What Is Your Design Process Describe In Your Own Words
Again make sure, you dont go the textbook route here. Just give the interviewer some basic knowledge of the generic process and define it in your way completely. He/She is interested in knowing your approach towards the process. Make sure to convey the research strategy. Talk about the design process: tell the interviewer why you designed things the way you did. Lastly, talk about testing and customer feedback. How did you validate your design?
Explain your definition of UX design and how you perceive it around the needs of people and the importance of understanding the people you are designing it for. This means that as a UX designer you take the customer feedback and customize your product accordingly.
Also, do use some language elements in which designers speak. Describe how you progressed from making simple sketches to complicated prototypes and interactive prototypes. How many iterations were made during prototyping and how were they different from the final product?
Whats The Best Project Youve Ever Worked On
Having shown off their favorite portfolio pieces, candidates should be able either to expand on a piece theyve already mentioned, or discuss why a completely different piece was their favorite. With any luck, theyll show some passion and enthusiasm here, as well as detailing the part of the design process they most enjoyed.
What Inspires You As A Ux Designer
This UX interview question provides another chance to showcase your passion for the job. You can use this as an opportunity to discuss some of your favorite designers, industry trends, or other places you go to find inspiration. Does travel inspire the way you design? Are you spurred by meeting new people from different backgrounds and learning to empathize with their experiences? What are your favorite design books? Share all of that here. The company is mainly looking to learn about your design thinking process and gain more insight into your enthusiasm and how you think about design with this question. There are no wrong answers here.
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What’s Your Definition Of Ux Design
Heads up: This is one of the most-failed UX design interview questions. It isnt asking you for the textbook definition of UX design nor the Google or Wikipedia definition. Rather, this question gives you the opportunity to expand upon the practical description of UX design based on your experience.
Dont forget to tell them that UX design is everything that makes products, apps, and websites very easy to use and customer-friendly. Show the hiring manager your practical approach that backs your definition.
Evaluate Their Soft Skills
Hiring someone with an excellent technical background and good design skills is undoubtedly important but none of this is going to matter if your designers soft skills do not match up to the standards. Your designer needs to communicate with other team members, especially if they work in a remote environment.
But how do you evaluate a candidates soft skills? After all, if you pose the question, How do your soft skills measure up? most candidates are likely to tell you that the soft skills are excellent.
There are several other questions that you can ask to gauge your candidates verbal communication skills, creativity, innovative thinking, and connection with the changing trends in their field. Some of these questions include:
- Why is UI/UX design attractive for you?
- How do you collaborate with other remote team members?
- How do you manage your time when working from home?
- What channels do you use for inspiration?
- How do you react when a client tells you that they dont like your design?
All these questions will help you understand how the candidate works in a team, solve arguments, and what they do to stay motivated and inspired.
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How To Prepare For A Ux Interview Tips From A Hiring Manager
Over the past few years, Ive run more than 100 interviews, met great designers from all over the globe working for different types of companies, taken hundreds of notes and gathered valuable insights on how to do interviews. All in all, Ive learnt a lot.
I often share my experiences with other managers and designers, but Ive always thought theres so much to cover I should also write about it and share my ideas. So, here it goes in a single post. For the purposes of making it easier to follow, Ill assume that youre a skilled UX Designer with experience, looking for some guidelines and information for your next interview.
If I had to give you just one tip it would be:Prepare for the interview
Okay, I know its the most obvious one, but youd be amazed if I told you how many candidates Ive recently interviewed that were unprepared. As a matter of fact, you need to be prepared for more than one interview in most cases there are many steps in the recruitment process and each of them focus on different things.
Theres no standard UX hiring process, but it can look something like this:
Take Us Through Your Portfolio
This is the point at which the recruiter will test your actual skills. Theres nothing more impressive than having a rock-solid portfolio. Besides demonstrating your core skills, its also a showcase of your presentation skills. Its essential for a UX designer to be able to present and explain their designs to a client. Be sure to practice beforehand and try not to fumble. Provide an in-depth explanation of your most interesting project, what youve incorporated into it, and why it interests you.
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Common Ux Designer Interview Questions
Its important to remember that every interview is going to be a bit different depending on the company and the kind of work they do. This is especially true for UX Design work because it can fit into every customer-facing industry. However, there are questions youll face regardless of the company interviewing you. Here are 12 common UX Design interview questions you may encounter on your job hunt.
What Are The Differences Between Ux Design And Other Design Disciplines
Some interviewers use this question as a follow-up to the question above. This question is asking for a direct response as to why you think UX design is different from product design or graphic design. You dont have to go too deep. A simple answer like, UX design is focused on making things functional while other design disciplines including UI, graphic, and web design are focused on making things beautiful or attractive.
This may seem short and direct, but that is exactly what your interviewer is waiting to hearespecially if the company has two different teams handling UX and UI design. You can also consider giving an example where you worked with a team of designers on the same design project and your primary focus was on project functionality, while your teammates engaged in the other roles relating to the interface or graphic design.
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What Interests You About Working Here
You should know about the company youve applied with. Research them online, visit their website, read about their previous projects, and get an understanding of their values, mission statement or company culture. When your knowledge of the company comes through in your responses, itll show your enthusiasm and leave positive impression on the recruiter. Try to be specific about one particular thing that will hit the target right.
Your Portfolio Is Everything
Portfolios are the standard for showing work for designers. But the trouble with creating a UX design portfolio is that so much of what we do isnt strictly visual. This makes it hard to showcase your work in a portfolio in the same way as a graphic designer or UI designer.
Because many UX designers come from a UI or graphic design background, many employers still expect to see a portfolio of your work. They often expect UX designers to have traditional design skills.
This attitude is starting to change, but even so, you need to a way to show your previous work. You just might need to get a bit creative. Heres how:
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Can I See Your Favorite Project
Your favorite project should be included in your portfolio already, but be careful which one you call out as your favorite. Your personal favorite may not truly be as attractive as something else. Its not uncommon that a stand-out project isnt the most aesthetically beautiful. Ask mentors or your trusted design community to take a look at your designs. Have them pick their favorite and explain why they made that choice. Note: your interviewer may not be a designer, so its good practice to also have a non-designer look at your designs.
“Your interviewer may not be a designer, so its good practice to also have a non-designer look at your designs.”
Next, you should be able to articulate what made your favorite project special. It may not be the design or the working process but rather your passion for the project and what you learned while handling the parameters. If it was a very challenging project that caused you to think and approach it in a different, innovative way, share that experience with them. Through this process, youre already demonstrating you can handle difficult tasks on the job.
Ready to hire a UX designer?
How Would You Enhance The Ux Of Our Product
Heres another spot where preparation can really set you up for success in the interview. Study the product and brainstorm ways the UX could be improved beforehand. By the time the question comes around, youll be able to speak in-depth about how the interaction design or overall user experience could be improved.
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How Do You Handle Negative Feedback
Constructive criticism is a part of every job, but its especially important for a UX Designer to listen carefully to negative feedback and use it to their advantage. After all, a core part of good UX design is anticipating and resolving pain points for users and customers. So you should tell the hiring manager that you would always prefer to receive negative feedback from internal stakeholders rather than real-life users after a product has launched. You might even take it a step further and say that you seek out critical opinions even when feedback is overwhelmingly positive because you want to be as proactive as possible in detecting problems and designing the best possible products.
- Tell us about yourself.
- What are your three biggest strengths?
- What is your biggest weakness?
- How do you handle negative feedback?
- What type of environment do you thrive in?
- Where do you see yourself in five years?
- What excites you about this position?
Can You Tell Me About Yourself
Most job seekers especially designers are often confused with this question. Consider this question an alternative way of saying whats in your resume? You dont have to go too detailed or personal but do share a bit about your work experiences that are related to the job youre applying.
Your answer should be focused on your educational background or qualifications, internships, and/or previous UX designer jobs. You may also want to talk about your current job and why youre considering a move. This is an opportunity to tell the interviewer why they should hire you.
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Ux Design: The Basic Concepts And Processes
Along with your personality, the interviewers are also interested in assessing your knowledge about the discipline of UX. Since UX design is such a broad field with myriad applications, unlike other interviews, there are seldom any right or wrong answers to these questions. What the recruiters are more interested in is how you see the field and what are the aspects of UX that stand out for you. Additionally, given the practical nature of UX. you dont really have to memorize theories and concepts. Instead, you can bring all this knowledge from your experiences.
What is UX? What is the value of UX?
This question seems to be a theoretical one and the use of standard definitions can be one way to answer this question. But then, will that be a different, interesting response? Try not to incline towards a specific definition, focus, instead, on the gist of the experience and what you think UX is.
In all definitions of UX, the needs of users take precedence. Make sure to highlight this key factor and to give an overview of the value of UX. Think about the gaps that UX can fill in the market and how it helps the users and the organizations at the same time. If you know a couple of facts highlighting the importance of UX, do refer to such instances .
What is the difference between UX and other design disciplines?
What do you find the most interesting and/or challenging in UX design?
Why do we need a UX designer?
Dont Be Afraid Of The Truth
When you look at the questions a lot of people ask of their users, its clear they are afraid of the truth. User interview questions should cause users to think and reflect and that may mean they have some rather negative things to say about your product.
If you find that your user interviewing is not yielding a lot of good data, it may be because you are afraid of the truth, and you are asking a lot of softball questions.
Dont be afraid to ask really direct questions, such as, what do you like least about this product? Or, perhaps even scarier if your product has a subscription component, if you were to leave us, what would be the number one reason?
You want to know the truth. Ask the uncomfortable questions.
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Your Knowledge About The Company And Product
Nowadays most companies are realizing the importance and positive effects of embracing their unique history and culture. Therefore, you should be prepared to answer questions about the company that you are applying to. This part depends solely on research.
With each interview that you attend, you should tune your answer to the company. The culture and tone of a startup will be very different from a legacy brand.
How Do You Learn
Both Mackenzie and Patti highlight the importance of answering questions by telling stories. âOnce, I was really thrown off by an engineer asking me how I learn,â shares Mackenzie. âI went back to storytelling, and told a story about how I learned English, followed by the story of how I learned UX design. I was then able to highlight patterns in those stories to answer the question of how I learn.â
It can certainly be helpful as well to talk about industry publications, trends and thought-leaders you frequent. Familiarity with this kind of content can demonstrate your passion and eagerness to learn.
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We Answer 11 Common Ux Design Interview Questions
Want to be ready for any of the UX design interview questions you might be asked? Here are the 11 most asked questions in UX interviews.
- Tell us about yourself
- What they really want to know: How did you get into the field of UX? How did your journey through UX lead you here?
- Mikes tip:
- What is the value of UX Design?
- What they really want to know: Do you truly understand the field? Why is UX design so crucial?
- What they really want to know: Do you have your priorities right as a UX designer?
- Talk us through your workflow
- What they really want to know: How do you solve problems? Are you user-focused at all times?
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Whats Your Design Process
You should walk an interviewer through your process when you show him your portfolio, but often times hell flat out ask you what your design process is.
Rather than give a hypothetical process for a hypothetical project, walk the interviewer through another real-life example .
If you dont work on every step of the process, thats OK, but make sure to touch on it so the interviewer knows your familiar with it. Nick Babich, editor-in-chief of UX Planet, suggests focusing on the following areas:
We also recommend taking a user-centered approach, which shows your understanding of both the customers goals as well as the goals of the business. Keep in mind that different UX designers have different processes and thats OK. Just make sure you can explain your rationale for why you approached the project the way you did.
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One At A Time If Possible
Focus groups are fairly worthless. Try to prevent your user interviews from devolving into focus groups.
Ideally, you are interviewing one person at a time. Sometimes a company will want you to talk to a few people at a time, and you may not be able to talk them out of this. Group dynamics will take over, and you wont get an accurate picture of everyones true feelings, but you should at least get an accurate picture of at least one person at that companys true feelings.
Interviewing 23 people at a time from one company isnt that bad. It will, however, make transcription incredibly difficult. You will also need more note takers and more people to help out with empathy maps and user scenarios.
One key tip is to encourage everyone in the room to answer the question. Dont let one person speak for the whole room.
