interview scorecard
Give every shortlisted candidate the same scenario and score the answers against the same criteria. This reduces the effect of presentation style and makes trade-offs visible.
Strategy and content
- How will you turn buyer questions into page priorities?
- How do you decide what to retain, rewrite, merge, or remove?
- What evidence do you need before making a design recommendation?
Delivery and quality assurance
- What are the approval stages and acceptance checks?
- How will you test keyboard use, forms, mobile layouts, structured data, and analytics?
- Who triages defects, and how are changes documented?
Search and migration
- How will you preserve important URLs and internal links?
- Who owns the redirect map, canonical checks, and sitemap validation?
- How will you compare search and conversion signals before and after launch?
Google’s site-move guidance recommends mapping old URLs, updating internal links, using server-side permanent redirects, testing them, and monitoring Search Console. A candidate who treats migration as a launch-day plugin setting is missing the operating work.
5. Make ownership explicit
The contract and handover checklist should identify ownership and access for the domain, hosting, CMS, source files, analytics, search properties, integrations, licenses, and backups. Your organization should hold the primary accounts and grant role-appropriate access to suppliers.
WordPress documents that roles control what users can do. Use named accounts and the minimum capabilities needed rather than sharing one administrator login. Ask for a final access register and remove supplier access that is no longer required after handover.
6. Define acceptance before work starts
Replace vague promises such as “fast,” “SEO-friendly,” or “easy to use” with checks that both sides can reproduce. A practical acceptance set may include:
- approved page inventory and redirect map;
- responsive review at agreed breakpoints;
- keyboard and form completion checks;
- one visible H1 and correct canonical metadata per indexable page;
- analytics and inquiry events verified in a test submission;
- backup, rollback, and handover documentation;
- training for the people who will maintain the site.
The W3C accessibility planning guidance recommends defining goals, scope, responsibilities, quality assurance, and follow-up. The same operating discipline improves the whole website project.
7. Treat warning signs as delivery risks
Pause when a proposal skips discovery, cannot identify a content or migration owner, relies on inaccessible proprietary accounts, or refuses to define acceptance criteria. Also pause when a candidate guarantees business outcomes that depend on traffic, offer, sales follow-up, or market conditions outside the website build.
A strong candidate can explain uncertainty. They will distinguish what they control, what they can test, and what requires an experiment after launch.
A compact selection workflow
- Audit the current site and define the decision.
- Issue the same brief to a small shortlist.
- Review live evidence and ownership of past work.
- Run a scored interview using one realistic scenario.
- Agree scope, responsibilities, acceptance checks, and handover.
- Start with a bounded discovery or prototype when uncertainty is high.
The goal is not to find a designer who agrees with every request. It is to choose a delivery partner who can make evidence visible, manage risk, and leave you with an owned growth asset.
Explore the B2B Website Strategy field notes, or book a diagnostic if you need to clarify the constraint before writing a supplier brief.
