UX Interview Questions
What Inspires You?
Talk about your favorite design blogs or Twitter profiles. Or talk about a few conferences you've attended, newsletters you subscribe to, or books you've read. If you're not following any blogs right now, that needs to change.
Why do you want to work here?
Is it a tech startup? Perhaps you're interested in tech startups because you love the fast-paced, innovative culture that they possess. Is it a large corporation? Maybe you enjoy the stability proven companies offer and have heard great things about their principal UX designer and would love to learn from her. Make sure you check out the company's values in advance and align your answers with them. UX
Tell Me About a Time When You Disagreed With Your Team's Recommendation. What Did You Do?
Data-driven answers are the best type of answers. Remember that. And when you can, talk about using data and proven results to make thoughtful recommendations and business decisions.
Where do you go for UX design inspiration?
What they really want to know: Are you constantly learning and developing? Are you invested in the industry? Even if you follow loads of influential UXers on Twitter and have a shelf full of design books, the mind often has a tendency to go blank when asked to name them on the spot! Go prepared with a mental shortlist of your inspirational favorites; this could be anything from podcasts and blogs to YouTubers or personal contacts. As long as you can talk about why they're inspirational to you and convey that much-needed enthusiasm for learning, the interviewer will be all ears. Mike's tip: Keep your audience in mind. You may get inspiration and ideas from lots of places, but by talking about how they shape your approach to design and how this relates to their products and challenges.
What do you think will be the next big thing in UX design?
What they really want to know: Are you passionate about your craft? Have you got your finger on the pulse? Mike's tip: If you're truly passionate about a particular trend, relate it to the employer's business needs and goals. How do you see it contributing to their success?
How Do You Decide Which Features to Add to Your Product?
This is a tricky question because the answer depends on the context. We recommend using a real-life example that illustrates how you validated or rejected a hypothesis. Walk the interviewer through your process. Make sure to clearly address the business goals and user needs and walk the interviewer through the following: Who is the target market? What are the target market's goals? What problems does this feature solve for the target market? You can also talk about how you use user research to validate design decisions.
What is the difference between UX and other design disciplines?
What they really want to know: Do you have your priorities right as a UX designer? If you're being hired to focus solely on UX, your potential employer needs to see that you can clearly distinguish between the UX and UI — and, most importantly, that you're more focused on the user and making things usable than you are on making them beautiful. Mike's tip: Give an example of a project where you focused on usability, and worked with a colleague who handled the visual design. If you've got experience in both, talk about the priorities you set to focus on usability as a first order goal, and then how you align the visuals with that in mind.
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? UX design is not just about making things look pretty, and sketches and wireframes aren't even the half of it. It's all about the user, so make this distinction clear in your answer. Highlight the importance of empathy and user-centricity. Why is a user-first approach so crucial, and how does it translate into good business? Mike's tip: Talk about the value UX adds to THEIR business. By framing your discussion of UX in terms of the employer's needs and priorities, you're not only showing your ability to explain the importance of UX, but also how it relates to making their product a success.
How Do You Put Yourself in the Mind of the Consumer?
Perhaps you do this by creating personas and learning the wants, needs, and even quirks of the personas. Or maybe you do this through research.
What Are Some Websites and Apps Whose Design You Love? Why?
Google: Good UX design is about good function, not just aesthetics, and Google is the perfect example. You really can't get more user-friendly than a page with one search area. Netflix: Netflix is not only easy to operate but uses an algorithm that makes recommendations based off of your viewing history. It puts the customer's desires at the forefront and delivers a personalized, easy-to-understand user interface. Duolingo: If you're a language nerd, chances are you've used Duolingo (or at least heard of it). The language-learning app is not only intuitive but fun. It's built around gamification, so you feel more like you're playing than learning.
What Kind of Research Methods Do You Use When Starting a New Project?
Do you rely solely on online surveys due to budget constraints but wish you could do more face-to-face interviews? Tell the interviewer that.
What Are Your Three Biggest Strengths?
Empathy: You're able to take a step back, put your biases aside, and put the customer and her needs first. Leadership: You mentored several junior designers at your last job and loved watching them grow. Collaboration: You love brainstorming with other teams, as each team has its own area of expertise and brings something new to the whiteboard.
How Do You Define UX?
One of our favorite ways to explain UX is through real-life examples. You could talk to them about Airbnb and how co-founder Joe Gebbia credits a change in the user interface with making it a $10 billion company. Or you could tell them why you agree with Jeff Bezos' decision to allocate 100 times more budget for customer experience efforts than advertising in the early days of Amazon. Just make sure to stress that UX design is what makes websites, apps, and other products as easy to use and customer-friendly as possible.
How do you practice universal design?
This means catering for both temporary, situational constraints and permanent or long-term impairments. Ultimately, universal design is good for business; the more inclusive the product, the wider an audience it can reach. Mike's tip: Talk about the importance of universal design from a business perspective: why is being accessible to all users a winning strategy for a business or product?
How would you improve the UX of our product?
What they really want to know: Have you researched the company? Are you full of ideas and ready to hit the ground running? Identify one or two things you think could be improved, and come up with a plan of action as to how you would do so. If nothing in particular stands out, talk about how you might conduct some general usability tests to see how the current design is performing. Remember to think about who their target users are, and to mention these personas when sharing your ideas. Mike's tip: Diplomacy here is key. Remember, one of the 3 things an interviewer is trying to find out is the answer to the question: Can we stand working with you? Don't be afraid to defend your thoughts (while recognising you may not be privy to all of the background information which shaped the current product), but be aware of how you present the information: don't go out of your way to step on any toes, or make it sound like this is information they should already know.
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? Mike's tip: Start by telling them what excites you about the role, then focus on how you think you'd be a great fit, then finish with a positive statement like: "I hope I can show you how my background and approach to UX will make me a great addition to your team!"
Talk us through your workflow
What they really want to know: How do you solve problems? Are you user-focused at all times? What's your go-to plan of action when faced with a new user problem? Make sure you cover all key steps in the process, from user research, personas and user flows to prototypes, wireframes, testing and analysis. When talking through your process, show how you make sure that you're designing for the user at all times. It's also important to point out that different contexts require different approaches, and that you're able to recognize and adapt to this. Mike's tip: Use an example to frame your process. Talk them through your steps in handling a (successful!) project. Ideally, one which also relates to the kinds of challenges you'll be focusing on in this role. Then wrap up by tying this process to those challenges.
Tell us about your most (or least) successful UX design project
What they really want to know: What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses and how do you learn from them? Talk about why the project was so successful in your opinion, and the contribution you made to the final outcome. What particular strengths of yours did this project draw upon or bring out? You can also talk about measurable results here, such as an increase in sign-up rates; this is a great way to show how your work contributes to business goals and the bottom line. For the least successful UX Design project, show that you can acknowledge your failures and turn them into something constructive; those are the kinds of UX designers that businesses want to hire! Mike's tip: In both of these scenarios, your learnings are a key aspect of the answer. How would you evaluate the project's success in terms of reaching its goals? Talk about what you did to make this happen (or mitigate the failure). Finish by highlighting the takeaways from this outcome: what did you learn that you've used on other projects, and what did you learn to avoid?
Do you consider yourself a team player?
What they really want to know: Will you work well with developers, UI designers and product owners? Are you open to feedback and ideas? Your answer should emphasize communication, efficiency and an openness to feedback and ideas. Weave in a few real-life examples; perhaps you took the initiative to set up monthly meetings with the CEO at your last company in order to understand their vision, or maybe you've been learning a bit of code on the side to better collaborate with developers. Mike's tip: Talk about a time when collaboration was key to making the project a success. Outline the challenge, the steps your team took, your particular role in all of this and how things ended up. Relate this process to a typical challenge for doing good design, and relate this process to succeeding at delivering a well-designed product.
